Last minute senior teams change for Australia ::

October 14 - I have just received the following email from Val Brockwell, Secretary to the Australian Bridge Federation:

"Some sad news from this part of the world - one of our leading players, Jim Borin, passed away yesterday.

Jim was a member of the Australian Seniors Team in Monaco. His place will be taken by Alan Walsh. Could you kindly note the change that Alan will now partner Bill Haughie on our Seniors team."

Regards: Anna Gudge

Zone 4 BFAME Championships held in Amman, Jordan :: Daily bulletins are posted on the ecatsbridge website.

WBF Zones 2, 3, 5 and 8 held their respective Championships and Trials recently.

Zone 3 :: In South America, Brasil (Campos-Aranha, Dib-Toma, Maia-Junquieira) won the Open title for what seems like the hundredth time (this time over Uruguay in the final), while Colombia (Angel-Benedetti, Lechter-Eisenstein, Pinzon- Barrera) were the South American Women’s series winners.

Zone 5 :: The Central American and Caribbean had a first-time winner, Bermuda (Petty-Smolski, Douglas-Harvey, Saunders-Hall), with Jack Rhind as NPC. Weary of being beaten up in Zone 2, Bermuda asked, and received, permission to switch Zones. The change was much to their liking, as was the addition of expatriate Brit Roman Smolski to the team. Venezuela (Diebold-Pacheco, Nunez-Devletian, Smith-Hirschaut) are the CAC Women’s winners.

Zone 2 :: In North America, US1 was decided in favour of the Nickell team (Nickell-Freeman, Hamman-Soloway, Meckstroth- Rodwell) a year ago, while Ralph Cohen’s Reisinger winners (Landen-Rajadhyaksha, Wolff-Morse, and Wildavsky-Doub) continued a remarkable run by defeating an exceptionally strong field to win Trials II and become US2 for the Bowl. In the U.S. Women’s Trials, Kent Massie captained the Wei-Sender- Kennedy, Levin-Picus, Sokolow-Seamon-Molson sextet to the US1 spot ahead of Bjerkan-Weinstein, Mancuso-Wittes, Cohen-Rogers, who become US2.

Canada and Mexico will battle for the third Zone 2 spot in August. The Canadian Open team will be Fergani-l’Ecuyer, Wolpert-Czyzowicz, Wolpert-Demuy, NPC George Mittelman; the Women’s team will be Gordon-Bryant, Cimon-Kraft, Eaton- Clinton, with NPC John Carruthers.

Zone 8 :: In Africa, to no one’s surprise, Egypt (Sadek-Naguib, el Ahmady-Sadek, el Khourdy-Dagher) and South Africa (Eber- Sapire, Fick-Castlein, Mansell-Holman) finished a close 1-2 in the Bermuda Bowl Trials, with Morocco a distant third. South Africa (Mansell-Modlin, Schwartz-Fihrer, Adrain-Hulett, Axelrod, NPC), and to everyone’s surprise, Zimbabwe (Cameron, Vos, Hall, Pollard, Standen) were the qualifiers for the Venice Cup, with Egypt a close third.

FURTHER NOTES (by Judy Goodwin)

Zone 6 :: Pacific Asia Bridge Championships, Manila, 2003 - The 2003 PABF Championships have been postponed until early September because of SARS concerns. Contact: altan@info.com.ph ::