A little bit of chatting with Dano De Falco

Dano de Falco		Dear Dano, who is going to win this championship? Among the favourites, in my opinion, are first of all Jassem-Tuszynski, whom we played in the finals of the recent Olympiad. That way, we saw at the table their aggressive and winning style of bridge. Another pair in contention are the defending champions, Levy-Chemla, who, as World Masters, can skip the qualification rounds. There is one more pair from France that I like: Mari-Faigenbaum. Here we have two specialist pairs tournament players, who already have won important events. I do not know the whole field from abroad, but as far as the Italians are concerned I can only say that our two leading pairs, Bocchi-Duboin and Lauria-Versace are missing, because they are participating in a National in the U.S.A. Especially Bocchi-Duboin, second in the previous issue in Warsaw, would have been in with a very good chance. This means that the home pair with the most titles are we, Ferraro and myself, but we are not really pairs tournament specialists. For us, playing here is more like another good training opportunity for the big team events to come.

Why do you personally prefer the team events?

Well, to be frank, I do not feel at all disturbed to tell you that I detest pairs tournaments, though I have to admit that they also bring forward specific qualities (such as a sense of timing and living dangerously) that are useful in any event. Still, it is a fundamentally different game in which every now and again we see pairs coming forward who seem to be ready-made for this type of stress.

What do you think of the venue?

It is amazing, you will not easily find a panorama like this anywhere else. However, it is also a sort of going up and down all the time, and for me, a lazy person who prefers to have everything at the same floor without stairs, it might be a little bit of a problem.

Another subject: do you like to play "on line?"

Yes, for sure. At home, at ease, from my favourite chair, in dressing gowns.

One last question. What has been, in your bridge career, your most pleasing victory and your bitterest defeat?

The nicest victory was the Europeans 1999 in Malta. We were overcoming a difficult situation of having to build up a new team, with new pairs lacking in both partnership and international experience. It turned out to be such an overwhelming victory that it gave me more satisfaction, even more than the one in the recent Olympiad where I felt less involved.

The bitterest defeats were two: the first was the Bermuda Bowl in Rio de Janeiro 1979, where the Americans beat us by a few points after we came back tremendously well. The second, harsh and bitter too, was in Stockholm. Here, we were World Champions with one board to play, but as a serult of a misunderstanding between two of the best players the world has seen, beyond any argument, Garozzo and Belladonna, we saw vanish a title we had in the pocket already, we thought.