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John Whyte...then. 

Youth Bridge then and now.

Then..

In April 2005, New Zealand held a Youth Trial to determine which three pairs would represent this country at the World Youth Championships later that year in Sydney. A cross imps method of scoring was used. The top pair won automatic selection with two pairs being selected from the remaining seven.

There were some interesting names taking part, names very much with us in Open Bridge in this country and across the Tasman: Michael Whibley, James Coutts, David Skipper, Blair Fisher while Paul Coleman has gone on to support our Youth Bridge program in recent years. Fraser Rew has now lived in Australia for many years and is also very active in the game. Several of the rest have disappeared from the bridge scene, hopefully to return.

One of the article writers in the June NZB issue, John Whyte, referred to the “different reputation of Youth Bridge.” In one match, he and his partner, Blair Fisher, faced Ben Nicholson and William Nu who “had been out partying the night before and who were feeling somewhat worse for it.” Have times changed?

John seemed well focused for this deal in a later match where he declared in 4x:

 

As Blair put down his dummy, he commented: “I might have been a bit aggressive.” “Just a bit” thought John who did not really appreciate dummy.

A was led to be followed by a diamond switch. John won his ace and ruffed a diamond in dummy to be followed by a club ruff. A small spade to dummy was followed by 10. He finessed, cashed A and ruffed a second diamond with dummy’s last trump.

John had 7 tricks from the first 8 as these cards remained:

He ruffed a heart with 7 and played 10 losing to South’s K. John could now duck South’s J exit (remembering the double of 4 by South) and make the last two trump tricks for his contract. Nicely played…and the rewards for an early night!

With such good plays, John and Blair finished second behind Fraser Rew and Michael Whibley with Daniel and David Skipper in third place. With Fraser and Michael automatic selections, the selectors chose the second and third placed pairs to make up the team. The team was very inexperienced internationally and struggled in the World Championships finishing 17th out of 18. I am sure if Michael, Fraser, Daniel and David, Blair and John knew then what they know now, the team would have fared much better. 

and Now

 Lysandra Zheng may not be part of our current Youth Team though she is still very much eligible. She indeed has been selected as a member of the NZ Open Team to go to China to represent New Zealand in the APBF (Asia Pacific Bridge Federation Championships) this year.

Last year was a great break-through year for Lysandra and her young teammates. One recent achievement for her was to win the 2024 Real Bridge International Bidding Contest.

There were 8 bidding problems per month adjudicated by a Panel of 22 world class players. With the top 9 monthly scores counting, Lysandra finished 1^st from a large number of entries. Her score was 678 (out of 720…each problem marked out of 10) and she led the contest for the last 7 months, finishing 14 points ahead of second, an excellent achievement. It seems over 4500 players took part in some or all of the event worldwide. 

Three other Kiwis finished in the top 20, Lysandra’s partner, Tim Pan 9^th on 655 Stephen Merriman 4th on 664 and Nigel Kearney 14^th on 638. While the other three are prominent Open players in this country, it would seem Stephen only plays on-line being not affiliated to any club. 

 

and the Future

8 young New Zealand players are taking part this week in Australian Youth Week prior to the regular Canberra Festival of Bridge. We will report on Kiwi performances and hopefully some hands of interest later in the week. 

The Kiwis led by Marcus Dudley, NZ Bridge's Youth Co-Ordinator, come from a wide variety of areas from around the country. Marcus himself comes from Te Puke while there are players from Greymouth, Balclutha, Hawera and Whangarei as well as the "slightly larger" centres of Auckland and Christchurch. The stars of the future? Well, one of them already is. Thanks to the NZ Bridge Foundation for financially supporting this trip. Remember the Loveblock New Zealand Wide Pairs last year was for the benefit of Youth Bridge in New Zealand.

From L-R Tamati Greig (Whangarei), Molly Meek (Greymouth), Marcus Dudley (Te Puke), Tim Omvig (Balclutha), Kat Holmes (Christchurch), Leon Meier (Christchurch), Zarias Werder (Hawera), Gordon Zhong (Auckland) and Mackenzie Rhodes (East Coast Bays)

Richard Solomon

 

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