Venice Cup
The Venice Cup is a biennial world championship contract bridge tournament for national teams of women.
[3] See a description of the identical "Senior Bowl" structure or a detailed account of the 2011 event (below) Austria won the first world teams championships in both open and women categories, conducted 1937 in Budapest, Hungary.
The leading bridge theorist and mentor, Paul Stern was an outspoken opponent of Nazism who fled to England that year.
[citation needed] Another 1938 refugee from Austria to England, Rixi Markus (born Erika Scharfstein) was a member of both the 1937 champions and the 1976 Great Britain team that was defeated by the United States for the second Venice Cup.
[5][6] China is the only bridge nation outside Europe and the United States to win the Venice Cup.
[a] The first two "tournaments" were head-on matches between representatives of North America and Europe, like the Bermuda Bowls of 1951 to 1957.
From 1985 the Venice Cup and Bermuda Bowl have run side-by-side in odd years, expanding together from 10 to 22.
(The United States won the first three Venice Cups 1974/76/78 but did not win any early Olympiad tournament.)
For 1985 the champion teams from Europe and North America were granted slots in the 4-team semifinal knockout.
(The American Contract Bridge League allocated two places to United States teams and one to the winner of a playoff, if necessary.)
All three teams from Pacific Asia advanced to the quarterfinal knockout stage, a very strong performance.
24 teams Over 13 days in São Paulo, Brazil, beginning 30 August 2009, China became the first bridge nation outside Europe and North America to win the Venice Cup.
The Chinese victory was decisive, culminating in a 220 to 148 IMP domination of USA1 in the two-day final match.
[39] Bénédicte Cronier–Sylvie Willard of France were the high-scoring players on all 22 teams during the round-robin, playing 15 of 21 matches and scoring 0.93 IMP per board.
Hongli Wang–Ming Sun of China were second at 0.81 in 15 matches and their teammate pairs (six players on a "Team-of-four") ranked third and eighth.
Silvie Willard has played for all seven medalists; Véronique Bessis, Bénédicte Cronier, and Catherine D'Ovidio (Saul) six; and Danièle Gaviard (Allouche) five.
[42] The silver medal for Indonesia represents a sudden arrival among the stronger teams, having placed during the preceding decade no better than 9th (2009), just outside the knockout stage in the current format.
[44] The regular quota for Europe is six teams, seven at Veldhoven because the host country qualifies automatically.
The women of France, Germany, and the Netherlands have been strong teams for about two decades but this year they waged a close fight for the last two slots in the knockout, Netherlands and France surviving with Germany 7 VP short.
[47] The two USA teams[a] led the round-robin and selected quarterfinal opponents Indonesia, sixth, and Netherlands, seventh.
That left defending champion China, fourth, to face France, eighth, a rematch of one 2009 semifinal.
In the quarterfinals, Indonesia and Netherlands both overcame 16-IMP carryovers (the maximum achievable head starts) to defeat the Americans by 33 and 28 IMP.
[51] While France won the Cup from Indonesia, the host Netherlands overcame 12 IMP carryover to beat England in 48 deals and win the bronze medal, 109 to 91.
USA2 won the 2013 Venice Cup in Bali, Indonesia, defeating England by a score of 229 to 220.3 IMP.
USA2 was the second of two United States entries[a] in the field of 22: namely, Hjordis Eythorsdottir, Jill Levin, Jill Meyers, Janice Seamon-Molson, Jenny Wolpert, Migry Zur Campanile; Sue Picus npc.
England was represented by the same team that won the 2012 World Mind Sports Games: Sally Brock, Fiona Brown, Heather Dhondy, Nevena Senior, Nicola Smith, Susan Stockdale; Jeremy Dhondy npc, David Burn coach.
The bronze medalists: Carla Arnolds, Marion Michielsen, Jet Pasman, Anneke Simons, Wietske van Zwol, Meike Wortel; Alex van Reenen npc, Hans Kelder coach.
Meyers is the first to win six world titles for women, as Nicola Smith would have been with an England victory.
She has won five medals in Venice Cup tournaments, as have the Dutch women Arnolds, Pasman, and Simons.
