LATEST INFO

Dear Pula people !

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer!I can see that some of you are already playing bridge at real, physical places! Well done Biarritz, Albena, Lądek Zdrój and Jurmala and all the others who dared to go live! I am so excited to see photos of people holding cards in their hands again, and can’t wait to see you all!As you know Pula festival will start at September 10th (welcome).

Main part of the tournament is scheduled from 11th-18th September, in hotel Histria. For various reasons, but mostly because of the hotel requests, we moved starting times of the tournaments to early afternoon, so that we don’t play after dinner. The format of the tournaments and daily schedule will, hopefully, remain as it was before the pandemic. Please contact me for bookings, I have some really nice discounts at many places nearby (tihana@pilar.hr).

At the moment in Croatia sport competitions are allowed as well as other events. Of course, I can not be sure what will happen by September. As any vigorous crises headquarters, ours is very concerned about new sorts of virus, but so far situation is rather relaxed here… well, we are touristic country after all. Therefore, I am rather optimistic, and since we held festival even in 2020, I trust that we will make it this year too. Hopefully, in much bigger numbers (not too difficult considering 2020). I believe that Covid passports will be functional by then, and probably you will need one to enter the playing area. It is really difficult to plan bridge festival when you can not approximate the number of participants… it influences everything: equipment, officials, etc. I hope there will be no limitations regarding number of participants, but I would still prefer to avoid huge crowds. Therefore the registration for the festival will be open in mid August. Every player who intends to play will have to register as a festival participant. Those who register earlier will have an advantage in case we will have to limit the number of participants at (some) tournaments. You know I will give my best to make it as fair as possible. Still I need your full cooperation, and you will have to register well in advance for every tournament to assure your participation (and to help us with preparing the event).

Finally, you all know that there were many cheating affairs during the last two years. We are rather strict regarding this issue, so during registration for the festival you will also have to confirm that you were not found guilty in any of those. If it turns out the opposite, your invitation for the festival will be cancelled. I know it is harsh but I need to protect the tournament and make sure my players feel comfortable. Of course, I am here for any details you may need.

See you soon