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Greetings from the Winterless North. I hope this finds everyone safe and well after the Christmas break and ready to get into it again this year.

December saw the Annual Northland 2017 prize giving with congratulations going to:

Top Open Player	Bill Humphrey	Kerikeri
Top Intermediate Player	Ian Johnson	Whangarei
Top Junior Player	Brian Cliffin	Kerikeri
Top Open Team		Whangarei
Top Intermediate Team		Dargaville
Top Junior Team		Whangarei

 

Dargaville's Intermediate winning team: Gerry Varney,  Pam Rope, John Nielsen and Peter Ball		Whangarei's winning  Junor team: Kim Thomas, Lyn Nelson and Elizabeth and  John Parker

The Northland Prize winners for 2017 were announced after the final Northland Pairs event held on the 18th November and Bill Humphrey
and his partner Paul Carson Weymouth romped home in this event with a whopping 71.27% in the morning and 69.42% in the afternoon                              
   

Kerikeri sponsor, Ian Derrick with Selwyn Hargreaves and Richard Simmons  top Junior pair on both days at Kerikeri		"Colours of the Rainbow", Len and Olive Dent Kim Thomas, Lyn Nelson and Elizabeth and  John Parker

The theme for the Whangarei Christmas Party was “Colours of the Rainbow”. Above we see Olive, our amazing director, who directs most of the events held in Northland, and her husband Len. Len also wore this as his “good luck” charm for the Babich Pairs and while it didn’t bring the luck he wanted, it certainly lightened the evening.

January 6th and 7th saw  Kerikeri host a two day event sponsored by Craigs Investment Partners. We were thrilled to see so many attend from all over the country. The eventual winners for the Bay Of Islands Swiss Pairs on the Saturday were Moss Wylie and  Kevin Skoropada who travelled all the way from Invercargill  to join us. It was fantastic seeing them and so many tables at this event.

             

Marie Milsum and Alison Beer    Jena Robinson and Ed Roggeveen The real long distance travellers from the Deep South
                                                                                                          Moss Wylie and Kevin Skoropada with Ian Derrick
                                                                                                        representing Craig Investments, the very generous sponsor.

 Sunday’s winners of the Bay Of Isands' Holiday Pairs were Alison Beer and  Marie Milsum (they were also runners-up in the Swiss Pairs), who rounded off the day with another 71.27%, a popular score in Northland!. They too were from outside of the area (Hibiscus and Rotorua)  and it was an absolute pleasure seeing so many faces, both new and old, at this event. Moss and Kevin managed a second and ended a pretty successful weekend for them here in Northland. Third in the Sunday Pairs were Thames' Jena Robinson and Ed Roggeveen from Picton.

Majors over Minors

Finally a board from the Sunday event.

 

My partner opened the North hand with a game force 2 and because of our point count system relay I replied 2NT (showing 10+ points). Great excitement as partner asked for aces and kings before signing off in 6.

My dilemma- Bid 6 as my hearts are so good. Bid 7 as she doesn’t even know I have 2 of them and my hearts which she could use for discards. (if an ace had been missing, it would be rather too late discarding if the ace was cashed at trick 1!). But then what if she had no hearts and couldn’t get over to play them? I chose to bid 6. (correct if partner has no hearts and certainly correct if she has some...and scores better when the contract makes....so seems a good choice!). Majors over minors!

 

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