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It's been a busy time for tournament players in Wellington. While the local regional congress over the Anzac weekend was a great success by all accounts, I'm coping with a trying situation.

Against expectations, the weather was superb. Again. While not affecting many players, there are some few of us who, looking out the windows after a particularly ill- judged and executed ploy, think about the fine day outside. Maybe I should join those folk who choose bowls, golf or croquet for weekend fun. In such circumstances, it's a howling wind and driving rain outside that will keep players like me in the game. Not all the 200 or so well dealt and managed Open boards were such character tests, and some even went well for me. So I'm hanging in, despite Wellington's run of good weather for every tournament I've entered recently. What is the world coming to? A Wellingtonian complaining about the good weather!

The Congress attracted visitors from Invercargill to Auckland. The slight downside was they seemed to take all the prizes. Intermediate, Junior and Novice numbers were below what the most optimistic would have hoped for. The players who did turn out enjoyed two days of testing pairs and teams tournaments, and some carried on to play in the Swiss Pairs on the Monday.

Richard Solomon has an article on the tournament with details of the winners and some of the bridge. You can find more photos from the tournament on the local regional committee website, click here  (where you can even find some Wellington based winners).

 Hutt Turns 50

There have been a few other local tournaments of note, with some highlights below. Before that, we should recognize a significant social event for one of the local clubs. More than 100 members of the Hutt Bridge Club (nearly 50 percent of the club's membership) joined in the festivities marking the club's 50th birthday on Sunday 3 April.

The event kicked off with a jubilee tournament with 52 tables participating, followed by a prize-giving, food and wine and a cake-cutting ceremony performed by 94-year-old Doreen Watson. Doreen has been an active member for 50 years from the time her husband, Bob, founded the club with Eric McCarroll in 1966. She still drives herself to bridge.

Joint club founder, Doreen Watson

cutting the celebratory cake.

 Other Tournament News

South Wairarapa Bridge Club ran its Intermediate and Junior Tournaments on the 3rd of April. Gloria Wong and Duncan Adair won the former convincingly, and Marilyn Smethurst and Martin Connelly the latter. There were 10 and 15 pairs in the tournaments, respectively.

The Kairangi Intermediate and Junior tournaments were held on the 17th of April. Denise Barnett and Tegan Bennik scored 66.09% in the first session of the 11 pair Junior tournament and then improved on that to average just under 70%. Many locals will have first come across Tegan a few years ago, when she was a very good and very young caddie. Martyn Dowman and Alan Jennings won the Intermediate tournament of 25 pairs.

 Tegan Bennik and Denise Barnett, along with Kairangi President, Peter Palmer

 

Continuing the theme of big wins, Mindy Wu and Sandra Coleman won the Masterton Open on the same day by seven percent from the second placed pair.

The Karori Bridge Club held their Mixed Sex Pairs tournament on the 28th of March, won by Nan Wehipeihana and Tani Blackburn from 27 other pairs. By the way, Karori run a Facebook page that contains club news and this is where they upload their photo gallery. click here

Anthony and Charles Ker won the recent Upper Hutt Open tournament of 11 tables. They improved upon their relatively slow start (for them) by scoring 70.45% in the second session. Incidentally, this confirms that you are competing in duplicate against the pairs sitting the same way, because that score sucked out most of the otherwise flat session's N/S match-points - 52.6% was good enough for second place that way, and only one other N/S pair scored above 50. Haley Fenwick and Clinton Scott came second overall.

The Victoria Bridge Club held its 8B Multigrade tournament on the 10th April. There are too many winners in the various grade combinations to list here, but the results are in the third page of the club's April newsletter. click here You can see that the winners come from many of the local clubs, and there were many entries crossing the grades. This is a testament to the popularity of this tournament and the Multigrade format generally. Pat Knight and Eileen Gray were the overall winners, and Jan Hughes and Judy Simpson from Victoria were the top Juniors.

 Inter-Club Bridge

There have been two rounds of Interclub bridge so far, and some teams have already made strong statements by putting up big scores, especially so in the two Open grades.

NZB Chairman "comes to town"

The NZ Bridge Chairman of the Board, Arie Geursen, attended the 29 March meeting of the Wellington Regional Committee. This was another positive interaction following on from Alan Turner attending the Committee's recent meeting with the local clubs, along with Allan Joseph's ongoing presence as a locally based Board member. We can now assume the local Committee has a good understanding of the Board's intentions, strategies and plans!

As well as appreciating the big picture, the Committee was busy working with the Wellington Bridge Club management, lead director Allan Joseph and others on the Congress Committee, in setting up the Congress over Anzac weekend…. which is where we came in.

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