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Hello from a very wet and chilly Auckland. Many of our bridge players have taken refuge from the incessant rain by playing in the warmth and comfort of our very welcoming clubs over this period. Down in Papatoetoe in June, Gary Chen and Blair Fisher breezed to a comfortable win in the Open section, with David Spencer and Teresa Phillips cleaning up in the Intermediate division.

In the Grace Joel Auckland Thursday event, the familiar sounding pair of Bach and Cornell were easy winners, except that this time it was Bach senior, ie Peer, playing with Mike. The dual Waitemata Restricted tournament provided wins for Karen Smith and Candice Doyle in the Junior section and Warren Cardno and Jill Patterson in the Intermediate. Two major events at the Auckland club threw up some familiar names and some less so on the winners' podium; the National Swiss Pairs saw Fuxia Wen pair up with Jeter Liu to win, and the Country of Origin Teams victors were the aptly named "Tane Mahuta", better known as Michael Ware, Grant Jarvis, Blair Fisher and Mike Curry.

Over to Howick, where the Open winners were Faisal Alam and Gina Hsu, and the  Intermediates Mike Hickey and James Thompson. Back to the Auckland Club, and the July Thursday Bruce McLaren event was a second win for Mike Cornell, this time playing with wife Vivien. Incidentally, this was the second win in 5 days for Vivien after her triumph at the Te Aroha Teams the previous weekend; while this is not strictly speaking in the Auckland area, it was also memorable for our own Andi Boughey, who notched up her last few A points to elevate her to the rank of Grand Master; well done, Andi.

And talking of Bougheys, the Mount Albert Open Pairs saw dad Steve take out the trophy with Dave O'Shaughnessy, while the Intermediate and Junior winners were respectively Ann Hackett/Gail Cole and Heather Robertson/Lanell Monreal. Also for Heather Robertson, she and Peer Bach took advantage of the absence of many players at the National Teachers' Conference at the Franklin Club to score a win at the North Shore's Restricted event. See Richard's report elsewhere

(click here)  for more detail on the excellent Conference.

Back to Auckland again for the Regional Teams and Pairs weekend; that woman Andi Boughey won again in the Pairs, this time with mum Carol Richardson, and the Teams event was taken by Grant Jarvis, Ian Berrington, Dong Huang and Jeter Liu.

 The annual North Shore Challenge is a multiple teams event played over the three ranks (Open, Intermediate and Junior) among the five clubs from that area (North Shore, East Coast Bays, Hibiscus Coast, Orewa and Warkworth). This year, it was a very emphatic win for the North Shore club, who placed first in the Open and Intermediate divisions and second in the Junior and were the only one of the five teams to register an overall positive score. And finally, the Howick Open Pairs was another win for Warren Cardno and Jill Patterson.

Bill Fairs (second from the right facing) in a position most bridge players have not seen him: sitting down and socialising.

In some other news from the region, long time cleaner Bill Fairs retired from the Auckland Club. The unsocial hours nature of this job means that Bill's face is probably not that familiar to players, but he has done a superb job for the club for many years. Best wishes Bill.

 

Howick Bridge Club recently held its annual fund raising event for the Totara Hospice: South Auckland by organising a bridge tournament, raffles and sale by silent auction of donated goods from Club members and 137 local businesses. The generosity and support from the local business community has been a significant factor in the ongoing success of this event.

This year’s event raised a record amount of $8,000. Howick Bridge Club has donated in excess of $60,000 to the Totara Hospice South Auckland over the past 10 years.

 

Mary Wood, who has been tirelessly organising this event and personally visiting local businesses, theatres and golf clubs for the past 15 years is pictured alongside Trina Napier: Sponsorship Manager Totara Hospice, Melinda Seal: Fundraising Manager Totara Hospice and committee member Brian Craig.

 The winners of this year’s bridge tournament were Cheryl Winsor and Richard Andrew 65.06% (N/S) and Lynne Geursen and Bev Donaldson 69.72% (E/W) though the real winners were the hospice.

 The North Shore club has moved into the electronic age with the acquisition of scoring tablets; in fact, they will be the first club in the country to implement the bidding module in electronic scoring. This will be a boon to those who have difficulty with more traditional methods of bidding, and also to those who would like to see a record of how the bidding might have gone after the event.

A couple of hands for you featuring, as usual, our now infamous anti-hero Biritch the Russian Blue. First, a hand from the Te Aroha teams.

 

Some pairs found the optimum contract of 7NT, which has 14 top tricks, but many were in the more likely 7 played from the South hand. Many Easts made a Lightner double for a heart lead, and most Wests then found this lead to beat the contract. Biritch, of course, plays a system designed to ensure that he is declarer as often as possible, and ended up as declarer in 7 played from the North hand; this contract is infrangible. (as indeed is 7 played by either player!)

Our second exhibit is a hand from the Mount Albert event.

 

This time, Biritch was defending 3NT in the South seat, and found the opening lead of a low diamond despite the fact that West had bid them twice.  This ran to declarer, who took gleefully it with the 10, cashed the K ...... and now could not enjoy all the remaining cards in that suit in dummy. What declarer must do, of course, is reject the Greek gift of the free finesse and win the opening lead with the K, play the 10 overtaken with the J if South does not cover, and clear the suit while to A remains as an entry. As Virgil would doubtless have said had he known Biritch and played bridge," timeo feles et finitias liberas ferentes*.

"Beware of cats offering free finesses". What Virgil actually said was timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, literally "I fear the Greeks, especially those bearing gifts", a reference to the famous wooden horse of Troy.

 

 

Finally, a picture for you to admire. These wonderful items of attire were spotted at the North Shore club recently. Let's have some suggestions for a caption, and we'll publish the best few.

 

 

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