🥈Glorious 80 Invitational Championships - The Legend of 6th🥈

Many thanks to Mr. Yeh for organizing such a high-prize and high-quality competition, and also an exquisite dinner in Okura Prestige Hotel for all players to enjoy!

 

This is a 4-day private invitational tournament, with Swiss for qualification, round robin for QF, and KO for SF & final on 4/15-16 and 22-23. The home team Yeh（葉氏）and the VIP team Mega Giant（聚仁）have byes to the QF. Both teams can start participating from 4/22. The remaining 16 invited teams must compete for the remaining 6 spots in the qualification on 4/15-16.

Everyone is familiar with the legend of the 8^th, but you have never heard of the legend of the 6^th!

On 4/15, the first day of the game went very smoothly. Our team temporarily ranked 2^nd place with 3 wins, 1 tie, and 1 loss. During dinner, we were relaxed and joked about looking for the one who lost 1 IMP and the prize of $1000 for every win!? (Unfortunately, it was me 🤣).

Unexpectedly, on the 2^nd day, 4/16, 1 win and 4 losses almost wiped out all the money saved the day before. Fortunately, there was still a remaining balance just enough to hold on to the 6^th position. And the legend of the 6^th began!

On 4/22, there were 6 rounds of RR for the QF. The Yeh team and Mega Giant team would not compete against each other. And, we just happened to avoid the 1st-place team, the new champion of the Yeh Cup in March. It may be a good sign for us.

The first 3 rounds went well. However, we suffered a big loss against Mega Giant in the 4th round. After another loss in the 5th round, our chances seemed impossible against the leading team, Smile, to gain 17 VPs.

"Give up now and the game is over!"

Full of fighting spirit, we play the 1^st board against Smile, and we suddenly got -500 when they didn’t have any game. ． ． ． ． ． Is it time to go home? 😥

"Give up now and the game is really over!!!"

Miraculously, we gained 16.97 VP by winning 2 slams and a doubled contract. We did it!!! We entered SF!!!!!!!!!!!! 🤩

We were chosen by our gold medal old teammate in the SF. The 1^st half was tied at 27:27, and the 2^nd half was won with 19 IMPs, successfully advancing to the final!

Unsurprisingly, the opponent in the final was Mega Giant. It was the Nth time that we have played against each other since my husband Eric was lucky to be Mr. Huang’s partner.

In the 1^st half, we were slightly behind by 11 IMPs in the partial competition. In the 2^nd half, we finally play against Mr. Huang and Eric at the table.

 

Unexpectedly, after the final 24 boards, there was a tie!!! 😲

There was no rule about a tie in the manual. So the two teams negotiated to share the prize money and the declarer decided to add 1 more board to decide the champion, in order to avoid an US$8,000 gamble. Otherwise, some people would definitely not be able to have dinner comfortably later.

As a result, we ended up with -1 IMP with an overtrick and finally 2^nd place.

It was the 1^st time in my life to play 1 board sudden death. Although we almost finished the script perfectly for the Legend of the 6^th, it was still gratifying and a rare experience of a big reversal.

中文版：https://qriousbridge.blogspot.com/2023/04/blog-post.html