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Hello all from the Winterless North.

We have had one of our two usual frosts for the year. Hopefully winter is all but done and dusted for us here.

 Whangarei has the fortunate advantage of having its very own National Director in Richard Bland. Richard held a small information evening before Bridge last week explaining the new rules and how they would affect us as players. The new rule regarding claims was interesting and invoked quite a bit of discussion. Also of interest was the board site on the table and the only exceptions to this rule. I find it very frustrating when the bidding has all finished, I am looking at the cards on the table, and someone moves the board for whatever reason. Since being told of the new rule, I am surprised by how much more aware I am of the infraction and how often it occurs. (We will be covering the new rule changes on this website before they come into effect on 1st August 2017.)

We are also very fortunate to have a marvellous sponsor here in the North, Kerikeri New World. The current owners do not play bridge. However, the previous owner was very passionate and asked the sponsorship continue after the sale. The winners of this tournament receive $200 each with 2^nd $150, 3^rd $100 and 4^th $50.00. There are also prizes for top Intermediate and Top Junior players. This event was played on June 10th in Paihia. It was fabulous to see John and Elizabeth Parker take out top Junior pair especially as they were called in to play at 9.30pm the evening before as there were an uneven number of pairs.

                           

Elizabeth and John Parker                                             Intermediate winners,Paihia regulars, Val Christmas and Nancy Shuker

I must say the picturesque setting along with the Whaka Ama taking place on the water outside  made for a beautiful day out. Winning also helped, of course. (Tania Brown and Neil Ruddell were the overall winners.)

On May 20th Whangarei had a full house for its 5A Pairs with a lot of Auckland players visiting. I am happy to report the event was won by a couple of Kerikeri players who had been down to Auckland the week before to trial for the Interprovincial team. Unfortunately they didn’t manage to do particularly well down there but it just goes to show definitely "down but not out". The very next weekend Bill Humphrey and Paul Carson-Wenmoth competed in the Whangarei tournament and won against quite a few of the partnerships that had beaten them the weekend before.

 Above are Paul Carson Wenmoth and Bill Humphrey along with the day's sponsor, Jayne Broome,  who owns/operates a local liquor business. She is also a very keen new player. I had the privilege of having her sitting behind me watching in the last round. I was pleased when she announced afterwards that she would have bid pretty much everything I had bid during the auctions. That must mean we have some definite talent coming on! (With Tania being closely related to current international, Matthew Brown, we know exactly what she means!)

It doesn’t happen very often BUT I was not at the most recent tournament held in Dargaville. I understand there was what is becoming the usual Auckland invasion and 1^st and 2^nd were both taken by Auckland pairs, John Wang- Clare Miao and William Liu- Gary Chen. Paul Carson-Wenmoth - Bill Humphrey were the top Northland pair. In the Intermediate event, Judith Mehrtens-  Glenys Barrow averaged 61.88% to win from Roger and Cynthia Johnson and Thea Batchelder - Pat Reed.

Here is a board from a recent Thursday night in Whangarei. I bring it to your attention as the results were quite varied from 4 spades by South making 5 to 4 spades -1. Not one pair was in hearts?

Looking at the South hand, it would seem most had not observed the guideline of not pre-empting at the 2 or 3 level with 4 cards in the other major. Those who failed in 4 learned the lesson in a hard way.  

However, at our table, I won the Q lead in dummy and soon discarded my diamond on the K. Next came dummy's sole trump, the 6. East followed with the 5 and I decided to play my lowest spade. The look on my face when I discovered the 6 had won the trick was priceless.

I will finish with a wee joke given that a few of us “hard core  addicts” have already entered Congress and are now in the ”cannot wait” mode.

"Two guys play bridge all afternoon at the club and adjourn for dinner. They go over every hand dutifully writing on every napkin not to mention their tablecloth. They go back, play another session, and adjourn to the same restaurant for a late snack. Again they start to go over the hands. Finally, one says: "Bill, I can't take it any more. Can't we talk about something else, anything else like politics, the movies, sports, sex? Bill says, "Sex? " I had sex diamonds to the king queen......"

 

 

 

 

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