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Winter is Coming?

Otago/Southland have kept up the standard calendar of having a tournament (nearly) every weekend for those that want to go away. This year there were fewer people taking up the opportunities, especially when, for some reason, it involved travelling South.

Thankfully we were able to run almost all of the planned tournaments, and congratulations to the following players for doing well:

Winton Intermediate Teams (8 teams)

1st	Jeff Elton, Sherry Elton, Jan Brown, Yvonne Hughes	88.18vps
2nd	Richard Hishon, Pam Macleod, Sandy Buzzard, Jen White	81.44 vps
3rd	Karen Palmer-Hall, Judith Lawton, Lee Davies, Linda Taylor	81.41 vps

 

Invercargill Open Pairs (18 pairs)

1st	Kevin Skoropada, Moss Wylie	118.75%
2nd	Anne Somerville, Lorraine Oliver	115.36%
3rd	Robyn Hellier, Trish Morris	112.76%

 

Oamaru Graded Pairs (36 pairs)

1st	Frances Sheehy, Donna Ruwhiu	126.08%
2nd	Lorraine Peacock, Margaret Perley	124.60%
3rd	Brad Johnston, Lydia Turley	123.14%

 

Taieri Open B Pairs (30 pairs)

1st	John Sheehy, Frances Sheehy	124.68%
2nd	Kevin Farnden, Kaye Wilson	118.30%
3rd	Paul Freeland, Margaret Perley	117.14%

 
  Mother and son winners at Taieri, Frances and John Sheehy

Queenstown Open Pairs (30 pairs)

1st	Maggie Stratford, Sherril Harries	117.30%
2nd	Lorraine Oliver, Kay Shand	115.38%
3rd	Dianna Evans, Ron Evans	113.46%

 

Cromwell Open Pairs (26 pairs)

1st	Jenny Pryde, Marion Furneaux	123.76%
2nd	Elwyn Hughes, Elspeth Welsh	120.72%
3rd	Sherril Harries, Maggie Stratford	120.34%

 

Cromwell Open Teams

This event wasn’t run due to not having enough entries.

 

Winton Open Teams (10 teams)

1st	Paul Freeland, Margaret Perley, Chris Ackerley, Arleen Schwartz	79.24vps
2nd	Sam Coutts, Glenn Coutts, Peter Hall, Brad Johnston	65.64vps
3rd	Moss Wylie, Lindsay Glover, Anne Somerville, Kevin Skoropada	62.21vps

 

              Computer Favourites!

  Winton winners,Chris Ackerley, Arleen Schwartz, Margaret Perley and Paul Freeland.

Something interesting happened at the Winton Teams. After 4 rounds, the Freeland team was reported to be on 80.68 Vps, 26 clear of the field. Assuming they play the same type of bridge in Winton as they do elsewhere, getting a maximum score in every round would have netted you 80 Vps – no wonder they won with this sort of leg up. The scoring software seemed to be playing favourites and had assigned them an extra 10 vps that no-one had noticed throughout the day.

 

The Otago Bridge Club also held a Lions (Camp Quality) Fundraiser Tournament, which was well supported by 42 pairs. Over $1000 was raised for charity, and the honours on the day went to:

1st	Matt Blakeley, Philip Noye	68.70%
2nd	Kevin Farnden, Kaye Wilson	67.60%
3rd	Donna Ruwhiu, Kristen Collins	63.70%

 

Phil and Matt are both working actively to help improve the quality of bridge by running the learners’ lessons, organising and running advancers seminars, and distributing weekly notes breaking down the boards played in the Intermediate / Junior divisions at the bridge club. It’s good to see that they can disprove the “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” idea!

Entries were also down in the South for the Rubber Bridge. The Otago Bridge Club tends to be able to field around 10 pairs, but this year were scrambling for a fourth. In total, the region has 12 pairs competing for a place in the National Finals in Hamilton.

One thing that the Otago Bridge Club does well is that it runs a cross divisional year-long teams’ tournament. This tends to be well supported both by top players at the club as well as less experienced players – as for them it’s a novel change in how to play bridge. The Otago Bridge Club even uses paper scoring instead of any digital method, which makes the process of scoring up with your opponents an integral part of the night instead of an incidental one.

This year we’ve got 30 teams competing in a qualifying Swiss before we’ll break off into divisions and play a double-round robin throughout the year. I’d strongly recommend that all clubs look into offering some sort of teams’ style event if you are not already.

Making things easy on partner

 

 This hand from the Winton Open Teams provided an opportunity for East players to go astray. Imagine defending 4 after the above auction.
West doesn’t have an inspiring collection from which to lead, but may lead a diamond trying to lead through dummy's strength. Say it goes: 6, 7 from dummy, Q, 4.

East can see that they could be entitled to 2 more diamond tricks (they are on the deal) if their partner can get in, and perhaps a club trick; but the spades and hearts seem to be onside for declarer from East's perspective. East should switch to a club because it’s the only real option for the defence.

If they switch to a low club, it’s easy for partner to win and play another diamond through for -1, but some East players switched to the K or J. This makes it difficult for West, as they may not see the need to overtake this. Once East’s club holds, they’d be thinking “why didn’t my partner overtake my club for another through?” and conclude that the winning defence must be to tap dummy by playing another club. If West had 4 trumps instead of South having 5, this would promote them a trump trick through shortening dummy's trumps and making it impossible for South to pick up their K. Switching to a low club is the mark of a strong defender, envisioning partner's possible problems and finding a way to guide them on the right path.
You are there to help your partner if you can.

 

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