Stage One of the Yeh Bros Cup features a 10-round, two-day Swiss Teams qualifier with 10-board matches, imps converted to Victory Points using the 10-Board WBF scale. The top 15 teams plus the number one preseed (the Yeh’s team) will qualify for the KO stage. The draws for the first two Swiss qualifying matches have been pre-determined. Draws for subsequent rounds will be Swiss, one round delayed. In the KO stage, qualifiers will be divided into two 8-team brackets. The top eight seeded teams will start in the upper bracket and play a straight knockout, losers dropping into the lower bracket. The winner of the upper bracket will play in the final with a 6.5 imp carryover.
The second eight seeds will start in the lower bracket and be eliminated with a loss. In Match 2 in the lower bracket each Match 1 survivor will play one of the four losing teams from the upper bracket. In Match 3 the two losing teams from the upper bracket will join the four lower-bracket survivors to play two three-way matches, the two winners advancing. In Match 4 the loser from Match 3 in the upper bracket will join the two lowerbracket winners in a three-way, the winner advancing to the final and the two losers playing off for third place.
All KO matches will consist of 32 boards (two 16-board segments) while the final and third-place playoff will be 48 boards (three 16-board segments). There will be a Consolation Swiss (Swiss Plate) on Wednesday and Thursday for Yeh Bros Cup non-qualifiers, teams eliminated in Rounds 1 and 2 of the knockouts, and four newcomer teams (see pages 2-3). Also, an Open Pairs will begin on Thursday night, continuing on Friday, for 50 pairs, two or three from each Open team not still in the KOs or Swiss Plate.
The playoff for 3 /4 between Denmark (Sabine Auken, Roy Welland, Morten Bilde, Dennis Bilde) and Yeh rd th Bros I (Chen Yeh (PC), JY Shih, Chen Dawei, Kazuo Furuta, Yalan Zhang, Wang Ping) was won by Denmark, 127-103.
The Yeh Bros Open Pairs was won by Krzysztof Buras and Grzegorz Narkiewicz. The Consolation pairs was won by Munawar Sawirudin and Bert Toar Polii.
Italy Lavazza (Norberto Bocchi, Giorgio Duboin, Guido Ferraro, Agustin Madala, Antonio Sementa, Maria Teresa Lavazza), the original fourth seed in the knockouts, defeated Denmark (Sabine Auken, Roy Welland, Morten Bilde, Dennis Bilde) yesterday morning to win the Top Bracket of the Open Teams. Today they will face Netherlands (Ricco van Prooijen, Louk Verhees, Bauke Muller, Simon de Wijs), the winners of the Lower Bracket, for the 2013 Yeh Bros Cup championship. The match will be played over 48 boards in three 16-board segments. Italy led Denmark 53-28 at the half and coasted to a 97-47 victory. The playoff in the Lower Bracket between Denmark, Yeh Bros I and Netherlands came right down to the wire, with Netherlands edging out Denmark at the end to win by 1.63 VPs. Denmark (Sabine Auken, Roy Welland, Morten Bilde, Dennis Bilde) will play Yeh Bros I (Chen Yeh (PC), JY Shih, Chen Dawei, Kazuo Furuta, Yalan Zhang, Wang Ping) today for 3 /4 place. The Open Pairs concludes today with a semi-final and final session.
First place was the team from Poland with 116.18 VPs. Yeh Bros II finished second with 100.00 VPs followed closely by England+Pharon with 99.90.
Denmark entered the knock-outs as the third seed, Italy Lavazza as the fourth seed, and now they’re the last two teams standing in the Top Bracket of the 2013 Yeh Bros Cup. Italy Lavazza had no trouble in their match against China Red in the first KO round, but Sweden proved a more difficult foe, Italy winning by a mere 9 imps. Similarly, Denmark also had few problems in their first-KO round match against USA Kranyak, but China Blue took them to the wire before the “Danes” emerged with a mere 7-imp victory. The winner of Italy-Denmarkwill get a bye tonight to prepare for tomorrow’s final, while the loser will join the two survivors of today’s twothree-way matches in the Lower Bracket for a right to play the winner of the Top Bracket for the championship.
The Lower Bracket will play two three-ways this morning/afternoon, the first pitting previous top seed Yeh Bros I against China Blue and Russia, the second pitting Sweden against USA Kranyak and The Netherlands. The two three-way winners plus the loser of the Top Bracket will play a three-way tonight, the survivor to meet the winner of the Top Bracket for 1 and 2 places, the two losers to play-off for 3 place.
China Blue leads qualifiers for 2013 Yeh Bros Cup: After hanging around in 2nd and 3rd places for the first four matches of Day 2, China Blue vaulted into the lead at the wire and assumed the #2 seed in the top bracket of today’s knockout stage (Yeh Bros I is seeded #1).Denmark, who led the field after Day 1, finished second by a fraction of a VP (0.15) to assume the #3 seed.More than 8 VPs back was Italy Lavazza followed by China Red, USA Kranyak, The Netherlands and Swedento roundout the top bracket. The next eight finishers (USA Cheek, Australia Youth, Yeh Bros II, Russia,Chinese Taipei, Hungary Senior, New Zealand and England+Pharon) will play in the lower bracket, the winner of which play for the title on Friday against the winner of the top bracket. The remaining eight teams will enter the Swiss Plate and be joined in future sessions by teams falling out of the KOs.