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CHINA MAIL SATURDAY DECEMBER
DISASTER at Bangkok
WITH
WITH the recent ending of the biggest Far East/BUT BETTER LUCK
Bridge Championship, in Bangkok, bridge players and non-players as well are asking what happened to cause Hongkong's disastrous per- formance
The answer is simple. Only one of the three Hongkong pairs was playing effectively. In other words, we were playing at a little more than one- third strength.
By that, I do not mean to say that Hongkong playing in top form would have won. But t worsi we could have come second
or third, instead of seventh out of the eight coun- tries competing.
Thailand fully deserved their victory. They played a sound game throughout the tourna ment and, unfortunately, they hi brilliant form against Hong- kong They beat us by 175-93 IMP
(International Match Points)
We were unlucky to araw Thailand the favourites as
our
opponents in the first match of the tournament. for we had hoped 10 play
а Jess formidable side as n warm-up. Despite our crushing defeat, we
still had a chance for victory by beating the remaining six op- ponents. What we needed was that the other two partnerships Improve
Outstanding
Instead, it
story.
was the same sad
Only one Hongkong patr- Y. L. Chung and Anthony Chow upheld the high standard of bridge for which
Hongkong bad become famous.
Both in their twenties, they were the youngest and also one of the outstanding pairs in the whole tournament.
!!!
seventh matches. As a result we won both.
And they were victories against Japan and the Philip- pines, both considered stronger teams than most of those we hád earlier lost to.
The final tally was five games lost
In a row-to Thailand, Formosa, Saigon, Malaya, and Indonesia; and the Jast fwo games won against Japan and the Philippines.
The Thais were just as disap-
NEXT YEAR WE HOPE
By staff writer
Munsur Ismail
who was a member of the
Hongkong
interport team
we at
per-
lest
Their performance belles the
the pointed as
31.9 our performance beller of some, including
title holders, we ended up in last that Hongkong formance.
There Their non-playing team cap- position.
were
many tain Thawee Reenkaen told me: sighs of relief when we
"We had a
con- managed to strategy
edge on top
of
press agences of lack lost because perience.
truer. The
The
of
ex-
wax
opposite experienced Hong-
kong internationals played far ference before the tournament Malaya in the standings.
below expectations.
оп
and we decided that Hongkong dangerous bidding would be our most
opponents. We therefore put in our four best players for whole match,"
We lost heavily because of serious misunder standing in the bidding of Lesile briliant individual Sung player, and Robert Seligman, a
the
Friendly
tourna- The whole Far East
Hongkong, finding form towards the end of the For East Championship, beat the Philippines in this match. Left to right are Lionel da Silva (PI), Y. L. Chung (HK), Vin- and Reyes (PI) Anthony Chow (HK, back to camera).
conte
director Commodore Bunnag and his large number of able Resis- lants did a wonderful job
organisation.
of
The surprise of the event was the excellent showing of the ronner-up
Indonesian team. They lost to Thailand on the final day in what the Philippines captain
Jose Reyes described as a ment filled with drama suspense that even Hollywood would be proud of.
tourna
and
After 56 boards bad been played, Indonesia were leading Thailand by 37 IMP. They only needed to win by 13 IMP to capture the championship. the last eight boards of the the reduced match, Thailand deficit to only 5 IMP and so forced dead draw, thus win- ning the championship on vie tory points.
"factor. On that Boore, the Malayan- team (which included four Britans residing in Malaya) had the right dog. During am interval on the first day of the event I walked up to J. Ryder, their beat player, and was men- tioning a certain hand when he' stopped me short: "Sorry, I'm a sociable person but I cannot discuss bridge during the whole of this tournament. We'll talk NO about anything else, but BRIDGE
Their no-bridge-argument policy paid off for, apart from! the remarkable Indonesians, the Malayans were probably the most relaxed players.
The Indonesiatis were the steadiest in both play and tem- perament. Invariably nelther partner showed any excitement when a mistake occurred and however the spore went they were always in pleasant mood.
They also had the distinction of being the best supported visiting team. Members of the Indonesian Embassy and their wives sat through session after session until the last day.
Heart-breaking
I was not on the Hongkong| team in the Far East champion- slup However, after it ended Horace Chow and I teamed with a very weary Y. L Chung- Anthony Chow combination for the annual interport match against Bangkok who used fresh team of players.
В
We lost a heart-breaking match to Bangkok. The dif- ference was only 18 IMP and the result hung in the balance 4 the very and. Sheer physical exhaustion plus "tournament nerves" caused an aberration on my part that deprived us of a draw and possible victory.
This was what happened. Our table opponents on the other had bid and made a part score On our table, of Two Hearts. Horace Chow and I reached the game of Five Clubs, a perfect bid as the cards lay. After losing two tricks, the rest would have been all mine. Alas, on the defender's lead, I mechani- cally pulled out the wrong card and went one down!
*
In The next Far East Bridge Championship will be play- ed in Manila sometime in November 1962. Although the Far East standard is rising all the time, I think Hongkong has the team in regain the championship.
ed almost as big a part as skill.
The tournament made clear That was exactly what hap- ment was played in a friendly, one important feature in big- one-time Swiss international pened. Thailand used her four sportsmanlike manner befitting time bridge: that stamina play- They were playing
conti best players-Kovit, Somboon, an event of its kind. The per- Shen and Gaan-for the whole, formance of the Thais at bridge gruelling 12-hour match against was only excelled by their hos- match started at 2 us, whereas against the other pitality.
plicated bidding system which they had used in partnership on only two or three praciice
sions before the big event.
329-
The complicated system was
dropped and the
teams she put in six players. The tournament
When
For seven days in a row, each
and ended around 2
held day-12 solid hours except for a
we started to Jose under the patronage of the 45-minute break for dinner)
our Thai Prime Minister Field
match, partnerships match after
In a match of that kind, tem-
reshuffled for the sixth and hosts were becoming worried 01 Saril Thanarat. The tournament perament became an important
1961.
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