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 Boy, is he happy!

It’s four years in a row for Wellington, as our team returned from Christchurch with the Dougal McLean trophy at The Inter-Provincials, for those very few who might not have checked the NZ Bridge website recently. The Open and Intermediate teams retained their trophies from last year.

 
   A proud chef de mission, Lynda Rigler, holds the Dougal McLean Trophy

While we’ve seen off the last of the Club tournaments for the year, it’s not a desert, especially for our top Open players. Before the IPs, they were contesting the Poppy Roberts Pairs final, held by the Wellington Bridge club. And now they have moved onto the same club’s Paul Titcombe Lowe & Co Premier Teams. Both events are open to players from all clubs, with monthly preliminaries during the year, ending with three nights of finals for the top qualifiers. Thus, the quality of the bridge in those finals is somewhat high.

The Poppy Roberts final, over three nights, was won by Peter Newell and Martin Reid, with 63.6%, the only pair scoring over 60. Nigel Kearney and Karl Hayes were second. Annette and Stephen Henry came third. We’re now into the semifinals of the teams, with, no surprise, the same names featuring in the competing teams.

The playing year will end with two events, again at the Wellington Club. They hold the Christmas Cheer 3A tournament on behalf of the Regional Committee on the 14th December. This is always well attended, with many players competing in their own ways with the tree decorations. All grades are welcome. At the prize giving, there’s a raffle. We have some trophies on display and even hand out some of them, for example, for the Interclub competition, and the top point winners in local tournaments in the different grades.

For those still alert after the Xmas celebrations, and even for those who might not be, we have the Suzanne Duncan 5A Pairs on the three nights of the 27th to the 29th.

Interclub

Which team has a longer run than the Wellington IP team? It must be the Annette Henry team in the Open grade of our Interclub competition. They did it again this year, almost going through unbeaten. There were 8 teams in this group, compared with the 16 teams in Open Restricted.

One feature of the Open Restricted, Intermediate, and Novice grades this year was that the leading qualifiers by round 7 had less success in the playoff finals in rounds 8 and 9.

The Open Restricted group had no carryover, as the competitions were run with two non-overlapping sections. The Kairangi 1 team, led by Michael Wilcox, won their semifinal and then the final match, both by good margins. The leading qualifiers from the two preliminary sections, Wellington 1 and Wellington 6, ended up 4th and 3rd, after Ruth Brucker’s Wellington 4 team came through for second.

In Intermediate, South Wairarapa 3 (Liz Catherall) as third qualifier, went through the semifinal and finals to win, with Wellington 1 (Lee Miller) taking second place. Although Lee’s team had a carryover, it wasn’t sufficient to take out the final. There were a massive 20 teams in this competition.

The Junior team, Karori 3 (Barbara Tumiłowicz) won from Wellington 1 (Helen Climo). These two teams had previously taken the lead in their respective qualifying sections. There were 8 teams in each section, 16 in all.

In the Novice group of 8 teams, Wellington 1 (Emma Holland), the second qualifier, came first, with  Hutt 1, Neil Sargisson’s team, coming second. Again, Neil’s carryover wasn’t quite enough to overcome the deficit in the final match.

This year’s Interclub competition had 68 teams. That’s probably well over 300 or so players, given that many teams have more than 4 regulars. The format, of playing once a month on Friday evenings, seems to appeal to many players who don't play in weekend tournaments. Teams from Masterton and the South Wairarapa clubs come over the hill. Only the Kapiti Coast clubs seem able to resist the lure of the Interclub.

 Recent Tournament News

We’ll start with the Kapi Mana Intermediate Pairs, 24 of them, headed by Kim and Kahu Livingstone,and then Katherine Gough and Martin Connelly. Both pairs averaged just over the 60% mark.

Kairangi continued with their Open Pairs tournament over three Labour Weekend evenings. This event seems to have settled down to have about 10 or so tables each night. It merits more but I guess we have to accept that many Wellingtonians go forth to other parts at this time. It was still a strong field. Fourteen pairs played all three nights. Anne-Marie Russell and Peter Benham won from John Patterson and Kate Davies.

As a spoiler, Peter has been playing much bridge this year, and has won, by my tallying, the trophy for the most A points won by a local player in local events. It will be one of those presented at the Christmas Cheer. (I only need to track it down first!)

The Wellington region had two pairs in the top ten of the Babich Wines NZ Wide Pairs. Linda Gibbs and Sheridan Evans playing at the South Wairarapa club came 4th nationally, and Susie Pattison and Owen Knowles, playing at the Upper Hutt club were 6th. The Wellington region also had the biggest heats, with 21 tables at the Wellington club and 16.5 at Upper Hutt.
                                               RECENT TOURNAMENT WINNERS

                
 Kahu and Kim Livingstone, at             David Don and Dougal Watson,Intermediate    Paul Baines and Dora Aw Yong
Kapi Mana, with local club President    winners at Waikanae                                        Junior winners at Waikanae
Kevin Stacey (left)                              David is putting on a very brave face despite       
                                                           the imminent intentions of his exuberant partner!

Waikanae held Intermediate and Junior tournaments in mid-November, 22 and 10 pairs respectively. David Don, Karori, and Dougal Watson, Upper Hutt, combined to win the former, and Paul Baines and Dora Aw Yong, both from the South Wairarapa Bridge Club, won the Junior.

Masterton held a Multigrade teams on the following weekend, the 17th. This is modelled on the Kairangi club’s approach, with a stronger pair, usually but not necessarily Open Grade, playing similar pairs. The other team members are Intermediate or Junior or a mix. There’s an advantage applied where there are Juniors in a team. This event proved popular with 18 teams taking part. A bonus for the club was a local team coming second. The winners were Lynda Rigler, Peter Delahunty, and Barbara and Mariusz Tumiłowicz. The locals were Rosie Bauckham, Sheridan Evans, Dara Carthew and Lee Elliott.

Our Regional Bridge Mate, Katherine Gough, has been holding Super Sundays for our new recruits. Here’s a photo of the last one for the year, held at the Karori Bridge Club.

Admin News

We did hold our annual Regional Committee meeting with clubs since the last newsletter. As foreshadowed, it was an opportunity for the local clubs to raise and discuss issues of interest to them. They also heard from our Regional Bridge Mate and Committee members - a full turnout from us, and from nine of the twelve clubs. We agreed to set up a meeting next year for interested clubs to go through the 2021 Tournament Schedule and address a few local quirks, such as a clumping together of Junior and Intermediates. This meeting will be at the Wellington club on the 14th February.

 

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