SUMMER NEWS
During the summer we have worked on making LoveBridge more accessible. We are ready with our cloud-based system. This allows organizers to run tournaments without using a local server...
KIBIC BUDAPEST BRIDGE OPEN
There are some events where the participants must meet some special criteria to register, such as mixed, senior etc. There is a tournament in Budapest with a very special criteria...
TATABÁNYA
After a seemingly endless break in live play due to the COVID-19 pandemic finally there was a bridge tournament in Hungary. The 50th Miners’ Cup was held in Tatabánya, and for better safety the organizers decided to play the competition on tablets...
IBBF 2020
26 February - 1 March 2020
The 43rd International Budapest Bridge Festival was held successfully with a much higher participation than expected. The bridge tournaments in the past years in Hungary had less and less participants. This tendency seems to have turned around at the IBBF, with the record number of players. The entry list for the open pairs was full already one week before the tournament. We couldn’t accept any more entries because of the size of the playing area. The interest of the foreign players was also higher than the past years, 13 foreign teams were playing in the teams’ tournament, and more than half of the field was from different countries in the open pairs’ competition as well.
The opening event of the festival was a mixed pairs tournament. Based on 30 boards Bernadette Argayné Magyar and Gyula Argay achieved the best result. Gyula is a regular player on the Hungarian championships and his wife, Bernadette occasionally plays on these events. The second place was acquired by a junior player, Janka Jalsovszky, and her partner Géza Szappanos, a senior Olympic champion. The third place went for Brigitta Fischer (last year she was the most successful women bridge player in Hungary for the 6th year consecutively), playing with a regular player of the Hungarian open team, Gábor Winkler.
The second competition was a two-day-long team tournament, where we invited numerous foreign junior teams. The participants played 11x8 boards with Swiss-Danish movement. The medalist teams are:
- Galim: Péter Gál - Csaba Czímer - György Kemény - Tamás Szalka
- Seniors Sweden: Björn Wenneberg - Lars Goldberg - UllaBritt Goldberg - Henrik Wegnelius
- Dumbovich: Gábor Winkler - Alon Birman - Miklós Dumbovich - Péter Lakatos
The best junior team price went to a team with mixed nationality with Czech and Croatian players. They finished 6th on the leaderboard surpassing the other 9 junior teams, congratulations to Matea Grgurić - Veronika Dolanská - Barbora Kupková - Kristijan Štefanec.
The players played 52 boards of qualification on the first day of the Open Pairs’ tournament. The 16 best pairs played in the A final the next day, the rest of the field continued competing in the B final. After 30 more boards, the final results in the A final are:
- Brigitta Fischer - Péter Hodosi (HUN)
- Csaba Szabó - Gergely Szentandrási (HUN)
- Błażej Krawczyk - Marcin Szymański (POL)
The best pairs in the B final:
- Richard Gabriel - Martin Vodicka (SLO)
- László Budai - Attila Vikor (HUN)
- Miklós Andrási - János Kardos (HUN)
The best junior pair (Ivan Bilusic - Emanuel Evacic) and the best U16 pair (Kacper Kuflowski - Franciszek Kurlit) also qualified tot he A final, congratulations to all of the prize winners for the good results.
Here is an exciting board from the A final:
The play started with a heart lead, and Ödön Dienes took the trick in his hand with the queen. He led the jack of spades and overtook it with the ace on the dummy. After taking the ace of heart he ruffed the ten of hearts in his hand, while West payed the jack, and East discarded his known king. At this moment the contract was in high danger, because of the king of hearts discard, soon it will be obvious why. Declarer led another high spade and overtook it with the king. Played the high diamonds, ruffed a diamond, and gave the trick to East with the queen of spades. On this very spade West discarded his nine of hearts, which was the only potential entry to his hand to lead the clubs from the right side (that’s why discarding the king and keeping the low heart could have been a very effective play). Declarer let the five of hearts taking the trick, and now Lakatos had to lead a club, letting Dienes taking the last three tricks.
BUDAPEST MP CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 8
After eight exciting weeks the Budapest MP Championship has come to an end. The two top divisions were played on LoveBridge, let’s see the results and a little insight into the details.
