GENERALI World Masters Individual returns : The 6th World Masters Individual Championship, sponsored by GENERALI, the Insurer without Frontiers, will be held in Verona, Italy, 8-10 September 2004. This is the continuation of the popular event launched in 1992 and continued biennially until 2000. The Championship will be played in two series, for men and women. Participation is by invitation only. 52 of the world's top men players and 28 top women will compete for the two titles, currently held by Antonio Sementa of Italy and Benedicte Cronier of France. All players will use the same simple natural system described on the GENERALI convention card. Click Here for more ::>

Watch the action in Malmö :: ONLINE VUGRAPHS :: There were several ways in which to watch the goings on in Malmö during the 47th European Bridge Team Championships.  Click here for a page of information ::> 

CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS - Open, Women, Pairs, and Senior Teams are all playing in St Catherine's Ontario this week. Click Here ::>

US WOMENS TEAMS: Congratulations to Carlyn Steiner, Marinesa Letizia, Randi Montin, Tobi Sokolow, Jill Meyers and Janice Seamon-Molson, winners of the USBF Championship. Upcoming USBF Open will be available online in vugraph format. Click Here for more info

BRIDGE CLUES - cool new site from Mike Lawrence. Providing Clues to Winning Bridge with daily hands by Mike Lawrence, famous bridge champion, writer and Internet bridge maven. The site contains two bridge hands every day. The hands come with questions which readers can answer if they wish.

Press Release, WBF. June 2004
AUSTRALIA WINS RIGHT TO HOLD 2005 WORLD YOUTH TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR THE FIRST TIME

The Australian Bridge Federation has won the right to hold the 2005 World Youth Team Championship [WYTC] which will take place in August 2005 at Sydney Olympic Park. Eighteen international teams will take part in this prestigious event with under 26 year old players coming from Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia as well as Australia and New Zealand. Click Here to Read More ::>

US WOMENS TEAMS: Congratulations to Carlyn Steiner, Marinesa Letizia, Randi Montin, Tobi Sokolow, Jill Meyers and Janice Seamon-Molson, winners of the USBF Championship. Upcoming USBF Open will be available online in vugraph format. Click Here for more info

Women’s Bridge on WBF Web-site : Anna Maria Torlontano, Chairman of the WBF Women’s Committee, informs us that they have launched a special area for Women’s Bridge on the WBF web-site. Information about the Committee is there, and, to launch the venture, biographies of three of the top female players – Rixi Markus, by Patrick Jourdain; Dorothy Truscott, by Alan Truscott and an autobiography of Sabine Auken. The Women’s Committee is very proud of this idea which they feel gives increased exposure to women players, while promoting and contributing to the development of women’s bridge in general (Source IBPA Bulletin June 04). Click Here for website ::>

USA TO GO TO TURKEY :: With the lifting of the US State Department’s Travel Advisory on Turkey, the United States Bridge Federation has reversed its decision on not sending teams to Turkey. The new resolutions adopted by the USBF give the Trials-winning teams (Open, Women’s, Seniors) the choice of playing the Olympiad in Turkey or being one of the US teams in next year’s Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup or Seniors Bowl. Should the teams wish to go to Turkey, they will be required to sign an agreement absolving the USBF of liability. (Source IBPS Bulletin June 04)

ACBL LAUNCHES ALL NEW WEBSITE
March 2004 :: the ACBL has launched their new website - a cleaner, more consistent look, a departure from the old clunky asp and return to html, and change is always refreshing. No frustrating drop-down menus, no jittery flash, just simple html links and intuitive navigation. Love it all BUT ...

they have removed all former links - including those in archives that span years of history. There are no re-direct pages - all previous links from Great Bridge Links to ACBL pages will no longer work.

Correcting the links is a huge task - what I will do to start with is list a reference URL on specific pages where I know a lot of links will be missing.

This whole exercise is similar to what happened recently with the WBF website. To this day we have been unable to relink except to the main page. The story of Babel comes to mind, as it always does when community is overlooked. Webmasters must work together to maintain a network - if a page url must change, slip in a re-direct for a year at least. Re-direct pages take up no memory. Years of search-engine placement and cooperative linking will be preserved and hours of volunteer labour will be saved.

WORLD BRIDGE NEWS : The latest issue of World Bridge News is available for download Click Here for PDF file.

Uncertainty and Obligations : "Sadly, I must reiterate that the state of the world today remains dreadful. The economy is tottering, exchange rates are unstable and terrorism is still rife " ... Editorial, José Damiani, President, World Bridge Federation. Click Here to read

EUROPE WELCOMES SLOVAKIA
The newest member country of the European Bridge League was welcomed EBL officials and young players in a coordinated visit, February 20-22, 2004. The President of the EBL, Gianarrigo Rona, came to Bratislava in order to meet with the Slovak Bridge Association (SBA) officials and discuss the prospects of bridge with Slovak government authorities. At the same time, the EBL Youth Committee, had a series of meetings to discuss the European youth programme and plan future events. The occasion was used for preparing the Slovak Junior team for its first ever European competition, next August in Prague. Junior teams from the neighbouring countries Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary came to Bratislava and participated in a 4-nation youth event, which concluded the first European bridge visit to Slovakia. (Source, EBL website)

WORLD TEAMS OLYMPIAD ISTANBUL UPDATE: The WBF informs us that following a satisfactory site inspection, the World Team Olympiad, together with the Seniors International Cup, the World Transnational Mixed Teams Championship and the World University Championship under the auspices of FISU will take place in Istanbul, Turkey from 23 October - 6 November 2004.

CHAMPION OF INDUSTRY : The ACBL was featured as a Champion of Industry by Pat Summerall Productions on Headline News Network on Wednesday, February 18, 2004. The two-minute segment aired in the United States between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. EST. The segment featured footage from the Fall NABCs in New Orleans, including shots of players intent on their cards and directors busily entering scores.The segment ended with a reference to the ACBL web site to promote contact from the public. Watch the ACBL Video click here

Changes in the Bridge Tour USA & Canada : Nancy King, CEO of BPT Prize Money Bridge, reports that the tour will double the number of tournaments in 2004 by adding nine new cities to the tour circuit. In 2003 BPT staged 10 events with $120,000 in prize money and a $20,000 bonus pool. Changes in the setup of BPT payouts are creating more opportunities to win, and the possibility of bigger 'pots'. Read Larry's Letters on the BPT website website by clicking here. The BPT events are listed on our Great Bridge Links tournament calendar

Bridge Baron 14 enters the online play arena - Great Game Products teamed with GameSpy Industries Inc., a leader in the online gaming community, to provide Bridge Baron 14 users with an online meeting area in which users can find other Bridge Baron owners all across the world and then quickly and easily start up an online game. More information on our Play Online page

47th European Teams Championship June 19 - July 3, 2004 takes place in Malmo Sweden. Organizers recently sent out a press release to welcome everyone "...to Malmö 2004. Players, officials, journalists, family members and other guests will find everything they need for a great Festival. This will simply be “the Championship” and “the Bridge Festival” for everyone. Make sure you put 19th June to 3rd July 2004 in your calendar now, because that’s when it all happens." Click Here to read press release and find links