17th OECS BRIDGE CHAMPIONSHIPS

ANGUILLA

May 7th - 9th, 2004

The island of Anguilla in the British West Indies, "tranquility, wrapped in blue", played host to the 17th edition of the OECS Bridge Championships in May of 2004. The tournament was held at the Rendezvous Bay Hotel & Villas.

First on the schedule was the Open Pairs, won handily by Antoine Delcourt and Eric Javelot from Martinque. They led the field in both sessions, taking the Open Pairs - 1st session with a score of 62.82% and combining that with a 63.39% in the Open Pairs - 2nd session. Second place overall went to the VIP from Martinique, playing with Jean-Philippe Humbert from Cayenne.

With the pairs out of the way, the major competition got under way with the team events. The OECS National Team Round Robin had perennial winners ST.KITTS (Ian Slack, Charles Gumbs, Laughton Richardson, St. Clair Byron) at the top of the table with 88 VPs. ANTIGUA (Al James, Duncan Finch, Franki Francis, Deverel Forde), with 85 VPs, rode their undefeated record in the round-robin to 2nd place, with DOMINICA a distant third at 63 VPs. In the OECS National Team Final, ANTIGUA had a 2 IMP carryover and never looked back, winning both halves of the final, to defeat ST. KITTS 82 to 36.

In the OECS Open Teams, the Pool A - Round Robin was won by GILL (Michael Gill, Leslie Atherley, Charles Hollingsworth, and Alan Moss from Barbados) with 98 VPs. Hot on their heels, just waiting for a misstep, was COTTRELL (Phillipe Cotrell, Nicolai Chabrol, Perrine Cottrell, and Jean Pierre Corre from Martinique) who ended up with 97 VPs. The key encounter in this pool was their head-on match where GILL emerged victorious by 18 IMPs.

Top spot in the Open Teams Pool B - Round Robin was taken by DABRETEAU (Jean-Yves Dabreteau, Antoine Delcourt, & Eric Javelot from Martinique and Jean-Philippe Humbert from Cayennne) at 110 VPs, winning all their matches. Challenging them in second place at 101 VPs was HINDS (Roglyn Hinds, Colin Depradine, Hyacinth Burton, & Jeffrey Newton from Barbados) who suffered a couple of narrow defeats, one at the hands of the leaders and the other to the BRONSTEIN quartet from St. Croix & Anguilla.

In the OECS Open Teams Final, GILL took a first half lead of 41 to 17 over DABRETEAU, and added a second half 25 to 16 margin, to earn a convincing victory, 66 to 33.

More of those beautiful Bajans (Roglyn Hinds, Colin Depradine, Hyacinth Burton, Jeffrey Newton) won the OECS Consolation Swiss Teams with 66 VPs. Finishing a respectable second at 57 VPs were the some of the hosts (Alan Gumbs, Nigel Roydon, & Roy Horsford from Anguilla and Allan Bronstein from St. Croix).