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National Swiss Pairs, Auckland. (18^th/19^th June)

Akarana’s Fuxia Wen and Jeter Liu had only played one tournament together before they agreed to play The National Swiss Pairs this year. They struck gold on this occasion when a series of high scoring victories saw them secure first place at the vital moment.

In fact, after four big scores, averaging over 16 vps in this 9 round by 10 board match competition, they led the field with just one round left:

1. Jeter Liu- Fuxia Wen                            108.25
2. Brett Glass – Gary Foidl                       103.85
3. Cheryl Winsor – Gina Hsu                    101.74
4. Jonathan Westoby-Grant Jarvis           101.71
5. Barry Jones- Jenny Millington               101.64

The top two played each other. 4^th played 5^th while Cheryl and Gina who had had an excellent week-end winning all bar one of their first eight matches, took on Moss Wylie and Russell Dive.

The last match proved to be tight with few big swings. That suited Jeter and Fuxia who had a narrow loss but not by enough to threaten their position. The Westoby-Jarvis/ Jones-Millington match was also tight (11.50-8.50) while Cheryl and Gina lost 6.0-14.0 to leave the final positions as:

1. Jeter Liu – Fuxia Wen                         117.48
2. Brett Glass – Gary Foidl                     114.62
3. Jonathan Westoby- Grant Jarvis         113.21
4. Moss Wylie – Russell Dive                  112.13
5. Alice Young – John Wang                   111.28
6. Jenny Millington – Barry Jones           110.24
7. Barry Palmer – Neil Stuckey               109.22
8. Cheryl Winsor – Gina Hsu                  107.74

Every one of the 56 pairs suffered at least one loss though Brett Glass and Gary Foidl were the only pair to win 8 out of 9

matches.

 

                        Fuxia, Carol Richardson, who presented the prizes on behalf of New Zealand Bridge, and Jeter

Here, though, is one board which helped Jeter and Fuxia on their way. It proves that sometimes you need strength as well as length in your suit when you are declaring at a high level:

 

 This was from round 7.

Those East-West pairs who reached 4 were able to make their contract though several tried 4 which was just too tough. A few North- South pairs bought the contract in diamonds at the 4 or 5 levels failing by one or two tricks, sometimes doubled. However, Fuxia and Jeter’s opponents reached 5 which Fuxia (West) doubled. Her reasonable trump suit was improved dramatically by Jeter’s singleton queen with the contract going 4 down, -800 and 12 very useful imps on their way to a very good victory.

Richard Solomon

 

 

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