Reykjavik Bridge Festival

Reykjavik bridge festival was my first tournament in 2023. I have just started a new partnership with Vit Volhejn and this was our first real test.

A long journey to Iceland

The tournament started on Thursday evening with MP pairs, but we had to leave one day earlier. I had to wake up at 5 AM to catch a flight to London Stansted where we had to transfer to Luton airport. Everything went fine, although the one-hour bus trip made me a bit sick. Maybe due to driving on the left side of the road or the winter English weather.

We landed in Keflavik 3 hours after the takeoff and it was another hour by bus to the city center of Reykjavik where we lived.

The city of Reykjavik

We stayed in a guest house apartment 5 minutes walking distance from the playing area which was the Harpa opera building.

The weather was not very pleasant and constantly changing. The nicest walks were at night when you didn’t feel the strong cold wind and it was never raining. The day, which started at 11 AM and ended around 4 PM, was usually cloudy, windy, and rainy. Only on the third day, we noticed beautiful mountains covered in snow on the other side of the bay.

We did not have much time for sightseeing. The round trips to nature started from 6 hours trip up to 11 hours trip. And, even the locals did not recommend going due to the weather which allowed you to see only nearby landmarks. We had a walk in the city and admired numerous bars and restaurants. In the end, we couldn’t resist tasting the local beer Gull which was about 4 times more expensive than the Czech lager in Prague. I have tasted several other types, but I liked the Danish Tuborg the most.

Playing area and tournament format

The playing area was very spacious and had an outside view. Considering the weather, it was very warm so we could play only in the T-shirt.

What I liked the most was the format of the tournament. The pair tournament was scored by match points but the movement was swiss. That means you play against the pairs with a similar score as you have. Each round consists of 4 boards and we played 20 rounds – 8 on Thursday evening and 12 on Friday. There were 153 pairs from all over the world.

The team tournament was also swiss with 84 teams registered. There were 6 matches on Saturday and 4 matches on Sunday. Each match was played on 10 boards and the IMP difference was converted to a 20 VP scale.

Play impression and results

I must say that I was very tired on Thursday evening, maybe also due to the evening hours and the extra 1 hour time difference.

The system we played was very challenging and energy-consuming. Different 1NT openings are based on vulnerability and since we were opening from 9 HCP, we had different answers when were passed hand. All that enhanced the tiredness and we made several mistakes that we will not normally do.

Friday morning was much better and we started climbing up. Unfortunately, only till the lunch break, when my partner had fatigued and 3 bad results were the end of the ambition to end up in the top 10%. I have to add up that our opponents didn’t give any gifts. The level of the players was really high even in the middle of the field and people made rarely any technical mistakes.

We finished in the second half of the field with 49% which was way behind our expectations.

Complete results of the pairs tournament.

We were the only Czech pair at the tournament so we had to find teammates from abroad. We have texted the organizers and they have paired us up with the local to pair. Omar and Stefan were great and we enjoyed both the game and the social time with them.

We started well with 2 wins. Again, the lunch break was not in our favor and we lost against Faores and a home team. The evening loss and Sunday’s bad start were already too much to catch up although we could end in the top 20 if we won the last match. In the end, 41st place was a bit of a disappointment. The good thing is that we were improving and that we have learned our lesson. If you don’t practice enough and don’t have a long-term partnership, it is better to play a natural system and avoid misunderstandings and fatigue. Fewer unnecessary mistakes and we could have a totally different impression. We had also several unlucky boards and the opponents reached a bad slam but found the best possible layout to make them. Just 2 boards out of 100 could make 12 VP difference and 20 places in the final ranking.

Complete team tournament results