All News

Day 1 in Hong Kong: a fabulous start in the Open.

Here is the first daily report from the Asia Pacific Bridge Championships in Hong Kong. New Zealand has an Open, Women and Mixed Team taking part. All events are double round-robins of 14 board matches, 13 teams in the Open, 11 in the Women’s and 12 in the Mixed event. There is also an 8 team Senior competition.

What a fabulous start for the New Zealand Open team with big wins over China and Singapore, along with 12 vps for their bye and despite incurring a time penalty, lead the Open field by nearly 2 vps from China Hong Kong.  16.79 against China and then 19.18 over Singapore (47-0). New Zealand have 46.56 vps and China Hong 44.72 with Chinese Taipei 6.5 vps behind in third place.

How would you play the following board from the North seat in 6? You receive 6 lead to the king and your ace? If you ruff a spade, West plays K.

 

Our other two teams are holding their own. The Women had a tough start against China, losing 22-56 (2.37) and then just got the bragging rights over Australia 23-22 (10.33). They finished the day in 6^th place out of 11 after a 38-5 win over India in the third match of the day. They start off Day 2 against Chinese Taipei and Korea.

 
Two wins in their first two matches played for Candice Smith 
and Kinga Hajmasi in the New Zealand Women's Team

“Mixed” could be a good description of the Mixed Team’ first day, a good win, bad loss and a draw. It started with a 44-19 win over Indonesia (16.21), rather stuttered against China, 15-71 (0.01) and levelled off 34 all against Philippines. Next up are India and Singapore. They currently sit 8^th out of 12 teams.

 Three big boards against China

Our Kiwi Open Team got off to a great start with a 48-9 win over China. Unfortunately, two boards were not played through slow play with both sides being punished for this. A 18.29 vp score was reduced to 16.79 vps, the Chinese suffering a similar penalty.  

The Kiwis had three big pick-ups. Ashley Bach made 4 defeated at the other table. Michael Whibley made an awkward 4 contract with a 5-0 trump break while the Chinese floundered in 5 and then came the above difficult deal:

 

Cornell- Bach play “2 over 1” so were in game-force mode after 2. 4 just set trumps with the next two bids being cue-bids, 1^st or 2^nd round. Michael Cornell then checked on Key Cards and bid the small slam after a 1 or 4 response (5). Ashley Bach wisely did not show the void here in his partner’s opening suit.

Cornell got the 6 lead. He ruffed a spade low, noting West’s K, returned to his hand with a heart to the Q and then ruffed a spade high in the South hand. He then drew trumps in three rounds and could discard two spades on high diamonds leaving just the small heart as his only loser.

While Deep Finesse indicates 12 tricks is the limit, the grand was bid and made at one table. That was not where the Chinese were playing as the declarer misplayed to go two down in 6, 14 imps to New Zealand.

China Macau and China Hong Kong are next up for the Open Team.

Richard Solomon

 OPEN

Michael Cornell and Ashley Bach

Michael Whibley and Matthew Brown

Martin Reid and Peter Newell

Jonathan Westoby npc  and Chef de Mission

 

WOMEN

Christine Gibbons and Jenna Gibbons

Carol Richardson and Andi Boughey

Kinga Hajmasi and Candice Smith

Kris Wooles npc

 

MIXED

Stephen and Annette Henry

Ian Berrington and Fuxia Wen

Sam and Jo Simpson

 Douglas Russell  npc

Go Back View All News Items