Team Profiles

Team Presentation of Denmark

Although this may seem like an ingenious rewrite of the famous tale, The Ugly Duckling, where a duckling transforms into a beautiful swan, it is in fact a team presentation of the Danish Junior team, where each member has gone or is about to go through some rather heavy personal changes during the last year, which has affected the team’s performance in a dramatic but positive way. First of all there is:

Bjørg Houmøller (25): Bjørg is not single and therefore not available. She is the only and some time lonely female player on the team. Recently she moved to Copenhagen and joined a bridge club called “Young Sharks” and it has had a positive effect on her game so that she literally shreds her opponents to pieces! Earlier she was babbling about how many bad boards she had in each round. Quite to the joy of the team it has turned into a discussion why she stupidly gave away an overtrick and maybe occasionally a partscore. In her sparetime Bjørg is starting her 4th year at Business School in Copenhagen. Bjørg is currently playing with:

Jonas Houmøller (21). Jonas is single and therefore available. Currently he goes by the nickname “Nilfisken” which is a) a vacuum cleaner and b) a sort of fish that drains every drink if there is even the slighest amount of alcohol in it. Luckily for the team he has transformed this ability to bridge, where he sucks most of the IMPs flying around at the table – and the way the Houmøllers play that is a lot! Jonas is currently living in Aarhus, where most of his non-bridge time is devoted to getting ready for further studies.

Another member of the Danish Team is:

Martin Schaltz (19). He is the benjamin of the Danish team, but is as it seems not single and therefore not available. So far he has been nicknamed “Benno Schultze”, but take a closer look at him and his jacket at the victory dinner! It is in fact the team jacket of his mother, Dorthe Schaltz, and therefore his nickname has recently changed to Martina di Benno because of his tendencies to dress up in clothes with a female cut. This is why the rest of the team really isn´t sure whether his preference for women is about to change.

This cannot be said about his partner, who is:

Kåre Gjaldbæk (23) Kåre is single and therefore available. He turned 23 during this tournament and celebrated it by giving himself a couple of blitzes. He is known to most juniors as Hardkåre. He is the good spirit of the Danish team, liked and well liked by most of the participants here at this tournament – except maybe at the bridge table, where he has had quite a good run so far. If you´re one of the unlucky few who haven´t met him, allow yourself the treat. You won’t regret it. If you are female, don´t worry! He will come to you during this tournament. Kåre recently moved to Copenhagen and might actually be seen at the University of Copenhagen studying Math and Computer Science, because he otherwise is about to lose the allowance the Danish Government gives him as a student!

The next guy on our team envies Kåre for his ways with girls. This is:

Andreas Marquardsen (25). Andreas is single as well. Because of the presence of the NPC on this team, Andreas had to give his nickname of “Linselusen” back to him. It is a small bug that lives off the energy coming from the cameras on vugraph. The team retreated to his old nickname “Doks”, which if you spell it backwards, is what you have left after smoking a filtercigaret. Whether it at one point referred to a bad tournament, I do not know, but this certainly isn´t the case here in Paris. Andreas cannot understand his rankings in the Butler Rankings, but luckily for the team this doesn´t bother him as much as it used to! Andreas lives in Copenhagen, where he spends a lot of his time playing bridge. It is so much that he has thought about making a living out of it.

That is not the case with his partner who is:

Boje Henriksen (26). Boje is married to Marie and in about a week from now she is supposed to go into labour, so afterwards they will be three. This is an exciting time of his life, and therefore he enjoys this tournament a lot, because it will be the last time for a long while when he can find the time to play at this level. Marie has managed in quite a short amount of time what nobody on the team thought possible – he is actually becoming interested in cultural events. After this year’s outing to Stade De France he was pleased with what he saw, so please let the organizers know that they did a good job. A compliment from Boje doesn´t happen that often, so enjoy it! Boje is finishing a degree at a business school in Aarhus, where he currently lives.

One of Boje’s best friends is:

Lars Walter (34). Lars Walter is single, available and coach of the Danish team. Walter is mostly here because he has known the NPC since 1990, and therefore knows what he is capabable and especially incapabable of. He is the practical pig of the Danish team and tough to knock off course.
Lars Walter has been working for some years now, but recently he decided that it was time to write his final paper, so that he would be a Master in Computer Science.

