Anna Kalma's blog

Last night was the final night of the four week competition between the Te Aroha and Thames clubs vying for the Gillgan Barclay Trophy.

Jena and Joe: Jena Robinson and Joe Silcock receive the Gilligan Barclay Trophy from Carol Crowfoot - Thames President

This year it was won by Jena Robinson and Joe Silcock who averaged 62% over the four nights with Tim Rigter and Anna Kalma from Te Aroha coming second.

It is a great event with each club vying to out compete each other with food and wine (think it was a tie this year!). Great to see full rooms at both venues and if the rumour of Waihi joining us next year is correct - we hope that the event will get bigger and better in 2017.

Full room at Te Aroha

Click on the link below for the latest Matamata Bridge Club newsletter. Includes information on the latest tournament, new members to the club, stayman and transfer lessons as well as the programme for the much anticipated Melbourne Cup Day ...

And .... they're off.

Looks like Bathurst didn't put off bridge players coming to Matamata to play in the Intermediate Tournament in the weekend.

A full room of 18 tables turned up. Up for grabs is not only kudos of winning the 5B tournament but also the Intermediate League is still anybody's with just one tournament to go in the event ... and for everybody else there is the lunch and atmosphere to look forward to.

Winners Matamata Intermediate

Well done Pamela Pederson and Bren Birrs from Mt Maunganui after two strong sessions.

Mark and Jeffrey

Second place Jeffrey Chang and Mark Thomson from Hamilton retained top spot on the Intermediate League ladder with one round left to play.

Catherine and Joyce

Catherine Ward and Joyce Reid of Rotorua were in third place.

Graham and John

Graham Saunders and John Little from Waikato 4th.

Cathy Nolen and Karen Thomson
Cathy Nolen and Karen Thomson from Hamilton 5th.

Susan and Ross
Top Juniors Ross and Susan Provan from Putaruru.

Joanne and Judith

Best of the Matamata mob; Joanne Swanwick and Judith Howard who ended up 7th.

Topping the field after session one were Joyce Reid and Catherine Ward from Rotorua with an impressive 68% who were just ahead of Graham Saunders and John Little from Waikato club who were sitting in the same North South direction. Topping East West were Mt Maunganui's Bren Birrs and Pamela Pederson with 64% with Hamilton pair Mark Thompson and Jeffrey Chang coming into second place.

A review of the hand records showed that there wasn't a lot to get excited about in session 1 ... unless you enjoy playing and defending part contracts ... although for East West pairs there was however a bit of excitement which came in the form of a biddable grand slam on board 9; Well done to the three pairs who bid and made 7 diamonds.

Board 9 from the morning session DLR N VUL E-W:

	T86 J4 98 KQJ632
K74 AKQ53 AKT76		A93 T QJ543 AT84
	QJ52 98762 2 975

Full room at the Matamata Intermediate

Lynette Morgan Directs

In the afternoon session there seemed to be a lot more games on offer in both directions - although there was one board that was proving to be problematic for some;

Board 4 from the afternoon session DLR W VUL both:

	T754 7532 95 T63
986 J64 KQT86 42		2 Q8 A742 AKQ985
	AKQJ3 AKT9 J3 J7

South sitting there with 19 points and both majors covered must've been pretty confident in finding game somewhere when they picked up their hand ... whilst East with 15 points but only 5 losers would also be bidding competitively. It turned out to be a lucrative board for many E/W pairs who were doubled in a part score clubs or diamonds.

Tonight was the final of the Saxon Teams at Te Aroha - it is now a highlight in the Te Aroha Bridge Programme and it is especially poignant as we pay tribute to Greg Saxon who died close on a year ago.

Again we enjoyed a full room of 10 tables over the three week competition - not bad for a club with only 34 home members - although we have all our supporting clubs to thanks for boosting the numbers (the Christmas Party invitation will be forthcoming!!)

The competition was running in parallel to the Bridge World Championships in Poland so we were all given a participating country to adopt and national emotions were running hot on the final night...

Italy

In the end the successful team was Italy - well done Victor Kooter, Charlotte Jager, Stephen Lovelock and Shirley Townsend!

Japan

Runners up were Japan...

Netherlands

Best dressed was the Netherlands

Laurie the Pole,in the spirit of things

Special mentions went to Laurie for getting into the spirit of things (at least two bottles of Polish Vodka was distributed over the evening!) Ari Rigter impressed with his full Chinese garb and Dutch team looked the part (not so unusual since they are all Dutch!)

Pope (aka Adri Rigter) blesses the cards

Switzerland: Early favourites Switzerland failed to fire but had a lot of fun.

France: Top qualifiers France couldn't live up to the pre tournament hype

China: The Chinese finished bottom of their qualifying group and Ari Rigter was given special mention for his get up:)

Russians: The Russians spent most of the tournament competing directly with the Poles... same food, same vodka ... but much better furry hats

Australia: Australia didn't disappoint - they lived up to their billing ... great food. nice legs and some bonza bridge

Spain: They looked harmless enough - but gee the Spainish team was stacked with experience who had travelled from across the great divide (ie other side of Waharoa) to deal a whupping to many of us unsuspecting Te Aroha members. As they bought wine - we will welcome them back...

