All News
WELLINGTON REGIONAL NEWS with Paul Maxwell
Back to Kapi Mana's Multigrade and Kairangi's renovations.
At the end of this update, I'll provide a few more results from the Kapi Mana Multigrade mentioned in the June report. I was short on detail across the grades back then. While I'm addressing my past lapses, I also got the age of the Kairangi Bridge Club wrong when mentioning progress on its major renovations. It is a 1930 era building, not a 30 year old building. So no wonder it's been a challenge for the club management team. Built like a BSH, and so hard to deconstruct and reconstruct.
Success Stories from Hawke's Bay Congress
One or two familiar names will turn up in this report. Firstly, the usual Wellington incursion over Queens Birthday Weekend to the Hawke's Bay Congress, with Kate Davies and John Patterson in the winning team for the Open Teams Plate, and Pat D’Arcy and Dean Sole taking out the Matchpoint Swiss. Sue Brown and Jolene Zink had a good trip, winning the Intermediate Pairs and teaming with Jude Lucas and Karen Eriksen for a second successive win in the Intermediate Teams.
Hawke's Bay Intermediate Teams winners Victoria Swiss Pairs winners, Alan Grant and James Li
Karen Eriksen and Jude Lucas (rear) with club committee member, Derek Gill, on the left
and Jolene Zink and Sue Brown (front)
Alan Grant and James Li combined to win the Victoria Club’s popular Swiss Pairs from Anthony and Charles Ker. One further week after that, NZBridge offered the National Open Pairs at the Wellington Bridge Club. While Central Districts' Russell Wilson and George Masters came south to win, local players Pat D’Arcy and Graeme Norman were second, Stephen Henry third with Michael Ware, and Alan Grant and Anthony Ker fifth. There was also an associated 3A pair event, won by Graham Stronach and Sandy McKirdy.
Long time involved local club member, Barbara Daly, with Lesley Gilhooly, was a thrilled winner of the Kapi Mana Open on the 25th June. Carolyn Black and Chris Bolland were second. On the same day, Martyn Rew and Andrew Cushnie were first in the Upper Hutt Intermediate.
Kapi Mana Open winners, Lesley Gilhooly High scoring Wellington Open winners, Alan Grant and Anthony Ker
and Barbara Daly with Club President, Nigel Horne
Towards the end of July, we had the Karori Intermediate and the Paraparaumu Junior on the 23rd. Alwyn Courtenay and Alan Jennings, and Elizabeth Schuck and Dougal Watson, were the respective winners.
Open players were not left out on the same day. They just had to travel to the Levin Open in our adjoining Region. Anthony and Charles Ker did that, winning from Lynda Rigler and Peter Delahunty, and Lorraine Inglis and Judy Plimmer third. The latest local result, just this past weekend, is Alan Grant and Anthony Ker winning the Wellington Club Open from Graeme Norman and Pat D’Arcy. Perhaps the winners' score of 71.47% in the first session helped somewhat.
Junior League
Adrienne Dale and Miriam Lewis have extended their lead after 8 tournaments out of the 13 eligible events. As always, further information, on this and on the Interclub competition, is available on the Wellington Regional Bridge website. http://www.wellingtonregionbridge.nz
Wellington Region Club Championship
This is a local Regional Committee initiative, following the"Cambridge Sixes" type format. We have instituted it to replace the trials previously held to select our local Club team to go to the discontinued national Top Club competition. But you don't need to follow all that. We've set up a fun day team competition for our regional clubs, where a mixed team of Open, Intermediate and Junior pairs can play a few hands. Each grade pair competes against other pairs in that grade only. We had 9 rounds of 6 boards, scored by cross-imps (converted to VPs) across the whole field. Or so I'm told.
The very busy Tony Sutich worked hard to set this up, and the Victoria Club provided the venue, and also support with catering and the bar. Ten of the twelve clubs turned out, and from all accounts their players had a good day. Director Nebojsa Djorovic not only directed, but also put in pre-event time into developing systems to consolidate the results.
The winning Wellington Club team in the Regional Club Championship: Denise Barnett, Eirlys Hunter,
Grace Millar, Jeremy Morley, the Region's President Tony Sutich and , far right, Russell Dive
(missing: Greg Aldridge)
By grade, they were. Juniors: Grace Millar and Eirlys Hunter, Intermediates: Denise Barnett and Jeremy Morley, and Open : Russell Dive and Gregory Aldridge.
Yet, it wasn't all a Wellington club benefit. The overall winning pair were Lorraine Gaffaney and Vicky Young, an Intermediate pair from the Waikanae Club. That club and the Hutt, Upper Hutt, Karori and Kapi Mana clubs also featured if wewere to list out the top three pairs in each grade.
Waikanae and Karori were second and third overall. Detailed results are again on the Wellington Region website.
Kapi Mana Multigrade
As promised, having missed out on reporting detailed results from this tournament in last month’s update, I'm now going to give a full measure of recognition across the various grade combinations.
The Multigrade format is a popular one locally. Junior and Intermediate combinations can test themselves against Open players. Individual players can pair up with a stronger player, and play at a level somewhat above their usual club night. This can only lead to improvement. There's something there for newly promoted Open players who might not always win out against the top players. And we sometimes see higher ranking players from time to time, either looking to fine tune their system, trying out something new, joining in the social side, and even picking up a few masterpoints to fuel the fires. If you haven't tried a Multigrade tournament to date, give one a go. They are a lot of fun.
So on to the combinations. The winners, Annette Black and Nancy Cooney, were also the top Intermediate pair. Other combination winners were:
Top Junior : Diana Pratchett and Andeana Pilalis (Hutt)
Top Junior/Intermediate: Sue Fish and Tracey Shields (Kapi Mana)
Top Intermediate/Open : Brad Tattersfield and Malcolm Grieg (Wellington)
Top Open : Mary Ann Farrell (Victoria) and Lesley Gilhooly (Wellington).