Once upon a time ...
April 2nd, we celebrated our great writer of fairy-tales, Hans Christian Andersen’s 200 years birthday. We love his stories, and especially the one of the Ugly Duckling ...

I asked the sponsor of this event, Peter Hecht Johansen, to tell us how the Hecht Cup was born, because in itself it is some of an adventure.

There was a similar invitational event, „Nykredit Cup“, played in Bridgecenter Nordsjælland, with butler scoring. I guess that it was played about 5_6 times, and when it stopped, Lars Blakset told Peter, that he considered taking over.

Peter encouraged him to do so, because he loves the game and hereby saw a possibility to promote it. He was willing to sponsor the event, but he wanted a change to matchpoint scoring instead of the butler method.

Only about one month later the first Hecht Cup was played, but with no more than 32 pairs _ no Pro-Am, no party afterwards, and not very many players from abroad.

Peter wanted to open at least some of the tournament for ordinary club players as well, and this is how the Pro-Am idea was introduced next year _ a big succes. Furthermore the pro-field now consisted of several international stars together with the Danish top players. Sunday evening after the second Hecht Cup Kirsten and Steen Møller invited the players to their home for snacks and drinks, and Peter seized the idea. In this way the farewell party became part of the event from year 3.

His Royal Highness Prince Henrik participated in the Pro-Am at the 2002-event, partnering French Alain Levy, and with all the extra publicity the tournament had become some of a tradition.

In 2003 the Daily Bulletin was introduced, and like in 2004 the tournament is now covered on the internet by SWAN Games and Bridge Base Online, so the whole bridge world is able to follow the results and the play trick by trick.

Like in Hans Christian Andersen’s story the Hecht Cup has grown to be a pretty swan, but I am sure that Peter gets more ideas to improve the result ... if the story continues.