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In playing in the New Zealand Zone 7 Open Team win over Australia in Hong Kong last Friday, Michael Cornell has become the first Kiwi, indeed the first player from Zone 7, to achieve the rank of World Grand Master. He gathered the last 0.5 points he needed to achieve what Zone 7 Chairman and World Bridge Federation member, Australia’s Ben Thompson, described as “the highest rank in Bridge.” Michael is the 126^th player worldwide to achieve this rank.

Michael has been a top New Zealand player and international since the early 1970s. While many of our top players have moved to Australia, Michael has always played his bridge based in Auckland and has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Akarana Bridge Club throughout his career.

His first national title was the New Zealand Teams in 1973. Including Zonal events and test matches against Australia, he has now represented New Zealand 40 times at Open and twice at Seniors level. The earliest was the 1972 Olympiad. His international partner in the 1970s was Stanley Abrahams. In the 1980’s, it was Malcolm Mayer, Tony Taylor and Lionel Wright. In the 1990’s, it was Denis Humphries and Dwayne Crombie. Back to Malcolm Mayer at the turn of the century,  since 2006 it has been Ashley Bach with whom he has had the greatest success, including the 2016 World Pairs in Poland. In his 2 Seniors appearances, he played with his wife, Vivien.

As a player, he is always a very strong competitor and is very deserving of his latest achievement.

Two wins out of Three.

The three Kiwi teams in Hong Kong achieved two victories and one near miss in their Zone 7 matches against Australia which came at the end of the Asia Pacific Bridge Federation Championships.

The Open match consisted of 4 x 16 board sets, though the Australian team conceded after three segments and the Women and Mixed events consisted of 3 x 16 events.

Open                          1                      2                      3                                              Total

New Zealand           27                   37                   39                                           103

Australia                  20                   20                   40                                             80

 

Women                     1                      2                      3                                              Total

New Zealand           30                   17                   42                                             89

Australia                  50                   18                   24                                             92

 

Mixed                        1                      2                      3                                              Total

New Zealand           29                   58                   54                                           141

Australia                  24                   24                   52                                           100

Our Zone has two spots in each of the above categories in the events in Morocco in August.

A decision for you from early in the Open match.

 

4 shows a strong 2-suiter including spades. 5 is even stronger! What now?

 

This was the auction at the other table:

West              North             East    South

                        Newell                       Reid

                                                            1   (4+ hearts)
Pass                2¹                 3      4
Pass                Pass                x          All Pass

¹ weak heart raise.
In the first auction, Ashley Bach did not still like his hand that much and signed off in 5. Anyone for 6 of either black suit?

 

4x resulted in down 2, 300 to the Australians. 5 made all 13 tricks, thus a gain of 5 imps though it could have been a bigger swing.

Our Women’s team found themselves 14 imps down with 5 boards left. Then came the following:

 

Christine Gibbons opened a Multi 2 as North in second seat. Jenna relayed and discovered her partner had a strong weak two in hearts and a 2623 shape. That was enough for Jenna to bid 6 which made comfortably and was a 12 imp pick up with their opponents in 3NT. New Zealand were then 2 imps behind with 4 boards left and with nothing much happening in the next three were 3 imps behind going into the last board.

Four years ago in Singapore, New Zealand Women were in the same position and found 4 imps on the last board to win by a solitary imp. Not so this time with the last board being a tied part-score and victory going to Australia by 3 imps.

Success for our Mixed Team

APBF was disappointing for our Mixed Team. According to npc, Douglas Russell: “All three pairs struggled to find their best form, and many decisions did not turn out in their favour: close slams bid against them that were very rarely bid elsewhere, games that failed on unlucky breaks, and contracts wrong sided.”  They saved their best till last especially in the second of the three sets of the test.

To bid and make a slam after an opponent opens at the 1-level is a fine achievement. Here are Jo and Sam Simpson:

 

South attempted to muddy the waters with a pre-emptive 3, but that did not deter Sam, who much to Jo’s surprise and delight showed a reasonable hand with spades. Now out came a secret weapon: Jo was able to bid 4 as a key card ask in spades, and when Sam admitted to possessing one, duly bid the slam for  13 imps to New Zealand.

  At the Final Dinner

 
Mixed Team members Jo and Sam Simpson, Annette and Stephen Henry and npc Douglas Russell 
 at the final dinner. Missing from the photo were Fuxia Wen and Ian Berrington.

This wild second set produced 58 imps to New Zealand to Australia’s 24, leaving the Kiwis with a lead of 39 imps going into the final 16. Over to the nervous npc:

"At this stage, the Non-Playing Captain was following every board on the edge of his seat, praying for a flat set – but no! Things started quietly enough, with a small gain of 6 imps to 1 to Australia on the first 5 boards. But then disaster struck, with two doubled penalties out and a missed game on Board 23: more imps to the opponents, whittling the Kiwi lead to 11. A flat board followed, then Australia tried the wrong game and over-reached to give New Zealand 17 back, followed by another flat board, leaving New Zealand with 5 boards to defend a lead of 28. A game misplayed by Australia, but made by Stephen Henry, was followed by this exhibit.

 

 

When Australia held the E/W cards, Jo and Sam elected to pass out East’s opening bid of 1, collecting +200. At the other table, Annette and Stephen somehow managed to find their way to 3, which was of course doubled; this inelegant contract was booked for 3 down. Illustrating perfectly the point that when the force is with you, you can do no wrong, this was astonishingly allowed to make, handing the Kiwis 13 imps. Despite 36 imps changing hands on the final 3 boards, we hung on to run out convincing winners by 141 to 100 imps."

We will feature the South Island Teams tomorrow. My thanks to all 3 npcs, Jonathan Westoby, Kris Wooles and Douglas Russell for providing many of the interesting deals from Hong Kong this past week.

Richard Solomon

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