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Sydney Spring Nationals
Kiwis on fire on line in Sydney
There has been some New Zealand success in the Spring Nationals, normally held at this time of year in Sydney but this year held on the Real Bridge network.
Winners of the TBIB Open Teams, a 4-day event for the finalists, was the team of Sophie Ashton, Sartaj Hans, Andy Hung, GeO Tislevoll, Nick Jacob and Geeske Joel. They qualified second out of 52 teams in the two-day qualifying event and then won their 36-board semi-final by over 100 imps.
In the final, they played Axel Johannsson, Avril Zets, Liz Sylvester and Les Grewcock over 48 boards, winning 134.3-75imps.
GeO Tislevoll and Nick Jacob are a well established top New Zealand partnership. The third Kiwi in the team, Geeske Joel, may well not be so well known. She has only been in Auckland for a few months. Originally from Germany, she has spent over 20 years in the USA before arriving in New Zealand.
On the following board from the last quarter of the final, Nick Jacob fared much better than his opponent although both received the same lead.
| East Deals E-W Vul |
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| West | North | East | South |
| Pass | 1 ♥ | ||
| Pass | 2 NT | Pass | 3 ♣ |
| Pass | 3 ♠ | Pass | 3 NT |
| Pass | 4 ♣ | Pass | 4 ♦ |
| Pass | 4 ♥ | All pass |
2NT was game force, heart agreement. 3
showed a minimum and 3
a singleton diamond. Nick’s 3NT said he was minimum but still had some interest. Then followed two cue-bids and a sign-off from GeO, sitting North. 4
was high enough.
The lead at both tables was the 6. Nick won in dummy and played dummy’s other high club discarding a spade. Next, he ruffed a club in hand with West over-ruffing and exiting with a spade to Nick’s ace. He then made a successful trump guess by playing to the K and ruffed another club, ending thus with an overtrick. By setting up clubs in this manner, he ensured at least 10 tricks.
At the other table, the declarer got off on the wrong foot with a losing diamond finesse at trick 2. A spade was played with the spade loser being discarded on the 
A. However, the hand was about to collapse for South when a third round of diamonds was overruffed by the Q, with South ending three down and 12 very useful imps going to the Ashton team.
The winners celebrate their Real Bridge victory.
Geeske Joel, Sophie Ashton and Sartaj Hans, Nick Jacob, GeO Tislevoll, Andy Hung
New Zealand could also claim a partial success in the Dick Cummings Open Pairs played also on Real Bridge over the last weekend. 10 rounds of match-point Swiss Pairs, 100 boards and the winners, James Coutts and Liam Milne both hail from our side of the Tasman as does 4th placed Fraser Rew. James and Liam, who won all their matches except the last finished a huge 17.65 vps ahead of the 3rd placed pair, an excellent effort.
Richard Solomon
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