Monaco played at a very high level and became one of the 5 winners at the Bridge tournament held recently at the Monaco Yacht Club – a superb location in which to play and generously made available by Bernard d’Alessandri.
The tournament which takes place every year was meeting for it 10th edition, Monaco being an ideal venue for this anniversary, the first tournament having taken place here in 2007.
Currently the tournament is played among 15 countries who have organised themselves into a Federation of Small Countries – that is countries that have fewer than 500 members in their local association.
At the Yacht Club the Federation arrived with close to 100 players representing the 15 countries of which there are two main groups. There is the traditional group including Monaco, Luxembourg, San Marino, Malta, Cyprus etc. and then there is an interesting developing group from Eastern Europe, where bridge had been banned, but is now in healthy revival, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia, and Ukraine for example.
No country team has been able to win the tournament two years running and this year was no exception with Georgia taking first place on the podium, followed by Lithuania and Ukraine. Monaco secured fourth place. Well done, Monaco.
It’s up to Monaco now to show its mettle again when next year the tournament will be held in Lithuania and trump the East European countries on their home turf!
Congratulations to the Monaco team this time for putting up such a good showing during the whole three days of play. The team consists of Henry Fissore, Marco Catellani, Francoise Allevena, Katia Lormant, Nathalie Frey, and Jean-Charles Allavena (captain).
