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Welcome to my final offering in this on, off, on again, off again and back on again season. Absolutely amazing that we have actually managed quite a bit of live bridge during the year. As I have not played a great deal myself, much of this report is gleaned from Website results, gossip and Richard Solomon for the final result from Akarana.

Two players feature large, however. In the Auckland Thursday Teams in October, generously sponsored by Logan Campbell, the power quartet of Malcom Mayer, Ian Berrington, Fuxia Wen and Paula Boughey just edged out Auckland Club Manager Deborah Tangney, Ann Barrowclough, Peer Bach and Yours Truly, despite losing to the latter team.

Ian Berrington, Paula Boughey, Malcolm Mayer and Fuxia Wen. Is that 59 minutes left for
Ian's speech?

Paula later paired up with Richard Stuart to win the Orewa Open, where the Intermediate went to Sue and Mike Spence. And she features on our roll of honour for a third time, partnering Andrew Tarbutt in the final Auckland Thursday Pairs in November, sponsored by St Vincent’s – this time on her birthday, no less! And Ian went on to win the National Teams, also at Auckland, in the company of Alan Grant, Anne-Marie Russell and Jane Lennon.

   
our helpful caddies at the National Open    The winners: Ian Berrington, Jane Lennon,
Teams, Briar and Alex                                 Anne-Marie Russell and Alan Grant

Ian’s fine run has elevated him to the rarefied ranks of Gold Grand Master – many congratulations, Ian! The latter event, a major by any standards, was superbly run, enabled in no small part by our two great caddies Briar Coleman and Alex Shan.

Akarana's 3A Christmas Pairs had a "P" theme for those who wished to dress up for the occasion. There were priests, prisoners, prostitutes, pink ladies a police lady etc but the most original and best outfit was that of a very knowledgeable player who came as                                                            Puppet Stayman                              Our new Gold Grandmaster

                                                
            That's Kinga Hajmasi who can give                      Ian Berrington was presented
            a thorough run-down of the convention               with his plaque at the Akarana tournament
            if you wish                                                            and set off in his quest for Emerald by
                                                                                        winning the event along with William Liu

            Beating Biritch

Can you? He's quite smart....but...

Here is a magical hand from the November Auckland Thursday Pairs that I think nobody, maybe not even Biritch the Russian Blue, could get right without peeping at the opponents’ hands. Ambitious pairs might end up in 6 from the East hand, and in a sense they would be right. 

Double dummy analysis says the contract can always be made. But how? Clearly if South leads a minor suit, this permits East an entry to pick up the trumps for 1 loser, and a trump lead results in the same outcome. But what if South leads her singleton heart? Watch this extraordinary line – declarer wins and leads the J! South is endplayed!

 More Tournaments

Auckland’s Wes Dodd Trophy was taken away by perennials John Wang and Gary Chen. Waitemata ran their usual dual 3A/5B event in November, with the former going to Matt Brown and mum-in-law Carol Richardson, and the latter to "rising starrs" Aaron Starr and Rob Davies.

The North Shore Club also ran a dual event in October, where Jacinda Manconi and Suzy Hails topped the field in the Intermediate and Michael Coats and Robert Raine in the Junior. Finally, Halloween saw the annual New Zealand Wide Pairs, with its usual set of fiendish hands ably curated by Richard Solomon. Congratulations to the top 3 pairs in the Auckland/Northland region: Vivienne Sexton and Maureen Russ from Kerikeri with a brilliant 72.16% and the best score out of almost 1000 in the entire country, Jody and Barry Whale from Royle Epsom and Grant Jarvis and Lynne Geursen from Franklin.

Here is a hand from a recent Akarana evening which features a punch, a counter-punch and an anti-counter-punch. Naturally, Biritch found the winning defence, as he modestly described to me later in the evening. North-South often ended up in 4 played from South, with East having overcalled in spades. Biritch as West, being an obedient kind of soul (well, sometimes), dutifully led Q and then gave the hand a little thought.

 

He could see that he would obtain a trump promotion if he continued the suit, but also that South could counter this by discarding a loser. So what did he do? Follow this seesaw of possibilities.

1. The right uppercut. West leads Q and continues the suit for East to play a second and third card of the suit. If South ruffs this low West will over-ruff and cash A. If South ruffs high, this promotes a trump trick for West. Either way – disaster. A trump promotion. Down one.
2. The left hook. South has played before, and does not ruff at all, but instead discards the losing club. A loser on loser play. Contract making.
3. The crunching right haymaker. West cashes the A before going for the trump promotion. Back to down one.
   
   

What fun this game is!

One of Auckland Bridge’s most enduring and endearing characters has sadly passed away. Here is what was written about her, taken from the NZ Herald.

"HILL, Mila (nee Didovich). Born Korcula, Croatia 1923. Mila died peacefully at Auckland Hospital on 22 August 2020. Much loved mother of Maria, Mila, Julie and the late Geoffrey. Loved grandmother of Grant and the late Rachel, Campbell, Katherine and Charlotte, and Alanna, and loving great grandmother to her ten great grandchildren."

Her daughter Mila (Doerr) also plays and enjoys bridge, having been through the Auckland Club’s series of lessons. Mila senior was a great cook and famous for her apple strudel. She played Bridge at the Club the largest number of times in any given year, frequently racking up over 200 sessions in the season. She always paid in cash instead of buying discounted tickets; it was a donation to the Club, Mila would say.

 Mila Doerr (Mila's daughter), the club caterer and Mila Hill.

Another well-known Auckland character passed a happier milestone during this period. Peer Bach recently celebrated his 80^th birthday, and generously hosted a substantial gathering for his bridge friends and (as he put it) “normal people”. Of course, Peer could not resist the opportunity to say a few (really?) words sprinkled with a few (really?) risqué asides. As small children sometimes read this column, I feel constrained in repeating them here. Congratulations Peer!

Always right? Peer's right lots of the time, even at the bridge table!

Finally, the Interprovincial Championships were held in Wellington at the end of November, and as I reported last time Auckland/Northland sent one of our strongest teams for several years, partly as a result of team selection rather than formal trials.

Other regions followed a similar course, and the tournament featured a very high overall standard of play. In the event all four of our teams did us proud, with the Open Team winning their division, the Seniors and Womens’ teams placing second, and the Intermediates ending up fourth out of the seven regions. Sadly, the Seniors’ result was marred by an unfortunate incident, with one of our players accidentally taking his phone into the playing area, where of course it rang during play. As a consequence, the team was fined 3 VPs according to new regulations announced just as the event was starting. The penalty was sufficient to deny the team first place. However, our overall performance was still enough to return the combined Dougal McLean Trophy north to where it rightly belongs.

 The Auckland-Northland players who won the Dougal McLean trophy for their region.

 

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