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NEARLY 1000 PAIRS, YET AGAIN.

The Babich Wines New Zealand Wide Pairs

The Babich Wines New Zealand Wide Pairs took place at 59, or was it 60, clubs around New Zealand on the night of Friday November 4^th.  The answer is “both” but sadly for those who like milestones, it is only the scores from 59 clubs which will count. In bye gone days when we had sheets of paper to record scores, we could have resurrected the scores from the Hibiscus Coast heat but not now.

Why are statisticians involved? Although we had more heats in 2011 and 2013 (61 in each year), we have never had more participating pairs than in this year, 998. With Hibiscus, we would have topped the 1000 for the first time. Oh well, until next year.

However, firstly, though, let’s congratulate the winners. Here, then, are the prize-winners who will soon be presented with some bottles of good quality Babich Wine:

1	Jenny Millington and Barry Jones	EW	Hamilton	68.63
2	Julia Barnett and Nan Wehipeihana	EW	Wellington	68.26
3	Yvonne Doole and Ron Janes	Howell	Wairoa	68.25
4	Pat Rutherford and Tony Hacking	EW	Tauranga	67.97
5	Sandra and Rod Dravitzki	EW	Masterton	67.48

 

The top two all Intermediate pairs were:

Two of the above five pairs are Intermediate players, those in 2^nd and 3^rd position. No-one can win more than one prize and thus, the prizes for the top two pairs below Open, get handed down, to pairs from the same club:

7	Peter Ball and Pam Rope	EW	Dargaville	66.50
8	Sue Jensen and Vivianne Nisbet	NS	Dargaville	65.80

 The top two all Junior pairs were:

50	Richard Simmonds and Selwyn Hargreaves	EW	Kaitaia	61.93
72	Louise Abbott and Sandie Pryor	NS	Hawera	60.53

 

Finally, there are wine packs to the pair who finished closest to 50%. There are joint winners. Te Awamutu’s Sally Whitaker and Kate Owens' score remained remarkably consistent. At their own club, their score was exactly 50.00 % and unlike many pairs, when their scores were match-pointed across the field, their percentage hardly moved, dropping to 49.99%. However, that tiny drop gave them a joint share of the prize as we also had : 

Jenni Douglas and Christine Yukich

Tokoroa

50.01

Jenni and Christine lost 2.7% but would be delighted to have done so.  

Interestingly, in the 2001 event, Barry Jones and Jenny Millington won the East- West field for this event with a score of 67.85% but came only 3^rd in the overall competition. They scored nearly 1% more in the same direction this time and secured first place for themselves. Normally, there is at least one score in the 70’s. Last year’s winners rolled home with over 76%. This year’s event was much tighter with no-one getting to 69%. The cards seemed to favour North-South but most of our top scores came from pairs who sat East-West. Yvonne Doole and Ron Janes proved that you can score well in a Howell.

Here are two boards which were good for Jenny and Barry:

 

West	North	East	South
Jenny		Barry
1 ♣	Pass	1 NT	Pass
2 ♦	All pass

 

Like a growing number of pairs in this country, Jenny and Barry play transfer responses to their 1 opening, a bid which can be made on as short as a doubleton club. The 1NT response shows a diamond suit and denies a major. Thus, with no major fit and no club hold, Jenny bid a quiet 2 and played there.

There seems to be four losers but after taking their high clubs, North can only exit a trump or a low spade. Declarer can lose to the A but even though South can switch to a heart, declarer can rise and take the spade finesse and now play out all their trumps. North has no good third discard, either setting up the T or J for a 10^th trick. Jenny made 10 tricks for a 76% score, beaten by those lucky enough to make or bid and make 9 or more tricks in no-trumps. At one table, East-West made 12 tricks! Jenny and Barry would have been very content with their risk-free 130.

Barry chose the right time to balance on Board 7 with Jenny realising that game was not a good idea as she held most of their partnership’s useful high cards:

 

3 was a Bergen raise, showing 4 card heart support and 6-9 hcp. With a minimum hand, South signed off in 3, a contract which should be beaten by one trick. However, Barry had no hearts, a reasonable spade suit and knew that from South’s sign off, his partner had to have some high card points to justify South’s sign-off short of game. Hence, he called 3 which became the final contract.

There is no lead to beat 3 but there should never be more than 9 tricks as South can score two trump tricks as East attempts to ruff losing clubs. However, Barry managed to score a 10^th with +170 giving them a useful 64%, far more than had he just passed out 3.

It did their cause no harm that their opponents missed all three available North-South slams but a very steady round, the foundation of most good Pairs scores, saw them have only two boards of less than 40%.

In the next couple of weeks, we hope to bring you some pictures of the prize-winners. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoyed the event. Thanks to the event’s sponsors, Babich Wines, and to the team of scorers, Jan Spaans, Michael Neels and Bob Fearn for getting the results out so quickly. Thanks also to all those at the clubs who organized heats, dealt boards, directed, scored, made teas etc and made this a special night for so many.

Also, we wish the benefactor, New Zealand Bridge Foundation, well in its quest to help all players with Improver Lessons.

Richard Solomon  pp New Zealand Bridge Inc.

 

 

 

 

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