Bermuda Bowl
Entries formally represent WBF zones as well as nations, so it is also known as the World Zonal Open Team Championship.
The term Bermuda Bowl is sometimes used for the entire two-week event, comprising the four zonal teams and one or more concurrent lesser tournaments.
Key milestones were: Austria won the 1937 International Bridge League (IBL) championships for both open and women's national teams.
The leading bridge theorist and mentor Paul Stern was an outspoken opponent of Nazism; he fled to London and later became a British subject.
That same year, at least Rixi Scharfstein (Markus) from the Ladies emigrated to Britain; from the Open team at least Karl von Bluhdorn to Paris, Edward Frischauer and Walter Herbert to the United States, eventually California.
The first rendition, held at the Castle Harbor Hotel 13 to 16 November, featured three teams who played round-robin for raw scores or "total points".
[15] France won the 1953 European championship with a six-man national team and the right to represent Europe in the Bermuda Bowl to be held 9–14 January 1954.
[17] Jean Besse of Switzerland and Karl Schneider of Austria replaced one of the French pairs; the team is also referred to as France.
Playing at home, Argentina represented South America for the sixth time and finally defeated one of the Europeans or Americans, namely Great Britain.
[33] The event was marred by a cheating scandal involving the British pair Terence Reese and Boris Schapiro, known as the "Buenos Aires affair".
Taiwan appeared on the world bridge scene with a shocking second-place performance, represented by six players using the Precision Club bidding system recently invented by C. C.
Norway and Brazil also finished ahead of Italy, the defending champion bridge nation represented by a wholly new team.
[28] Three then retired permanently but its three greatest players continued to play for Italy (Belladonna, Forquet, and Garozzo), and to win.
Brachman from North America and national teams from Italy, Australia, Taiwan, and host Brazil represented the other four zones.
[citation needed] Europe was represented by both Poland and Great Britain, first and second in the 18-team open flight of the European championships.
Beginning in 1983, North America joined Europe with double representation, and the host country was automatically included too, so the potential size of the field increased by two.
[53] Infrequent entries Canada, New Zealand, and India finished 8–9–10, having qualified in the familiar places of "USA 2", Australia, and Pakistan.
Europe's fourth, third, and second place teams won all three medals while European champion Great Britain finished 5th to 8th in the world.
The Bermuda Bowl cycle continued as usual in 1998/1999 but the concluding tournament was in January 2000, marking the 50th anniversary of the inaugural contest in Hamilton.
Perennial European champions Italy returned to the top ranks of the Bermuda Bowl competition, but lost to USA 1 in the finals.
^ Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes of the Italian teams were later found cheating, and are currently barred from play by multiple bridge associations.
[79] Bulgaria placed third after winning the first European Small Federations Trophy in 2007, for national teams representing no more than 500 players.
The Dutch hosts led by 55 IMP after two days (96 deals) and scored very well in the first session on Saturday to lead by 83 and coast to victory.
[84] Netherlands won the 2011 Bermuda Bowl by 300 to 255 IMP in three days play against USA 2,[85] the second of two entries from the United States.
[b] The final eight segments of 16 deals each started with an insignificant one IMP carryover advantage for Dutch home team.
[88] The regular quota for Europe is six teams, seven at Veldhoven because the host country qualifies automatically.# The first stage was a full round-robin.
Sweden, China, and Iceland qualified with fewer than 16 VP per match while Japan, New Zealand, and Australia made strong showings as the first three also-rans, ahead of two Europeans, Poland and Bulgaria.
[94] While Netherlands and USA 2 played for the Bowl, Italy easily beat the US champions in 48 deals and earned the bronze medal, 167–69.
[85] Italy won its 15th Bermuda Bowl with a 210–126 defeat of Monaco, represented by Pierre Zimmermann's immigrant professional team.
[b] The two-week tournament in Chennai, India (formerly Madras), began on Sunday, 27 September, with one week of round-robin play through Saturday, 3 October.