Our Polish president Tim versaus the Italian Charlotte

France: This is a much better picture of France but still missing Mme Rochelle

The night Richard Solomon came to town turned out to be very popular ... so popular that even after squeezing in the maximum number of bodies into the Te Aroha bridge club main room (turns out that 50 is pretty close to maximum) we still had to turn away dozens of keen juniors.

While we had a good number of locals, we also welcomed juniors from Taupo, Tokoroa, Thames, Cambridge, Hamilton, Matamata, Morrinsville and Waihi.

Richard definitely challenged those there - Doubles - specifically penalty, take out and reopening doubles was the first topic. When to double, what to bid after a double, and when to leave the double in for penalties also on the agenda.

Richard at night's end: The author neglected to get a photo of Richard in full flight in front of a packed and rapt audience ... instead here he is at the end of the night probably looking forward to getting home!

This followed by opening leads where Richard also had some people questioning their long held beliefs - I thought you always led your partners suit said some! Exceptions for everything ... and sometimes it is fine to lead your Ace which is a whole lot better than underleading it in a suit contract. And don't lead trumps ... just because you don't know what else to do.

After supper we had a discussion on planning the hand ... don't rush into the play and take your time to look at losers when the dummy goes down. Richard also talked a bit about signalling and discards to your partner - an important aspect of the game as juniors get more experience. Then we put into practice some of what he had been preaching by ending the night playing some boards.

"Stimulating but exhausting" was how one participant described her night. Definitely challenging and informative for those there who are already looking forward to a repeat performance next year.

We are lucky to have Gold Grandmaster and NZ Bridge Develoment Manager, Richard Solomon coming to Te Aroha club to take us through a Junior Mastercass.

Richard promises that it will be a mix of instruction and play designed to interest and stretch our junior level players.

Richard Solomon

Proposed topics will include:

How to use the double? both takeout and penalty.
Opening leads
Signalling to your partner
Planning the play of the hand

Please enter under the Te Aroha programme tab so we have an idea of numbers for catering and play purposes. NUMBERS LIMITED!!

Junior level bridge players welcome - cost for non Te Aroha members is $5 and Te Aroha will provide supper.

Date: Friday 16th September from 7-10pm

Judith Howard is the winner of one of Wednesday’s most coveted trophies. The Individual trophy is held over many weeks and requires seven different partners with the best six best scores to count.
Judith Howard

Judith’s average score was 60.33 which is most commendable as the competition is played without handicaps and four of her counting scores were played with Junior ranked players. Judith commented that being this year’s tutor for new players has helped her own bridge as the revision on her bidding has been most beneficial. Well done Judith.

The runner-up was last year’s winner Ann Ring who averaged 59.11

*stop press ... looks like I linked the hand record from session 1 to session 2 - so it doesn't make sense. Sorry about that - I knew I shouldn't have had that wine. I can't fix it from home but be assured you all played the right boards.

It was great to see many of the big guns from Auckland travel to Matamata for our 5A Tournament today. It turned out to be a great day to play bridge - pretty average weather and Matamata turned on a great lunch and hospitality to keep the 12 tables happy. Rona Driscoll our director kept the room humming with a 12 table mitchell in the morning followed by 2 x 6 table howells in the arvo playing the requisite 61 boards over the day.

Grant and Patrick

And indeed the big guns came to the fore after both sessions with Grant Jarvis and Patrick Carter winning with several percentage points to spare.

Second place at Matamata: Ken and Mike

Second place getters was our new newest Matamata member Ken Yule who teamed up with Mike Curry (I cropped out Mike's shorts as it was making feel far too cold).

Third Place: Ian and Karen

Third place were last year's winners Ian Clayton and Karen Harris who had a good afternoon:)

4th place

Liz and Blair came in 4th.

Best non open

Best non -open pair was Thea Waayenburg and Malcolm Kirkby from Matamata/Te Aroha - a great performance for a Junior pairing.

The best of the Matamata pairs were Anna Kalma and mum Hermanna Hemmes who also won the morning session prize.

Congratulations to Putaruru who successfully won the Waihou Challenge Shield on Sunday afternoon. Helen Doherty and Elaine Saywell were the top scorers for Matamata and also recorded the highest score overall but the rest of the Matamata team could not match their skill. The Putaruru team played consistently and totalled 421 points while Matamata ‘s total was just 378.

Ross Provan organised and directed a system of match –play where half the team played North/South and the other half played East West and every pair played all the pairs in the opposing team. The scheme worked well and was most enjoyable. The day concluded with a lovely afternoon tea.

The latest newsletter is available by clicking here.

It includes information regarding our upcoming Benefit night, Championships and Waihou Shield event against Putaruru as well as what has been happening in the club recently.