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Welcome again from the Winterless North. We nearly had our second frost this morning which will just about signal the end of Winter here as there are only normally around three frosts a year. (It sounds like Whangarei’s temperatures are matching the heatwave currently gripping Britain!) A good thing too as we have been busy on the Bridge front with a few different tournaments and milestones celebrated over the last couple of months.

First off we had the Arbonne Tournament on May 19th. This was a tournament sponsored by one of our very active club members who is also a driving force on the committee here in Whangarei.  As a 5A event it attracted 8 pairs from Auckland which was  good as the event only had 12 tables in total. We did manage to get 4 new players along for their first tournament. The winners on the day were Matt Brown from Auckland and Patsy Walters from Whangarei. Not a usual partnership and it was lovely to see this win as Matthew comes and plays this May tournament each year with Patsy in recognition of all of the help, guidance and lessons she gave him when he first began bridge.

I played with Andi Boughey and as not a usual partnership we had a very unusual bidding sequence on one hand where as West I opened 1. My left overcalled 1 and then Andi sat there for a minute and bid 7! ("fast arrival", Tania... obviously no interest in going any higher!) I nearly fell out of my chair! These were the four hands:

 

North, an Intermediate player had not yet finished and overcalled 7! Andi doubled  with this contract going 5 light, vulnerable 1400, a save against our not vulnerable +1440! 7NT was on as well but couldn’t be found after that sequence. The funny thing was once that board moved on, I heard at the next table a loud “Matthew!” about two minutes into the round. It was an easy guess the bidding had gone the same way at their table. Unfortunately for us they didn’t get the same interference. However, a great sacrifice found by Vanassa McGoldrick in that North seat.

Patsy Walters and Matthew Brown. Did you, Patsy, teach Matthew to bid all the way in one bid from the one
to the seven level? If so, he has learnt well.
Pictured with them is club President, Richard Bland, who is just recovering from a nasty knee operation but
expects to be running around chasing up those slow players when, as usual, he directs at the National Congress.

June 9th was the New World tournament in Paihia. This tournament was very generously sponsored by New World and the winners each received $200, second $150, third $100 as well as prizes for top Junior and Intermediate pairs. As usual a stunning day with stunning views and the winners were Bill Humphrey and Paul Carson Wenmoth who appear in the prize list quite often here in the North.

June 23th saw the 8B Open and Intermediate/ Junior 5B in Dargaville. This format is particularly trying for our hard working director, Olive, as she ran effectively  two different tournaments on these occasions. The Open winners were  Jill Cottle and (here we go again) Paul Carson – Wenmoth. The Intermediate/Junior winners were Patrick Costello and Sandra Hollis from Dargaville. It was nice to see the home side take out that win.

"The long and the short of it". That's Dargaville winners, Jill Cottle and
Paul Carson-Wenmoth.

 Over the weekend of July 22^nd/23^rd, the Whangarei Club was privileged to hold the Auckland Northland Regional Pairs and Teams. This involves an incredible amount of hard work behind the scenes. Full credit to Lee Walters and her committee for ensuring this went without too many hitches. Given the original caterers rang Saturday morning to say they would not be able to cater after all and the stand -bye pair pulled out, Lee and her team managed a herculean effort to make sure it still happened.

The overall winners of the Regional Pairs were Moss Wylie and Andrew Janisz  who played three extremely steady three rounds scoring 61.15%, 63.73% and 61.22%. It was nice to see Moss and Andrew win this event as they are not a usual partnership with Moss all the way from Invercargill and Andrew from Auckland.

The following slam proved difficult to bid and also difficult to make though Moss managed to find his way home in 6:

 

Moss, West, received a diamond lead which he won to ruff a club. When he tried to return to hand with a second diamond, South ruffed and played a trump. Moss won in the West hand and took a successful heart finesse, playing A disposing a club and ruffing a heart to hand. He ruffed his last club with K and played 10 overtaking to draw South’s last two trumps. Well played. 

         REGIONAL WINNERS IN WHANGAREI

          
Pairs winners, Andrew Janisz and Moss          The winning team: Clair Miao, Wayne Burrows,
Wylie.                                                                 John Wang and Jeter Liu.

The Regional Teams was a tough fight with another massive effort from Tony Morcom, as director. As there was an uneven number playing, so a 3 table match was played at one end of the room. It was an incredibly complex movement with this thrown into the mix as it all needed to be hand scored.  It was disappointing for Whangarei as a club that out of the 19 teams playing, only 6 teams were from the whole of Northland and of that only one partnership was from outside Whangarei.

The event winners were Jeter Liu, John Wang,, Clair Miao and Wayne Burrows.

The kind of score-sheet we would love to have two or three or even more times during a Teams event.
The above sheet belongs to Whangarei player, Ian Johnson, and his "team of girl-friends", Vanassa McGoldrick,
Laura Maton and Glenys Bilton. This was from the Main Centre Teams where in a 12 board match, they amassed 86
unanswered imps. Let's spare a thought for their opponents for whom the match was not quite so memorable. Surely, next time they will ask for a different number from Team 13! That's Ian peering over the top.
Up-coming Events

There is quite a bit coming up over the next few months including the Wylie Salvor which is a Northland interclub match which also involves the Doubtless Bay and Kaitaia clubs, the Tangatoria Cup which is between Dargaville and Whangarei and the Towai Challenge which  is a competition between Whangarei and Kerikeri held each year. Both clubs provide two teams of each grade and the challenge begins.

Keep safe and I hope to see many of you at Congress in September.

 

 

 

 

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