[the hog]

I would like to thank Maureen for organising this. I had a really good time; and my partner played well - better than some of the experts I was kibbing after we finished!
Thanks again, Maureen.

Ron

[mishovnbg]

Thanks to Maureen for organising this. Was fun for me playing there. My partner play as dragon, despite had no chance several times, like 50% salm in vul down. Only thing I wonder why he dont like to speak with me before tourney, but probably because I am old and ugly :'(.
Dreat job, Maureen!

Misho

[Free]

I also had a really good time, my partner was also playing very well.

We started off with a 50% slam which went -1 as usual, but he had no chance of making it... We left a few tricks, but in cross imps it's not that bad. If I saw the scoring sheet, the first hand was -6.4, then we had a few + scores, but in the end we left some imps... the maximum we could get imo was about +12 if we dont bid the slam, and if I dont defend in 5C*-1 while 4H went down...

We were 39th out of 78 pairs and it was fun. Tnx Maureen!

Free

[hallway]

It is for us the Members of the Beginner Intermediate Lounge to

THANK ALL THE 'PROS' who gave of their time and shared their knowledge.

For the record

71 'Pros' which included some 9 World Ranked * Players took part.

The Top Scoring Pair were Mandy & JKJ with 31.76

The Winners - every member who had the courage to grasp the opportunity offered to them.

The BIL is laying claim to what must be the record for the least disconnects during a Tournament. I did not do a single Substitution !! I haven't checked with Viki yet but she only had a couple of Director calls which may or may not have been due to disconnects..


AGAIN MY THANKS TO ALL THE 'PROS' WHO TOOK PART

- should any of you have any 'bright ideas' on how you may be able to be of assistance to the "BILlies" in the future I will be happy to ADD you to the BIL's Honorary Member List and re-enable 'the key to the door'.

[mycroft]

As a relatively young player, no longer a beginner, not yet an expert, not ever expecting to get to the point where he stops learning, please let me give a BIG THANK YOU to all the BILs who had the courage to say "sure I'll play with a 'big name', and against the 'big names'".

I missed out (on either side) on this one, due to time constraints and a bit of lack of courage. I'm sorry for that.

In real life bridge, I see lots of "permanent intermediates" - "please protect us from those ugly evil 'experts' who always beat us. Make sure there are always events we can win without pushing ourselves."

I also see many players who are easily good enough to play "up", but don't have the courage to ask a better player to play with them - even though those better players have shown (no more so than in this event!) that they will, and willingly!

I also admit to a large streak of the latter - so I hope to emulate the courage you have all shown.

But the reason that I want to especially thank you as a young bridge player is that in order for me to have strong events to play in the future - and I will always want to play in the strongest events I can - I need a steady supply of today's beginners and intermediates, willing to learn, and willing to play "up" to learn, and willing to make public mistakes to learn, so that they will be 2007's experts, and not 2007's "I still need to be protected from 2007's experts".

This is what Maureen said you people would be - and she was right. And I salute you all.

Michael.