Fulvio Fantoni (born 9 November 1963) is an Italian international bridge player. He is a six-time world champion, a World Grand Master of the World Bridge Federation (WBF), and was the WBF's first-ranked player for much of his period of success.Open Classification , World Bridge Federation. Confirmed 2010-11-07. He is one of 10 players who have won the Triple Crown of Bridge.
Fantoni was born in Grossetohttp://infobridge.it/Campioni_FantoniF.htm. November 1963, Fantoni says that he has lived "practically since I was born" in Ostia, in the coastal district of Rome. His regular partner for many years is Claudio Nunes, formerly the second-ranked World Grand Master. Nunes also lives in Ostia, and they see each other socially.Fulvio Fantoni: Claudio Nunes is much stronger than I am!, Interview by Laura Camponeschi, neapolitan club online bridge magazine, 8 Nov 2010. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
They play "Fantunes", for their surnames, an innovative bidding system characterised by natural but forcing one-level opening bids in all four suits. The pair was implicated in a cheating scandal in 2015, resulting in sanctions against them, only some of which were negated by appeals.
Emigration to Monaco
Since 2011, Fantoni and Nunes have been full-time members of a team led and paid by the Swiss real-estate tycoon Pierre Zimmermann, under contract expiring in 2016. From 2012, all six members would be residents of Monaco and the team would represent Monaco internationally."Helgeness and Fantunes Immigrate to Monaco" , BridgeTopics.com, 14 December 2010. Originally published in Norwegian: Alf Helge Jensen, "Helgeness skal spille for Monaco", Bridge i Norge (ed. Boye Brogeland), 13 December 2010. Confirmed 2011-08-23. The team finished third in the 2010 world championship, not yet full-time, and competed in the 2011 European Bridge League open championship (neither is a national teams event). In 2012, the team won the European Team Championship and got the second place in 2014. They were also runner up in the Bermuda Bowl 2013 in Bali.
Cheating scandal
In September 2015, Fantoni and Nunes were publicly accused of cheating by orienting a played card to show a missing high honour (Ace, King, Queen) in the led suit at the European Bridge Championship in 2014. Three separate investigations were conducted, and they were found guilty. On 19 March 2016, the FIGB banned the pair for three years. On 18 July 2016, the European Bridge League (EBL) banned each from play for five years and as a partnership for life. On 26 July 2016, the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) expelled them from their league and stripped them of all related masterpoints, titles, ranks and privileges. On 10 January 2018, the players' appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport resulted in a judgement in their favour.CAS 2016/A/4783 Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes v. European Bridge League (EBL) Retrieved 3 February 2018 It found that:
On 15 July 2018, the FIGB's Federal Appellate Court reversed its own decision and all sanctions were cancelled.FIGB's Federal Appellate Court decision (It.) Only the ACBL sanction remains in place; all others have been overturned. Subsequent controversy In the 2021 European championships, Italy included Fantoni on its team. In protest, the remaining national teams refused to play against the Italians and subsequently forfeited their games. Several national bridge associations indicated support for the forfeitures.
Major tournament wins
Bermuda Bowl: 2005 World Team Olympiad: 2004 World Mind Sports Games: Open Teams 2008 — successor to the quadrennial Olympiad World Transnational Open Teams Championship: 2007 World Open Pairs: 2002 World Mixed Pairs: 2010 European Teams Championships: 2004, 2006, 2012 European Champions' Cup for Open Teams: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 North American Bridge Championships (11) Wernher Open Pairs (1) 2004 Blue Ribbon Pairs (1) 2006 Jacoby Open Swiss Teams (1) 2003 Mitchell Board-a-Match Teams (1) 2004 Chicago Mixed Board-a-Match (1) 2003 Reisinger (3) 2007, 2012, 2013 Roth Open Swiss Teams (1) 2005 Spingold (2) 2011, 2012
Runners-up
Bermuda Bowl (3) 2003, 2009, 2013 World Team Championship Winners Cavendish Invitational Pairs (1) 2004 World Team Championship Winners Buffett Cup (2) 2010, 2012 North American Bridge Championships (6) Jacoby Open Swiss Teams (1) 2004 Vanderbilt (1) 2014 Reisinger (1) 2011 Spingold (3) 2006, 2010, 2014
References
External links Bridge Winners profile (maintained by Fantoni)
Biography at Infobridge.it (Italian with crude English-language version)