The vugraph starts every night at 8pm California time (they are 15 hours ahead of us so it is 11:00 am the next morning there). See my previous post on watching vugraph for information on how to watch.
There are three main events, Open (Bermuda Bowl), Women’s (Venice Cup) and Seniors (D’Orsi Bowl). For beginning bridge players I recommend watching the Seniors as they tend to play fewer fancy conventions. This clickable list of the world’s top grandmasters copied from the WBF site might give you an idea of who to watch:
| Rank | Name | Country | MPs | PPs |
|
1
|
Fulvio FANTONI | Monaco | 4859 | 41 |
|
2
|
Claudio NUNES | Monaco | 4671 | 39 |
|
3
|
Giorgio DUBOIN | Italy | 4004 | 42 |
|
4
|
Alfredo VERSACE | Italy | 3865 | 46 |
|
5
|
Lorenzo LAURIA | Italy | 3628 | 50.5 |
|
6
|
Jeff MECKSTROTH | U.S.A. | 3583 | 61.25 |
|
7
|
Bob HAMMAN | U.S.A. | 3502 | 109.25 |
|
8
|
Eric RODWELL | U.S.A. | 3391 | 60.75 |
|
9
|
Geir HELGEMO | Monaco | 3092 | 34.5 |
|
10
|
Tor HELNESS | Monaco | 3031 | 36 |
|
11
|
Zia MAHMOOD | U.S.A. | 2942 | 31.75 |
|
12
|
Norberto BOCCHI | Italy | 2842 | 34 |
|
13
|
Nick NICKELL | U.S.A. | 2821 | 38.25 |
|
14
|
Cezary BALICKI | Poland | 2542 | 29 |
|
15
|
Ralph KATZ | U.S.A. | 2373 | 22.25 |
|
16
|
Bauke MULLER | Netherlands | 2363 | 18 |
|
17
|
Louk VERHEES Jr | Netherlands | 2345 | 11 |
|
18
|
Sjoert BRINK | Netherlands | 2332 | 12.5 |
|
19
|
Antonio SEMENTA | Italy | 2320 | 18 |
|
20
|
Robert (Bobby) LEVIN | U.S.A. | 2306 | 21 |
|
21
|
Bas DRIJVER | Netherlands | 2291 | 12.5 |
|
23
|
Adam ZMUDZINSKI | Poland | 2264 | 29 |
|
24
|
Ricco VAN PROOIJEN | Netherlands | 2204 | 10.5 |
|
25
|
Simon DE WIJS | Netherlands | 2187 | 10 |
|
26
|
Franck MULTON | Monaco | 2184 | 21 |
|
27
|
Peter BERTHEAU | Sweden | 2130 | 11.5 |
|
28
|
Steve WEINSTEIN | U.S.A. | 2101 | 13 |
|
29
|
Fredrik NYSTROM | Sweden | 2064 | 11.5 |
My favorite to watch in the Senior event is Bob Hamman. Zia and Levin play less complicated systems and are great to watch in the Open. Kerri Shuman is wonderful to watch in the Women’s event.
Click the read more for some URLs about these championships.
Here are the important links for following this world championship:
- The World Bridge Federation
- The Bali World Championship site:
- Running Results
- Results – Click on the round for more details
- Daily Bulletins (many hands written up)
- Photos by Anna Gudge
- Bridge Base Online (Play Bridge gets to the vugraphs)
- Bridge Winners web site (many articles and commentary by the players). This includes several articles about hands that I wrote up. Try this one: