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The scene is the Gold Coast Convention Centre. Wednesday February 14^th is the first of five days of competition, the first of the three day qualifying Swiss during which all 36 teams will play 11 by 14 board matches to qualify eight teams for the quarter final stage.

There are 36 teams but not 36 countries taking part. Of the 52 Commonwealth countries, there are representative teams from 12 including Australia and New Zealand, though some but not New Zealand have more than one. There are thus 20 national representative teams with the remaining 16 being a mixture of Australian state teams and private entries. Only national teams can take home the medals. More of that later.

For now, let’s follow the New Zealand team of John Wignall- Kris Wooles, Barry Jones- Jenny Millington and Jane and John Skipper as they played their first three matches on Day 1.

Opponent	New Zealand imp score	New Zealand vp score
Vajira BC	+6	11.87
Victoria	+8	12.44
Scotland Blue	-1	9.67

 

Three close matches which left New Zealand at the end of the day in 16^th place, but just 2.63vps behind the last qualifying place.

New Zealand picked up two double figure swings against their Sri Lankan opponents in the first match but “dribbled away” 24 imps off 8 boards to reduce the size of the victory.

Our action comes from the win over Victoria where only 32 imps exchanged hands in the 14 boards.

Here is a little bidding problem that confronted Barry Jones. Minding his own business, he held as East:

 QJ6432

 52

 T2

 965

and heard the following rather unsavoury auction:

West          North         East            South

Jenny                             Barry

                                      Pass           1

2NT             x                 3              Pass

Pass            x                 ?

2NT showed hearts and clubs, 5-5+ Michaels' style and there was nothing negative about either of North’s doubles. Do you stand the double or try one of the major suits?

Both East-West pairs did well on the following board:

 

East-West were playing Precision where 1 need not be natural. Hence, the pre-empting did not start until West had confirmed holding the suit (2). Kris Wooles described his 4 as a “super splinter” but John Wignall could not be sure of slam and took the money, only +500 from 5x.

Never mind. Along came Barry “frisky” Jones to the rescue:

West          North         East            South

Jenny                           Barry

                                      Pass            Pass

1              1              x ¹                 Pass

1NT            2               2              5

5              Pass            Pass            x

All Pass

¹ the bid which has coined the nickname

Barry did not have quite enough to open the bidding but he certainly made up for it with his next two bids! Jenny was a touch strong for her 1NT rebid (12-14) but her good hearts made up for a slight lacking of club cards. (“Barry can take care of that suit” she thought!)

Barry’s second bid encouraged Jenny to bid over 5 and while dummy was a touch disappointing (Barry says this is a common occurrence!), a short reflection saw that 6 would have been lay-down and that Barry’s aggressive actions had totally disrupted the opposition bidding. If you are going to be bad, be chronically so!

John Wignall, Jane Skipper, Kris Wooles and John Skipper in training for the event. Plenty of 
hand records :plenty of discussion!
 

We play this game for fun..really!

So back to Barry’s other bidding dilemma. Jenny and Barry do play their Michaels as being reasonably constructive though Barry certainly found the winning action when he took it upon himself to play 3, doubled of course. However, a couple of spade honours from Jenny were a very welcome surprise:

 

Not the best of 2NT calls but 3 was by far the best of the three level contracts for East-West. At other tables 3x went for -500, -800 and -1400 while Barry was able to escape for -500 in his contract. When Kris Wooles brought in 430 from playing 3NT in the other room, the loss was a mere 2 imps, though as Barry would verify, there had been a nasty moment along the way before he made an imp saving decision for his team.

In Australia, when you lose a match by 1 imp, you draw. So, New Zealand went through the day "unbeaten" even if the third match of the day saw New Zealand get 1 imp less than Scotland when 83 imps exchanged hands. Most were in decisions around 3NT, with one table in part-score when 3NT was making or one table in 3NT when 6NT was making.

On then to Day 2 when New Zealand start off against Australiia Gold.

We hope to be able to report on another "undefeated" day tomorrow.

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

 

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