Wellington won only one of the five Inter-Provincial trophies in ensuring that the Dougal McLean Trophy remains in the this year’s host region but it was the important one, the Dougal McLean Trophy itself. Consistency won the day as Wellington recorded three second places and one third place to keep the trophy where Dougal would surely like it to be. Last year, Wellington won two of the sections to win this trophy and this year they proved all they had to do was be consistent, to be the best Region. 

The victorious Region

The Section winners were: Auckland- Northland won the Open, Waikato Bays the Seniors and Intermediate and Canterbury the Women’s title. 

Dougal McLean Trophy for the Best Region

1	Wellington	38
2	Waikato Bays	34
3	Canterbury	31
4	Auckland- Northland	25
5	Central Districts	22
6	Otago Southland	14
7	Top of the South	8

Here’s a couple of reasons why the Capital came out on top.

 

Steve Baron, West, for Central Districts, won the K lead in dummy and led a spade to the king. If Wellington’s John Patterson, North, wins and continues diamonds, declarer can ruff and lead a low spade from hand. Dummy still has a trump to prevent a further diamond force. Steve would lose just two spades and a heart. 

However, on that first round of spades, John Patterson ducked theK. This made it very tough for the declarer. Steve tried another spade. John won with his jack and continued diamonds. Declarer ruffed in hand. John still had A7  and dummy had only one trump left. West was down to three trumps. Another trump followed (won by John) was followed by another diamond saw both West and North left with one trump each..and the heart finesse had not yet been lost. Steve could draw the last trump  but thus lost control when he tried the heart finesse. The defence took  a diamond trick (as well as 2 trumps and a heart) to be one down. To succeed after John’s duck, declarer must play on clubs, losing just three trump tricks.

In the other room, 5x was defeated by a trick. So, John’s excellent duck saved an 11 imp loss, reducing the loss on the board to just two imps.

What would you bid?

Jeffrey Craanen, a first-timer in the event, like his Intermediate teammates held the following in Wellington's first round-robin match against Canterbury:

 J10

 A106

 Q532

QJ74

His partner, Elaine Richardson, opened a natural 1 and Jeffrey responded 1 which was raised to 3 by Elaine. Superficially, the hand is not that strong, but Jeffrey’s minor suit honours looked very valuable. Holding both minors (yes, knowing partner has 4+ clubs can be very useful sometimes!) Elaine was likely to be very short in one of the majors. So, Jeffrey made a good decision to close the auction with a 5 bid. These were the four hands:

 

5 might have been better if that suit broke 3-2 and hearts were poorly placed as there is a discard available on the long club. However, the bad diamond break and 3-1 club break meant 5 could be defeated. . However 5 was fine with just one loser in each major suit. Meanwhile Jack Lyon and Ken Johns for Canterbury stopped in 4 making 10 tricks..10 imps to Wellington.

Intermediates - Click here for full Results

1	Waikato Bays	160.32
2	Wellington	145.03
3	Top of The South	136.12
4	Central Districts	113.28
5	Canterbury	104.77
6	Auckland-Northland	93.44
7	Otago-Southland	87.04

 

 

 

 

 

 
While on the Intermediates, the Waikato Bays Intermediate Team had a wonderful tournament. They were the only unbeaten team out of the 4 categories in the first round-robin and coasted home to beat Wellington by over 15 vps. Here is an example of the good form they were displaying.That’s over a 13 vp average to the winners, an excellent result.

 

Brian Gallagher was both lucky and unlucky when he bid to the 6 level. He would have been horrified to know that 5 of his partner’s 7 high card points were in the opponents’ suit though this was more than made up for by reasonable trumps and great length in the minors. Spades and diamonds were extremely friendly meaning that Brian would have made the slam even without the A lead.

The Brians’ teammates, Bren Birss and Pamela Pedersen, from Mt Maunganui, weighed in with an aggressive 4 game which had to be played well to make.

There is a certain club and diamond loser and if spades do not break (as they did not), there is no luxury of taking a (losing) heart finesse. So ruff the second round of diamonds at trick 2 and play a heart to dummy and a club to the king and ace. Win the continuation, ruff a club, back to hand with a trump and ruff a second club. If that was over-ruffed, it would hopefully be at the expense of a natural trump loser. On this day, though, there was no over-ruff and declarer could coast to 10 tricks.

Seniors - Click here for full Results

Waikato Bays were even more impressive in the Seniors’ event.

1	Waikato Bays	169.13
2	Canterbury	135.92
3	Wellington	130.77
4	Central Districts	105.53
5	Otago Southland	101.82
6	Auckland-Northland	101.56
7	Top of The South	95.27

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s a 14+ vps per match average for the team of Pat Rutherford – Tony Hacking and Rachelle Pelkman – Murray Wood.

Women - Click here for full Results

The Canterbury Women’s team of Shirley Newton – Jenny Wilkinson and Laura Stephen – Jane Lennon had the luxury of two losses in their final two matches but still winning by a reasonably comfortable margin.

1	Canterbury	152.43
2	Wellington	141.40
3	Auckland-Northland	134.84
4	Waikato Bays	134.27
5	Otago Southland	126.74
6	Central Districts	79.92
7	Top of The South	70.40

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open - Click here for full Results

The Auckland Open team of Jeter Liu – John Wang and Susan Humphries – Steph Jacob only lost 3 matches all weekend and two of those were small losses. It was worth the fly home, Susan, to represent your Region and do well !

1	Auckland-Northland	155.01
2	Wellington	145.25
3	Central Districts	140.86
4	Otago-Southland	119.45
5	Canterbury	114.00
6	Waikato Bays	91.87
7	Top of The South	68.56

 

 

 

 

 

 
All those who took part seemed to enjoy their experience. Congratulations should also go to all those involved in the organisation at the Wellington Bridge Club, with Murray Wiggins and Sam Ward respectively directing and scoring the event and also to all those who brought the event to life via Vu-Graph.

Richard Solomon

If you wish to view more photos of the IPs, click on the Facebook icon at the top of the website page

Take the time to listen to this interview with Brian Gallaher from the winning Waikato Bays Intermediate team

Go Back View All News Items