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Bingo.. Mafia..Speedball
All in the name of Youth Bridge.
"Mafia" takes over from Bridge.
The Christchurch Bridge Club was taken over from Friday 12th until Sunday 14th August by a group of 44 keen young bridge players coming from all over the country to indulge in a weekend of “Bingo, Mafia, Speedball…”and much much more…. All in the name of Bridge.
It had to be that particular week-end as most present play Acol (check the week-end dates!). They learnt. They played heaps. They socialized and what was really important, at least for the Organisers, was that they all made it home safely afterwards.
They made just a “little mess”..well, we can strike out one of those words but it was all back to normal soon afterwards.
"Straighen up that dummy, Elizabeth!" Harri Fulton and David Young look on as Elizabeth Schuck
lays down dummy. Declarer, Matt Hughes, studies his hand.
The champion of the Individual, the traditional way these Weekends start, was Macleans student, William Han, who blitzed the field with 69.55% though Elizabeth Schuck, from the Hutt, would also have been pretty pleased with her 65%.
George and Aaron (Auckland Grammar) take on Sinny and Roisin (Dunedin/Hamilton)
They learnt and practised take-out style doubles from Christchurch’s Jane Skipper while it was Daniel Skipper who gave them a very good insight into counting a bridge hand both as a declarer and a defender. There was a none too serious quiz. They played Teams, “Back To The Future” style swapping partners each round and then on the Saturday evening, played with a member of the Christchurch Bridge Club in a standard Pairs session. Watch out for Tegan Bennik, the young Hutt player, who really impressed her partner, John Skipper. Their 59% session was the highest score of the night.
Dunedin's Brad Johnston was one of those who claimed to have got a successful line during "Bingo Bridge". Selective testing, a la Olympic drug testing was not in place for this event. Should it have been?
Sunday morning saw Dan Skipper’s talk which was followed by a fairly rough and ready Individual bridge session scored along “Bingo Bridge” lines. Chaos, tactical revokes and some wild over and under bidding were the flavour as players tried to get a line of scores on their score-cards. The Week-end finished with a session of Speedball with pairs getting through 30 boards in 90 minutes…no sweat! Well, just a little.
Plenty..and we mean “plenty” of food, lots of “choccy” prizes, some different activities like “Mafia” in the breaks…even some more bridge played. The Week-end was all about playing and mixing. It was great to see some new teams for the Youth Teams in Hamilton next month being formed.
My thanks go to so many…to New Zealand Bridge for funding the week-end (the youth paid $100 each which was a contribution to air-fares and just about every other cost of the week-end.). Special thanks to those who billeted the Youth. 37 of the 44 required a bed. Thanks to all those who came to play on Saturday night, to Shirley and Lance for their support, to Jane and Daniel for their presentations, to David for directing, to club manager Susan who was just everywhere, to Thea for the food and to those who helped with airport transfers.
The New Zealand Bridge Foundation sponsored two awards to the two participants who by their behaviour best represented the intentions of the Week-end. These awards went to Auckland’s Jeremy Fraser-Hoskin and Macleans’ College student, Georgia Wang.
Jeremy, over-dressed for the occasion was the hottest leopard in Christchurch
this week-end.
There seemed to be an excellent atmosphere and potentially some very good bridge players present. Watch out for their names in a year or three. It was neat to be there.
Richard Solomon
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