ITALIANS DISQUALIFIED :: European Open Bridge Championships, Tenerife, 27th June 2005 - Following a lengthy hearing of the Championships' Appeals Committee, yesterday evening, the pair of M. Lanzarotti and A. Buratti, was disqualified from the teams event. Read More Here ::>

2nd European Open bridge championships, June 18 - July 2, 2005 in Tenerife has launched their web page click here ::> The European Bridge League (EBL) will broadcast live matches on SWAN GAMES and SWAN will be directly connected to the scoring software - Bridgemate - showing all results live on www.swangames.com as they happen throughout the events. Events will be Mixed Teams, Mixed Pairs, Open Teams, Women's Teams, Senior Teams, Open Pairs, Women's Pairs and Senior Pairs.

MIND SPORTS ASSOCIATION FORMED
Bridge, Chess, Draughts and Go joined forces and formed the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA), under the aegis of the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF). The aim of IMSA is to work together with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the organization of the Intellympiads, the Olympic Games of the mind sports, in the Olympic sites and following the Winter or Summer Games. José Damiani, President of the WBF, was elected the first President of IMSA. Click here for press release

10,000 Bridgemates in the Netherlands. In this year's European Championship all result reporting will happen by the use of the Bridgemate (www.bridgemate.nl/) (www.bridgemate.co.uk) a wireless device that will be on all tables and sending the scores directly to the scoring program (and within a few seconds it is send on SWAN and shown on the internet). More than 10.000 of these bridgemates are already used in club in the Netherlands and will be in use in all future EBL events. This sounds fantastic - see BridgeMate website for more.

The ACBL's World Computer-Bridge Championship, IX, will be held at the WBF's World Championships (Bermuda Bowl/Venice Cup/Senior Bowl/Transnational Open Teams).  The dates of the computer championships are tentatively set at October 27 - November 1. Information on entry, along with the history and write-up of all past championships, can be found at www.computerbridge.com or
www.ny-bridge.com/allevy/computerbridge

Ecats and Tsunami Relief Anna Gudge and Mark Newton of www.ecatsbridge.com raised over £60,000 with their Tsunami Relief sims. A total of 13,570 players took part in 393 clubs across 52 countries from Aruba to Zimbabwe, all set up and run via internet, with individuals from different clubs writing commentaries on the hands “for fun.” The bridge winners are on the website, but the real winners are the victims of the disaster and Anna and Mark hope this will help them just a little bit. We salute Ecatsbridge (From the March Issue of International Bridge Press Bulleting.)

Gitelman is 2005 Honorary Member :: “If you’re not careful, bridge could ruin your life.” That’s the warning that Ted Horning gave Fred Gitelman, of Bridge Base Online, many years ago. Gitelman ignored that advice, and now he is the 2005 Honorary ACBL Member of the Year. Read more here ::>

Polish Club Summary : Krzysztof Jassem has completed a Summary of the Polish Club in English. It is available on the Great Bridge Links Bidders Box section. Read more here ::>

KEM Playing Cards Acquired by the United States Playing Card Company USPC is the manufacturer of the Bicycle, Bee, Aviator, Congress, Hoyle and many other Playing cards. KEM has "specialized in ONE product since 1945 - playing cards which are 100% cellulose acetate plastic. Kem was the only playing card company in the world with the ability to manufacture plastic playing cards from cellulose acetate." KEM Plastics is no longer producing cards, so selection is becoming VERY limited. As of Jan. 1, Kem has closed their doors for good. ALL KEM CARDS made by the Original KEM Plastics, will be noted "Original Kem Cards".
Those made by USPC will be noted as "Kem Cards by USPC" USPC has started production (ARROW & Paisley Bridge Sized designs). We will begin to stock them on Jan 20, after the first few production runs. No date has been set for WIDE SIZED Cards. USPC has contracted to purchase the raw material (cellulose acetate) from KEM PLASTICS, which will remain in business USPC has advised that they "will be making fewer styles" than offered by Kem; one report: as few as 2-4 Most designs, once gone, will never be available again There will be a price increase on new KEM cards produced by USPC.

2005 Cavendish Invitational : World Bridge Productions (WBP) announces the 2005 Cavendish Invitational Pairs, the John Roberts Teams, the WBP Teams and the WBP Pairs. All four events will be held at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas from May 4-8, 2005. The 2004 teams had almost 1.4 million in total prize money. Email Bob Blanchard for more information.

Olympiad on DVD (from the IBPA Bulleting, January) New Bridge Assets filmed the second week of the Istanbul Olympiad and produced six one-our programmes that were shown on Sky Sports TV in the UK. The programmes cover the drama of the knock-out stages and include interviews, analysis by the players themsleves, predictions and panel discussions as well as featuring critical boards in the main matches. They are presented by Zia Mahmood and Sabine Auken, with commentary by David Burn. To make the programmes available to a wider audience NBA have created a pack of two DVDs containing the programmes. If anyone would like more information they may contact Simon Cochemé at simonx@simonx.plus.com