11th EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS' CUP

Eilat, Israel • 15-18 November 2012

The European Champions' Cup is a competition between the elite teams of European bridge, i.e. the national team champions of the top ten coun­tries at the most recent European Team Championships. The defending champions and the host country representatives are also invited, but no country may participate with more than two teams.

Accordingly, this year, the top ten contenders of the 51st European Team Championships 2012, held in Dublin, Ireland, are invited to participate in the European Champions' Cup: Bulgaria, England, Germany, Israel, Italy, Monaco, The Netherlands, Poland, Russia, and Sweden. The 'GS Allegra' team of Italy who are the defending champions, and the host team, bring the total number of contesting teams to 12. The format is a round-robin qualifier, followed by semifinals, a final and playoffs.

This is the eleventh event of the competition which was revived in 2002 in Warsaw, Poland, with the above format. The winners of that first event were Italy, followed by Israel and Norway. Italy has been more than successful ever since, as it has won all titles held so far, except in 2006 when the Cup went to Germany and 2010 when it was captured by The Netherlands. After the revival event, the tournament travelled to Rome, Barcelona, Brussels, Rome for the second time, Poland's Wroclaw, Amsterdam, Paris, Izmir, Germany's Bad Honnef and now to Eilat, Israel.

• For a complete list of the previous events, their venues and winners, click here.