Briscola Tournaments in Italy, May 23 – June 5, 2005.
This year’s excursion to Italy featured three briscola challenge tournaments in three different cities. Our Circolo should be very proud as we won two of the three tournaments.
Interestingly, it has been my experience that there are generally two awards in any of these briscola tournaments, the one being the national team with the greater number of points at the end of the match, and the other, a far greater and more significant award, is for the partners who win. (In fact, our experience is such that the first part of the playing ladder is to establish which two sets of partners for each team are to play against each other in the semifinal matches in order to establish one set of partners for each team to play in the finals. The total points truly serve only to establish the rankings of these partners who will qualify to play in the finals.)
Please visit our website photoalbum to see many photos of the action while playing in the three cities.
Lenola (Latina), Friday, May 27, 2005:
For this tournament we played at the Belvedere restaurant,
overlooking the town of Lenola, situated in the mountains half way between Roma and Napoli (near Fondi, inland from Sperlonga). We met with the Lenolese players immediately after our arrival. It was a beautiful, sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. We were greeted with a boisterous welcome, as we met the vice-mayor, Giuseppe Macaro, who introduced the other Lenola players. We ate a meal consisting of mostly country-style food and drank plentifully, as our entire group mingled with the Lenolese. (The pasta was freshly made in the country kitchen, and was, in my opinion, the best we had on the entire two-week excursion.)
After this great pranzo, the ladies (and one man) left for an
artistic tour of the town, conducted by Dimitri, the son of the
sculptor-in-residence, Peppino Quinto. Some few minutes after they departed,
tables were set up in the shaded patio below the dining room, and play began in earnest; a soft and gentle breeze rendered the ambiance very pleasurable. Our Circolo group, being two men short, had to incorporate my cousin Nicola
Panebarco, and the tour guide, Antonio Luce, with the understanding that, if
either of the latter two would make it to the semifinals, they would be
substituted with one of our regular players.
After the first step in the tournament ladder, the finalists were chosen on the basis of the total number of points scored. For the Circolo, the partners Luigi Traettino and Joe Novello scored the most points, and then went on to handily beat the Lenolese finalists, Giuseppe Macaro and Peppino Pecchia.
In a brief and informal session, the Mayor of Lenola, Giambattista DeFilippis, made the final remarks and the presentation of Certificates of Participation to the Circolo players, and Certificates of Benvenuti a Lenola to each of the ladies. Ricuzzo Davoli also presented the Lenolese players with Circolo certificates.
The other Circolo partners included: Ricuzzo Davoli & Nicola
Panebarco, runners-up to the winning team; Frank Campo (an old briscolano friend from New Jersey) & Antonio Luce (our tour guide) in third place; and Alberto Brendes & Pedro Lecca in fourth.
Cattolica (Rimini), Monday, May 30, 2005:
Cattolica was an entirely different story. Skip this part if you don’t want to be disappointed.
The venue for this match was the Park Hotel (www.parkhotels.it) situated on the Adriatic waterfront overlooking the vast beach, a magnificent panorama visible to all while eating on the upper floor dining room. The meal was superb, especially the tagliatelle al ragù and the lasagnette al forno; the desserts, absolutely sinful! We insisted that the Circolo players and the Cattolica players mingle at the long table to get to meet each other. We met and chatted amicably with the entire Bordoni family: Felice, Gabriele and Federica. The stage was being set for a delightful tournament held in the large party room adjacent to the swimming pool.
It was in this town that, nine years ago, Ricuzzo Davoli & Ezio deFilippis handily beat the Cattolichini partners of Guido Paolucci and Giuseppe Romani in a tense and exciting final. The Cattolichini had been stunned; in fact, the whole town was stunned. So, can you imagine this group of retired gentlemen, who play briscola and tressette on an almost daily basis, waiting these nine long years for the return match?
They were, of course, ready, and they did, of course, destroy us with such a finality that it was hard to believe that two of our partner pairs—Luigi
Traettino & Joe Novello (who had been the victors in Lenola), and Alberto
Brendes & Pedro Lecca—had not scored any points at all in any of eight games
played, a total whitewash—un cappotto! Even in the finals (best 2 of 3), the
Cattolichini partners of Paolo Masi & Francesco Della Biancia beat the Circolo partners Ricuzzo Davoli and Frank Campo. It wasn’t even close; it was such a total disaster! Ricuzzo Davoli, the former “Myth of Cattolica,” had been summarily and unceremoniously dethroned!
Thus, the Cattolichini had avenged their terrible loss of nine years ago. Now, the bella must be played to determine who the champions are to be. Are we to wait yet another nine years to play this bella? Shall we plan to make another trip sometime within the next two years?
One extremely bright note in all this gloom and doom was the fact that Joe Lupo had, as his partner, Vincent Fulginiti, an old colleague of mine from Tucson, AZ, who had decided to take this excursion, but had not wanted to play briscola, as he had never played a game in his life. After witnessing the excitement of the first game in Lenola, Vincent came to me the morning after and asked me to teach him to play the game. Amazingly, he learned the game in the morning on our long drive from Roma to Bologna, and that very night began playing practice games with the rest of our squad. I paired him with Joe Lupo the next day, and they established such a good relationship that I decided to allow Vincent to play in the Cattolica tournament. The team of Vince Fulginiti-Joe Lupo was the only other team to score any points in Cattolica. Special kudos, therefore, are due our newly found briscolano, Vincent Fulginiti. I am trying to convince him to start a new Circolo in Tucson when he returns from Italy.
Pavia, Friday, June 3, 2005:
After a drive from Como to Pavia, we spent the morning visiting the famous
Certosa di Pavia, an ancient monastery, ten kilometers outside the city itself. Then, on to the Tennis Club di Pavia, a private city club on the outskirts of the city, where we were met by its president (and briscolano pavese), Giorgio Rondini, and all the other Pavese briscola players; in fact, we ate together in the club dining room, both squads mingling, displaying a great deal of camaraderie. Another kingly feast was served. The wives of one of the Pavia players, Rosemary Pastorelli, an American from Long Island, N.Y., (wife of one of the eventual Pavese finalists), was the guide for the ladies’ program, a walking tour of the main roads of Pavia, with some opportunity to shop.