BUDAPEST MP CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 7
The penultimate round of the Budapest MP championships didn’t cause many changes on the leaderboard. In the I/A division still Miklós Dumbovich – Winkler Gábor, Dienes Ödön – László Harangozó and János Gellér – Dániel Tubak are the top three units.
BUDAPEST MP CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 6
Two weeks, that is, two rounds are left from the Budapest MP Championships. In the I/A division the first two pairs have a small lead, but the rest of the field is quite close. An extreme result can cause more than ten place difference on the leaderboard for almost everyone.
BUDAPEST MP CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 5
On the 14th of January the fifth round of the Budapest MP championship was played and in both divisions, the daily winners were expected to perform better in the earlier rounds.
BUDAPEST MP CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 4
After a couple weeks of holiday, the Budapest MP Championship continues. The fourth round was played this week, so we are exactly halfway through the championship.
BUDAPEST MP CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 3
The last round before Christmas was played in the Budapest MP Championship on Tuesday. The winners of this week’s session are currently in the first place on the overall leaderboard in both divisions.
HUNGARIAN OPEN TRIALS
Four teams entered to the Hungarian Open Trials. According to the rules the format was knock-out with directed draw. It was a great honor for us when the players of the first semifinal requested to play on tablets rather than cards.
BUDAPEST MP CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 2
After the second round of the Budapest MP Championship every pair played against every other in their division. In the I/A division Péter Hodosi achieved the highest percent with his substitute partner Csaba Konkoly, in the I/B division Botond and László Kelen had the strongest result.
BUDAPEST MP CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 1
As the teams championship finished, the Budapest MP Pairs Championship has started. This is the one-year anniversary for the Hungarian federation using LoveBridge, the very same championship last year was the first one ever played on tablets.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 11
The Budapest Teams Championship has come to an end. In the I/A division team GALIM won against team VISOFT but they didn’t score enough VPs to overtake their rival, so VISOFT became the champion.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 10
Almost all matches are finished in the Budapest Teams Championship, there is only one week left for the teams to decide the final rankings. In the I/A division team VISOFT is on the first place and their last match will be against the currently second team, GALIM.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 9
The 9th round of the Budapest Teams Championship is behind us and there are only two weeks left till the end. In the I/A division team VISOFT increased its lead to almost 14 VPs over GALIM and GAMAX on the third place trails them by only 2.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 8
When team GALIM is playing against team GAMAX, it’s something that most of the Hungarian players want to see. This was one of the matches that everyone could follow on our vugraph site this week in the Budapest Teams Championship.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 7
It was an important week in the I/B division of the Budapest Teams Championship: the groups played their last matches. Based on their previous results, they will be separated into the Major and the Minor group for the rest of the championship.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 6
More than half of the Budapest Teams Championship is over and there is only one week left from the qualifier in the I/B division. In group A team CSILLAGVIRÁG can already relax, they will surely qualify to the major group while in the other group the 3 best teams are safe and there is only one qualifying place in question.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 5
Already 5 matches has been played in the Round Robins of the Budapest Teams Championships. The qualifier in division I/B is getting closer to the end, while division I/A is almost at the halftime.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 4
The fourth week of the Budapest Teams Championship is over. Now that we know more than 1/3 of the I/A round robin’s and more than half of the I/B qualifier’s results, we have a better idea about the shape of the teams in each group.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 3
This week the 3rd round of Budapest Teams Championship was held, and all the group leaders kept their place.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 2
The second round of the Budapest Teams Championship was just as interesting as the first one. In division I/A the 12 teams will play a full round robin and after the second week team GALIM is leading, with two big wins they are 12 VPs ahead of the second team. In division I/B the field is separated into two groups with 8-8 teams each, playing a 7 weeks long qualification at first.
BUDAPEST TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - WEEK 1
The Budapest Teams Championship has started, and you can follow everything that’s happening in the divisions I/A with 12 teams and I/B with 16 teams.
OPATIJA
The 6th World Youth Open Championships were held in Opatija, Croatia and we had the honor to host the BAM tournament with the LoveBridge system.
