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 in memoriam: Naida and Howard Sadd.

It has been a busy start to the year for the dealers with most tournaments being either Teams or Swiss Pairs.  We kicked off this year with the Marlborough 10A Teams at the end of January.  A great turn out with 30 teams from all over New Zealand.  Very close in the top three placings, but the McKirdy Team (Sandy McKirdy, Graham Stronach, Kate Davies and John Patterson) just had the edge, over second place Tibble Team (Pam Tibble, Margaret Burgess, Jenny Wilkinson & Shirley Newton). 

    Top in Spades                                 2nd in Spades                                         Top in Hearts

              
John Patterson, Sandy McKirdy,   Shirley Newton, Pam Tibble,                   Maurice Carter, Michael Sykes, Phil Dewar
 Kate Davies and Graham Stronach  Margaret Burgess and Jenny Wilkinson   and Jim Jessep

 Second in Hearts                     Third in Hearts                             First in Diamonds                                               
   

Pam Whitehead, Stuart Grant    Chris Marshall, Katherine           Valerie and Michael Fitzsimons,           
Peter and Jenny Story,              Brookes and Pam Dravitzki         Barbara Gordon and Chris Sutton  

The end of February was Swiss Pairs in Westport.  Thirty-six pairs on a sizzling hot day – one of the main incentives to move up the rankings was to get out of the corner until Daryl Ireland came to the rescue with some fans!  As always, hospitality at Westport was second to none. Congratulations to Chris Marshall and Pam Dravitzki who defended their title from 2020 and say that they are aiming for a hat trick next year.  They won each of their six matches which is an impressive haul. 

The following week, Nelson hosted 80 players for their annual 5A Teams tournament.  Congratulations to the Young team – Robin Young, Carolyn Wood, Chris Henry and Tony Oberdries who came out on top.  They had been hovering around the top places throughout the day but saved their run to the last round.  Special mention to Golden Bay’s Packard team who punched well above their ranking coming 11^th with a combined RP of 24.  Superb effort from the kitchen too with many members giving up their Saturday to look after us all!

                                                        SPADES
                      First                                         Second                                     Third

     
Tony Oberdries, Chris Henry,                 Carol Minchin, Wayne Smith        Toby Gordon, Jana Bott, Adrian Abraham
Carolyn Wood and Robin Young           Sita Monaghan (Sheila Beggs absent)  John Penny (absent) 

                                                        HEARTS
 
          First                                                    Second                                                         Third

     
Ruth Field, Anne Shearer, Justine &         Steve Penny, Tim Packard, Pam Wood     Leigh Gamby, Peter Grooby, Anne &
 Martin Thompson                                    & Annie Telford                                           Bevan Bruce

And on the subject of being looked after…..Richmond held their annual St John Youth Fundraiser at the end of February.  All proceeds of the day are donated to the St John Youth and in return, they prepare, serve and clear up an impressive afternoon tea.  Bee Campbell and Shelagh Noble won the bridge but the real winners were the St John Youth.

 
 St John Youth

And finally, Picton held their Junior Tournament on 13 March, twelve tables.  A good one for those starting off on the tournament journey; in fact, there were enough novices to form their own section.  As always, a great input from local and club members with directing by Bev Gay, calm scoring (I believe a calmness was required) by Lesley Pincombe and catered by Sally Lang and her band of willing helpers.  Many stayed on to watch Team NZ crush Luna Rosa in the second race. (Thanks Chris for this report)

          1st Spades                         1st Hearts                            1st Diamonds

   
 Bev Hirst and Rosemary     Dawn Wheeler & Andrea Hutchings    Joan McDougall & Gail Woollacott
 Hargreaves                            (4th overall)                                       (8th overall)

Following the success of the social distance teams while we were in lockdown last year, our thanks go to Ray Curnow for running another series over the summer break.  All nine teams need to be congratulated on actually completing their matches; finding dates did prove a bit tricky at times, but we all got there and was a fun competition.  Winners were the Allison Team of Jana Bott, Rebecca Osborne, Ruth Allison and Sita Monaghan.  They were presented with their prizes, donated by Westport’s Yvonne Scarlett from Scarlett and co at the Nelson Teams.  Thanks Yvonne.  Playing online has been great for those out of towners, lovely to have some ex Top of the South players back in the fold.

Grand slams Galore

They say that there are 635,013,559,600 bridge hands. So, it is going to be a while before a hand like board 20, in Richmond on 4 March reappears!  4 pairs found 7NT, another 7, 2 in 6NT and one in 4. 

 One would think that bidding hands with 38 high card points would be straightforward. However, 19 opposite 19 is not so easy as the 3 bid could be on as little as a 15 count. However, East can take control after 3 using Roman Key Card Blackwood. 5 showed two key cards and the Q. East then asked for side-suit kings with West showing all three. East could now count three tricks for certain in three suits and four tricks in clubs. That's 13 tricks and the contract need not/ indeed should not be played in the known 5-3 heart fit. You can see the problem above. West must start with a high trump in the West hand and then play a second heart to the queen to expose the bad trump break. 7 should make but 7NT is much easier to play (claim at trick 1!) and scores better.

Farewell to Naida and Howard Sadd

Sadly it is not all good news.  Marlborough lost two of its members in 2020; Howard and Naida Sadd.  They took up bridge over 50 years ago when persuaded by their “500” partners to give it a go.  Thank you, Fran Jessep, for this fitting tribute:

"The Marlborough Bridge Club lost two of their “legends” last year, Howard and Naida Sadd. The two of them gave endless amounts of time and energy to the Club, and were life members. Although they frequently won tournaments and prizes, they are most remembered for their warmth and humour. They both loved their bridge and could be relied upon to be stiff opposition and great partners. We will miss them a lot."

 Fran Jessep

In other news, lessons are underway in several clubs, Nelson has joined the ranks of clubs using bridge tabs which are proving very popular. There is much discussion about Congress.So expect to see a significant Top of the South presence and we are all looking forward to a less disrupted year of bridge.

 

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