Hu and Shi win 0–2500 Pairs
Winners of the 0–2500 Pairs, Henry Shi and Ping Hu
Ping Hu and Henry Shi of Naperville IL won the 0–2500 Pairs, two days after they won 0–2500 Swiss Teams. They finished a little more than a board ahead of Phillip Mingola of Oklahoma City and Kai Eckert of El Granada CA.
Hu and Shi qualified in third place after scoring 55.77% and 59.37% on Thursday, and then 54.71% in Friday’s first session.
Then they went to a group dinner with the Chinese Bridge Association.
“We almost missed the evening session,” Shi said. “We probably ate too much. After that we went to the room and slept.”
Runners-up in the 0–2500 Pairs, Phillip Mingola and Kai Eckert
When they woke up, it was after 7:30. They raced over to the Reno Ballroom.
The late arrival and hubbub to get back into the game didn’t stop them from posting their best session of 59.67%.
Hu and Shi began playing together in October. They had played as teammates in the GNT Flight C in 2011, finishing second. But then Hu moved into Flight B and Shi remained in C. Last year Hu’s partner moved out of District 13 and he was looking for a new partner for North American Pairs, so he asked Shi to learn his very complicated Precision system.
“He was very patient,” Shi said.
For Mingola and Eckert, it was their first time playing together in person after meeting in the Twitch bridge community.