Lawyers Polo in Bangkok

lawtersPolo, law and friendship: these are the main pillars of Lawyers Polo. The group, founded in 2008 provides a unique opportunity for international polo playing lawyers to convene, dine, swap stories, compete and most importantly, to bond. “The idea was to create a networking event for lawyers around polo; it worked out very well, so well that today the sportive and friendship spirit around Lawyers Polo has eclipsed its original networking objective” explains Eduardo Bérèterbide, founder of Lawyers Polo and attorney at Shearman & Sterling in Paris.

The idea was conceived one night in New York City, during a dinner between two good friends, Eduardo Bérèterbide (Argentina) and Justin Fogarty (Canada). “We thought how interesting and fun would be to play with other lawyers. Colleagues liked the idea from the onset, and now we have just finished in Bangkok with the 6th Lawyers Polo Tournament” explains Eduardo. Since that first successful experience in Buenos Aires in 2008, the demand rose, Lawyers Polo kept growing and began organizing polo tournaments worldwide: Madrid (2009), Toronto (2010), Dubai (2011), Paris (2012) and Bangkok (2015).

The last tournament took place in Bangkok on 16-21 March 2015. Six teams participated with players coming from Germany, England, Argentina, Thailand, France, India, Malaysia, Colombia, Portugal, Macao, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, United States and Singapore.

The event kicked off with an elegant black-tie cocktail by the river at The Peninsula hotel in Bangkok which was attended by the elite of the legal and polo community of Thailand as well as many international players.

The matches took place at VR Sports Club (King Power) which has top quality fields. Since Field number 1 has flood lights, five of the tournament matches were played at night. On Thursday night after the play-off games the whole group attended an elegant Thai dinner at the Thipara restaurant in Bangkok.

The final was played on Saturday, March 21, between King Power and The Peninsula. After a very exciting game, King Power (led by Khun Tal Srivaddhanaprabha) won the 2015 Lawyers Polo cup after defeating The Peninsula by 8 to 5. The second final was between Regent Law (fourth place) and Kerres Partners (third). The last final was played between Stella Artois (fifth) and Cortijo (sixth).

Pablo Guiñazu, captain of The Peninsula, was awarded the MVP trophy. Pablo is a lawyer and polo player from Argentina.

Thomas Rinderknecht and Piero Dillier (both lawyers and businessmen from Zurich) were elected by the players as the Most Gentlemanly Players of the tournament (actually, there was a draw between both players after the secret vote of all players– the Organizing Committee decided to give the prize to both gentlemen).

“We would like to thank to our event manager, Carolina Bérèterbide, for the outstanding organization of Lawyers Polo 2015, and to our sponsors, King Power, The Peninsula Bangkok and La Martina. We also want to specially thank the Srivaddhanaprabha family, the Thailand Polo Association and Lucas Lujan for their invaluable assistance during the organization of the tournament” expressed Eduardo Bérèterbide.

The organizing team is already working on Lawyers Polo 2016 which will be held in a particularly special polo destination.

Teams:

King Power
Khun Tal Raksriaksorn (Thailand)
Ploy Bhinsaeng (Thailand)
Satid Wongkras (Thailand)
Nuttadhith Sila-Amornsak (Thailand)

Regent Law
Eduardo Bérèterbide (Argentina)
Joachim Feller (Germany)
Dato Zekri (Malaysia)
Piero Dillier (Switzerland)

Stella Artois
Jacinto Peralta Ramos (Argentina)
Rodrigo Castro (Macao)
Elspeth Talbot-Rice (England)
Thomas Rinderknecht (Switzerland)

Cortijo
Luis Nieto (Colombia)
Joseph Fitzsimons (United States)
Anil Abraham (Malaysia)
Miguel Caetano (Portugal)

Kerres Partners
Martin Magal (Slovakia)
Jose Frias Silva (Argentina)
Christoph Kerres (Austria)
Gerry Gan (Singapore)

The Peninsula
Pablo Guiñazu (Argentina)
Dinyar Madon (India)
Daniel Hurstel (France)
Alain Cléry (France)

http://www.hurlinghampolo.com/news/read/1664/Lawyers%20Polo%20in%20Bangkok