[inquiry]

The following link Pair link click this will take you to proposed partial list of competitors in the upcoming cavendish pair competition. Last year winners were none other than Fred Gilteman (your BBO and BBF host) and his partner Brad Moss.

I think they ahve to be among the favorites. Others in the running?

My top two picks (in no particular order are).... ..
Bob Hammon - Zia Mahmood (I got to love this pairing)
Brad Moss - Fred Gitleman (how can I not pick fred).

[Trpltrbl]

Greco- Hampson long overdue.
Possibly Bocchi- DuBoin.

Mike

[hrothgar]

You know, BBO as a community could "purchase" the rights to Fred and Brad.
Out of the goodness of my heart, I'd be willing to act as the bagman...

Everyone start sending checks to

Hrothgar's Retirement Fund
Cayman Offshore Services
P.O. Box 1047
George Town, Grand Cayman Islands

[the hog]

There are a number of established partnerships here that have to be given a big chance:

Balicki Zmudzinski
Bocchi Duboin

would be my picks
Outsiders:
Fantoni Nunes, and agree with Trpltrbl that Greco & Hampson are getting really good results.

[fred]

Easy to pick the best pairs (but surpised nobody has
mentioned Levin-Weinstein yet and don't forget about
the Egyptians who have come in 2nd the last 2 years).

How about something more challenging:

Which pairs do you think will be the best value in
the auction?

For example, I would rather pay $15K for a pair
like the Stansbys than $50K for Bocchi-Duboin.

Maybe we should even start a virtual auction through
BBO forums or paramutual betting using BB$

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[mishovnbg]

Anreas Buratti - Massimo Lanzarotti...
Misho

[inquiry]

fred, on Apr 29 2004, 06:30 PM, said:

Maybe we should even start a virtual auction through
BBO forums or paramutual betting using BB$

Sounds llke fun... but guess you drove your price up by winning last year... so if we are going to look for best bargain, I might have to go another way.. :-)

Ben

[Shrike]

Changing the subject a little -- how many of these players have y'all played against (in person)? I'm sure Fred and the like have faced them all, but what about us regular folks, who aren't normally competing in rarefied air?

I have played against at least one member of twelve of those pairs.

[julie5607]

Is there any way BBO (or anybody for that matter) can broadcast the auction? That would be really fun and interesting to see.

Looking forward to the whole event,


Julie

[Aberlour10]

I hope C. Balicki & A Zmudzinski will bring the Cavendish "Crown" to Poland,
...my outsider tip: Petrunin-Gromov ...2x50 bucks for eastern power

[inquiry]

julie5607, on Apr 30 2004, 04:59 AM, said:

Is there any way BBO (or anybody for that matter) can broadcast the auction? That would be really fun and interesting to see.

Looking forward to the whole event,


Julie

The auction would be fun to see. It would be even more fun if one could purchase a part of a share of a pair or two over the internet..hehehe. Or maybe as Fred suggested a vitural auction or real one using BBO$ (or course the later case with actual money exchanging hands would probably be illegal, dang it).

Ben

[luis]

My picks:

Moss - Gitelman
Welland - Fallenius
Fantoni - Nunes

Let's see :-)

[inquiry]

Fantoni Nunes are on a roll, and did very well at the last NABC. So Ron may be right about that pair. I was originally going to list my top three pairs, but I couldn't pick between them and Duboin-Bocchi so I stuck with two pair.

Ben

[Trpltrbl]

American pair won last year, this year it will European victory.

Mike

[hrothgar]

Here is my expectations regarding return per dollar invested

1. Tarek Sadek - Whalid Elahmady
2. Howard Weinstein - Steve Garner
3. Aleksander Petrunin - Andrei Gromov
4. Fulvio Fantoni - Claudio Nunes
5. Eric Greco - Geoff Hampson

[keylime]

Here's my guess:

1. Nightmare pairing <hahahaahahaha>
2. The World Open Pair Champs
3. "in my dreams" I and my wife, with all proceeds going to her shoe and clothes fetish while I get 50 bucks Canadian to buy Mike and Ike's candies.
4. Fred

[keylime]

In reality now my picks:

1. Greco-Hampson
2. Fanes-Nantoni
3. Buratti-Lanzoratti
4. Wold-Miller
5. Bocchi-Duboin

Don't think Hamman-Zia will even post - doesn't feel right to me.

[the hog]

OK Who is going to organise an auction. Virtual or bbo $?
First prize - 1 game with Ben
2nd prize - 2 games with Ben

[Fluffy]

But what happens if Ben wins?




I Know nothing about most of those pairs sadly, but it seems to me that many players are playing with sponsor, am I right?

[fred]

The_Hog, on May 1 2004, 12:25 AM, said:

OK Who is going to organise an auction. Virtual or bbo $?
First prize - 1 game with Ben
2nd prize - 2 games with Ben

Would be nice to be able to have betting on the outcome of
the Cavendish using BB$, but not sure it would be trivial for
us to set it up and besides, it is probably illegal.

How about a virtual auction with these rules:

1) Everyone has $100K of virtual money to play with
2) Minimum bid on a pair is $10K
3) Bids must be made in units of $1K
4) For the sake of simplicity, I suggest you use last year's
figures to determine the (virtual) prizes.

1st $231,350
2nd $148,724
3rd $99,150
4th $74,362
5th $66,100
6th $57,838
7th $49,576
8th $41,312
9th $33,050
10th $24,788

Forums is not exactly well-suited for conducting an auction,
but unless someone feels like putting together a web site
for this, I suppose we can make do.

I will open the bidding with:

$10K on Lew Stansby and Joanna Stansby
$15K on Bjorn Fallenius and Roy Welland
$20K on Bobby Levin and Steve Weinstein

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com