KAJAANI
The Kajaani Bridge Club in Finland started to use LoveBridge in the end of May. Recently the club celebrated its 50th anniversary with a Finland-wide bridge festival and they invited us to celebrate with them.
SUMMER SERIES WEEK 8
The summer is not completely over yet, but our Summer Series has finished. 21 pairs played on the last day and they were not only competing for the first place of this competition, but also for the cumulated championship through the whole summer.
SUMMER SERIES WEEK 7
The seventh competition of the Summer Series is over and we have new winners. Out of the 22 pairs Ödön Dienes and László Sztrapkovics reached the highest percentage but there was a close fight between the best pairs until the end of the tournament.
EUSA
The 2019 European Universities Mindsports Championship took place in Budapest. 14 universities sent their players to compete in the bridge team’s championship.
SUMMER SERIES WEEK 5
New week, new winners. Or we should rather say new winner, because one of the players from the victorious pair has already won a couple weeks ago, so she is not really new at winning. This time Brigitta Fischer won with Marcell Surányi.
SUMMER SERIES WEEK 4
We are already halfway trough our summer series, and the fourth week was full of great boards. 29 pairs showed up to compete for the first place and for the points to win the individual prize at the end of the summer.
SUMMER SERIES WEEK 3
Another week passed again and we held the 3rd round of our eight week long summer series. This time 20 pairs arrived to compete and with them, more than 60 players participated in the past 3 weeks.
SUMMER SERIES WEEK 2
The second competition of our Summer Series is over and it was just as interesting as the first one. This time 21 pairs entered and in the end Brigitta Fischer and Gábor Macskásy became the happy owners of our victory bears.
PALATINUS JUNIOR BRIDGE
The Palatinus bridge club started to use LoveBridge as soon as it was available and they’ve been regularly using it ever since.
SUMMER SERIES WEEK 1
On the last week of June we held the first Tuesday tournament of the Summer Series ‘19. Sixteen pairs have played 26 boards, you can see the final results here.
BAM
On the 17-18th of June 2019 was the first BAM competition played on tablets. On Monday there was a qualifier round robin with 13 teams and on the next day the best four teams played the in finals while the rest of the field played on the consolation event.
IMP PAIRS
In 2019’s spring the first division of the IMP championship in Budapest was played on tablets. The eight weeks long event started in April and 32 pairs have participated.
MUNICH
On the 5th of May 2019, we held an exhibition in a bridge club in Munich. The main reason for the event was to introduce the system to the German Bridge Federation...
PULA SPRING
Everybody knows and loves the Pula Bridge Festival in September, but some people might be unaware that there is another, smaller bridge festival in Pula in spring.
MP
In 2019 the finals of the Hungarian MP pairs championship were played on tablets. In the semifinal - on the first day of the two-days tournament - 28 pairs have been competing to qualify to the finals.
IBBF 2019
In February 2019, the 42nd International Budapest Bridge Festival was completely played on tablets. It was a five-day event, with mixed pairs, teams and open pairs tournaments. In the diverse field there were participants from 7 different countries.
MP
In 2018/2019 the first division of the MP championship in Budapest was played on tablets. 32 pairs every Tuesday for eight weeks were competing using LoveBridge. For the first time, it gave the players from lower divisions the opportunity to watch the best Hungarian players playing.
IMP
The first national championship played on tablets were the finals and the semifinals of the 2018’s Hungarian IMP pairs championship. The winners of the finals are Dániel Gulyás and Balázs Kotányi, the players of the second-best pair are Gyula Argay and Gergely Siba, and Zsuzsanna Kerekes with Sándor Varga finished in the third place.
ORLANDO EXHIBITION
In 2018 we had a chance in Orlando (15th Worlds Bridge Series) to show LoveBridge to some of the best bridge players in the world.
OSTEND
During the 54th European Bridge Team Championships in Ostend we held a small exhibition, a ten-board tournament.
SUMMER SERIES
In the summer of 2018 we have organized our first two LoveBridge tournament series, to present the system to the Hungarian bridge community. Both series were supposed to have 8-8 occasions during the span of eight weeks, one of them at the Böszörményi road, where you can find the official tournament room of the Hungarian Bridge Federation, the other one in the Palatinus Bridge Club.
