Bridge players vying for Rp 30m, HK trip
Bridge players vying for Rp 30m, HK trip
Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
After completing the first five rounds of the National Bridge
League (LBN) on Sunday, local bridge players are now set for the
final round of matches with high hopes of winning the
competition, and a place on the national team for the Intercity
Bridge Championship in Hong Kong.
The league, which began in January, plays each series at the
end of the month in 16 cities and towns. The final series will be
on June 2.
Bert Toar Polii, from the organizing committee, said that in
Jakarta alone there were 122 pairs involved in the competition.
But only 32 appeared in Sunday's matches at the Bulungan Bridge
Center, in which the pairing of Mas Prananta and Bayusunu ended
up on top with 337.2 points.
The committee has yet to finalize the computing so as to give
out the national rankings prior to the final series.
Forty-eight pairs will qualify for the semifinals at the end
of June. The number of qualifiers will be based on a quota
system, which the committee has drawn up for the provinces.
The quota varies from province to province, taking into
account the number of bridge masters in each.
"Jakarta, which is home to a lot of "Life Masters" should see
more qualifiers to the semifinals than any other province," Bert
said.
Fourteen pairs will go to the finals, along with another 10
pairs, who get automatic berths, due to their strong national
rankings. The semifinals and finals will run for four days from
June 29 to July 2.
Bert said that apart from the large portion of the Rp 30
million they were to be awarded, the winners and runner-ups would
be invited to the Intercity Bridge Championship, which is
scheduled for July 30 to August 4.
"We also want to propose to Gabsi (the country's contract-
bridge governing body) that those two best pairs be included in a
national team for international tournaments in the future," he
told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
"I think that (the league) is one of the fairest means of
selecting players. It should ensure that we are able to keep a
link between newcomers and veterans," he said, himself the winner
of the 1986 Intercity event, where he paired with Memed
Hendrawan.