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Welcome back (again!) to another report from Fortress Auckland. What with Christmas, New Year, summer breaks and snap lockdowns, it has been a bit of a stop-start period for us here. Nevertheless, we have managed to sneak in some live bridge in addition to online tournaments, ably arranged by Patrick Carter, Julie Atkinson et al from the Auckland Club. As often seems to be the case, one clan that features large in this issue is the extended Boughey bubble.

Back at the end of December, Andi of that ilk and Matt Brown pulled off a stunning win in the ever popular 3-nighter at Papatoetoe. Not content with leading the field with a commendable 61% average over the first two nights, they blitzed 77% on the third to win by an average of over 7%. The second 3-nighter at the Auckland Club, just into the New Year, saw Andi team up with dad Steve to a second win for her. And a week later, Steve was back in action, this time with Andrew Tarbutt, to win at Waitemata. And yet again, Steve graced the winners’ podium together with William Liu at the Auckland Club’s dual Bell-Taylor trophy.Winners of the Eileen Taylor Salver at that event for top Women's Pair were Kinga Hajmasi and Candice Doyle.

Not to be outdone, Andrew T was also a winner with Owen Camp at Auckland’s Waitangi Day – I say “a winner”, as director Patrick Carter as a novelty decided to run two entirely separate events, one for the North-South field and one for the East -West players. The North-South field was headed by James Yang and Yuzhong Chen.

    Winners at Waitemata                          and Franklin                                and Eileen Taylor Salver winners
                                                                                                                               at Auckland's Bell Taylor Pairs

              
 Andrew Tarbutt and Steve Boughey      Anna Kalma and Richard Solomon  Kinga Hajmasi and Candice Smith
with Waitemata Treasurer, Joseph
Parker (left) who fulfilled many roles
on this day including m.c. and barman!

Slightly further afield northwards, at Warkworth Lee and Patsy Walters followed up a moderate 51% in the first session with a totally immoderate 71% in the second. In the other direction, your Esteemed Editor Richard Solomon teamed up with Anna Kalma to take the Franklin Club’s Swiss Pairs. Finally, at Papakura, Prem Soundra and Gong Yunfei took the Open 3A, with Helen and Leah Andrews leading the charge in the Intermediate 3B.

                                                           First at Papakura

                                     
In the Intermediate event:                                           in the Open, a happy looking
sisters Leah and Helen Andrews                               Prem Soundra though his
                                                                                        partner, Gong YunFei had to
                                                                                          make a quick exit

In other news, you will have read Richard’s piece about the evergreen Arch Jelley of the Mt Albert Club. Arch was awarded the Companion of the NZ Order of Merit in the New Year’s Honours in January. While the award recognised his outstanding achievements as an athletics coach, including guiding John Walker to the 1976 Olympic Games 1500 m gold medal, his contributions to his club and region in our own sport (!) have also been very substantial. Congratulations, Arch!

Companion of the NZ Order of Merit, Arch Jelley

Not much to report from Biritch the Russian Blue, I am afraid. He has been taking this social distancing business rather seriously – not that he is ever that social, of course. However, here is a hand from the Auckland Waitangi Day Pairs that will test your bidding understandings with your favourite partner.

 

 

As we can see, 6 (as is 6NT) is pretty well foolproof - but how to find it? And on a good day, even 7 has good chances. Depending on methods, West will open 1 playing a weak no trump; playing a strong no trump, opening 1NT may work out rather better, but then you need some method for showing the 5-card  suit. If West does open 1NT, East will transfer to , of course, (or can suit- set spades immediately perhaps with 3) and probably follow up with a game forcing 3. Once West accepts the spade suit, East can ask for aces; on finding all the missing three, the small slam looks good. Now if West holds K, the grand slam is looking pretty likely, whereas K is of little use. So, how do you respond to the critical king ask of 5NT in your system, to show K but deny K? Best make sure you know! (The answer seems to lie in responding specific kings to a king ask rather than just the number of kings.)

Finally, a shout out for the new Auckland Northland Regional Committee. Many thanks to Sue Brown, Tony Morcom, Bianca van Rangelrooy, Trevor Robb and others who have ably managed this for a number of years, but who have now decided to move on. For the present, your contact is Grant Jarvis, gjarvis@xtra.co.nz. One of the principal tasks for the ANRC is to organise and select teams for the Interprovincial Championships. This year, the event itself will be held in Auckland in late November, so they will have the additional duty of arranging that. So, if you have a hankering to represent our region in one of the four categories (Open, Women, Senior or Intermediate) pen the date of the weekend of May 8^th /9^th for the trials in your diary.

 

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