Venice Cup

The Venice Cup is a biennial world championship contract bridge tournament for national teams of Women. It is contested every odd-number year under the auspices of the World Bridge Federation (WBF), alongside the Bermuda Bowl (Open) and d'Orsi Bowl (Seniors). Entries formally represent WBF Zones as well as nations so it is also known as the "World Zonal Women Team Championship", one of three "World Zonal Team Championships". It was first contested in 1974, as one long match between two teams, and has been concurrent with the Bermuda Bowl from 1985.

Alternatively, the Venice Cup is the trophy awarded to the winning team. It was donated by Italy when Venice hosted the inaugural contest.

The most recent contest took place in September–October 2015 in Chennai (formerly Madras), India. The next will take place in 2017 in Lyon, France.

Structure

See a description of the identical "Senior Bowl" structure or a detailed account of the 2011 event (below)

1937 world championships

Austria won the first world teams championships in both open and women categories, conducted 1937 in Budapest, Hungary. They were organized by the International Bridge League, essentially the predecessor of both the European Bridge League (est. 1947) and the WBF (1958). World War II practically destroyed the IBL and its nascent world championship tournament series. With Austria the leading nation at the card table, the 1938 Anschluss of Germany and Austria was a great disruption. The leading bridge theorist and mentor, Paul Stern was an outspoken opponent of Nazism who fled to England that year.

Venice

Venice (English /ˈvɛnɪs/ VEN-iss; Italian: Venezia [veˈnɛttsja]) is a city in northeastern Italy sited on a group of 118 small islands separated by canals and linked by bridges. It is located in the marshy Venetian Lagoon which stretches along the shoreline, between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Venice is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture, and its artwork. The city in its entirety is listed as a World Heritage Site, along with its lagoon.

Venice is the capital of the Veneto region. In 2009, there were 270,098 people residing in Venice's comune (the population estimate of 272,000 inhabitants includes the population of the whole Comune of Venezia; of whom around 60,000 live in the historic city of Venice (Centro storico); 176,000 in Terraferma (the mainland), mostly in the large frazioni (roughly equivalent to "parishes" or "wards" in other countries) of Mestre and Marghera; and 31,000 on other islands in the lagoon). Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), with a total population of 2,600,000. PATREVE is only a statistical metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy.

Venice (band)

Venice was started in Venice, California in 1977 by cousins Michael Lennon (born 17 July 1959) and Kipp Lennon (born 12 March 1960). Michael's brother Mark (born 28 March 1963) joined the band in 1978, followed by Kipp's brother Pat (born 9 November 1951) in 1980. Kipp and Pat are two of eleven siblings, and are younger brothers of the Lennon Sisters. Michael and Mark are two of thirteen siblings.

Members of Venice have performed alongside, or recorded with, Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Elton John, Heart, Phil Collins, Sting, Melissa Etheridge, Cher, Ozzy Osbourne, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Stevie Nicks, Billy Idol, Michael McDonald, Dave Mason, Tim Moyer, Chris Isaak, Robin Beck, Kenny Loggins, the Doobie Brothers, Styx, Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Bon Jovi, Michael Ruff, Warren Zevon and Dutch band Yellow Pearl. Tano Costa, the band's original drummer, is the son of the late music arranger and record producer Don Costa, who arranged and produced for Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka and many other recordings artists in the 1950s and 1960s jazz and pop era.

Venice (video game)

Venice is a Microsoft Windows-based action puzzle game set in an abstract representation of Venice, Italy developed by both Retro64 Games and PopCap Games, it was published by PopCap Games. The game was released on June 26, 2007.

Gameplay

The basic gameplay consists of a gondola controlled by the player that shoots various treasures (Keys, Hearts, Coins, Rings, Vases, Stars and Lyres) directly upward towards plates that have matching slots on the side of a building in an attempt to match the treasure with its matching slot. Plates come in varied shapes such as bars, circles, half-circles, T-shapes, and X-shapes. They may hold as few as one and as many as eight treasure slots, and they may not be stationary. Some feature hinges that cause them to rotate when hit, while others shift or rotate positions when hit. The player usually has the ability to cycle between two treasures before firing.

If a player manages to hit a high matching slot, the treasure will usually tumble and fill one or more lower slots for a combo bonus; each successive tumble increases the bonus and the chance of a power-up popping up. Bank shots earn extra points; when a treasure makes an inordinate amount of banks shots before filling a slot, the player is given a "Lucky shot" bonus. Once a grouping of slots are filled, that grouping vanishes and awards the player more points.