Last and least there is the NPC, who is:

Jacob Ron (30). Single and available. He is trying hard to find ways to improve the spirit of the Danish team. Tarzan, reading out e-mails from Danish spectators, bribing with soda-waters and chocolate, but nothing really seems to hide his incapacities to the players. The real reason is that he wants to hide how little work he in fact does. Most officials, Tournament Directors and other NPCs mistake him for being either a player or a coach. After spending many years not studying Political Science, Jacob has shifted to Media Science and is surprisingly finishing it in the five years he is supposed to.

I do believe, though, that he has made a brilliant move by including a 9th member of the Danish team. To the Danish team she is the team mascot known as Lady Luck or Lady of Good Fortune, but you properly know her as
Agnes (??). If you didn´t already know, Agnes is the beautiful girl working in the bar at the Novotel Hotel. You may have seen her running up and down the stairs. Unfortunately I do not know her marital status. She has cast a spell on 75% of the Danish team (remember Boje is married), but Bjørg and Boje join them at the bar every evening, because they like to be sociable in the evenings! This is only unfortunate for one thing – the NPC’s bar tap has reached unknown heights and he will probably be contacted by his local bank when returning home. Otherwise it is a great arrangement for the Danish team, that has contributed a lot to their performance so far in the tournament. After Agnes closes the bar, the players wander to bed in a doze – all thinking about things, which I cannot possibly write here. This has resolved the problems which Danish junior teams used to have with PANIC attacks (Partying All Night long In the Chamber), and therefore worked out perfectly for the team.

Yours truly, Grand Danois, reporting on a story taken from a fairytale but lived out in real life.

Uruguay Team Profile

Roberto Maffei (npc): Lives in Rosario in Argentina and has on several occasions been the npc for the Argentinian ladies team. He is the best captain we could have!

Sara Convernton (coach): Roberto’s wife and someone who is always very good company for the team, being very supportive in everything. She is especially to be recommended to look after a team including three young girls.

Martin Carve: 25 years old and lives in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital. Next year Martin will graduate as an accountant. He is the best guy in the team(actually the only one), and also both the most experienced player on the team and the shyest.

Maria Jose Salaverri: 18 years old and lives in Montevideo. Maria is studying business. She is suffering here in Paris as she cannot live without her ‘Mate’ (a typical Uruguayan drink).

Veronica Chediak: 19 years old, she is from Salto but lives in Montevideo, where she is in her second year ofstudying chemical engineering. Veronica is very friendly.

Virginia Chediak: Veronica’s sister, Virginia is 21 years old and lives in Montevideo, where she is studying communications. She created this team after the last World Youth Championship. She is the least shy player in the team and also is very good at public relations.

USA1 Team Profile

With a team average of just over 18 years, USA1 is probably the youngest team in the event.

Lisa Burton, is a student of education at Texas A&M University, where she maintains a straight ‘A’ average. Lisa was a member of the winning team in a challenge match between Junior teams held in Glasgow, Scotland. To many of the boys from all countries she is on the ‘A’ list.

Meredith Beck, is a student in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mere was the youngest female to achive Life Master status in ACBL history. At just 17, she will be a threat in many future Junior events.

Robert Glickman, is a student in Los Angeles, California. Robert is also just 17. He has a bright future in bridge but perhaps should avoid poker tournaments.

Joon Pahk, is a graduate student at Stanford University. Joon holds a silver medal from the World Junior Pairs in Montreal in 2002. As the senior Junior by at least six years, the team looks to him for a great deal of advice.

Lindsay Pearlman, is a student at the New York Institute of Technology. She is also a director at the Town Club in New York City. A former wrestling and volleyball star, she maintains a strict vegetarian diet. Sought after by players of all nations, she appears to have been ‘wrestled’ away by Sweden.

Xing Yuan, is a student at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Xing holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. At just 17, he will also be a future threat. He won the spirit award at the USA’s Bridge Camp in 2002. Xing loves to play soccer when he has the time.

Mike Cappelletti (npc), is now a bridge professional and resides in Tennessee. Having played the World Juniors in 1989 and 1991, he is accustomed to defeat at this level. Mike may be getting older but he refuses to grow up.