Anna Kalma's blog

The Spa Teams were held on a very frosty day in Te Aroha.

18 open team and 10 intermediate teams turned up to contest the tournament.

The winning Open team (and only team with 5/5 wins) were Aucklanders Tom Jacob, Steph Jacob, Viv Cornell and Andi Boughey. It was particularly memorable for Andi who collected the A points required to gain Grand Master status - a phenomenal achievement for her at just 22 years old.

Spa Town Open Teams winners: Winning team from L-R Tom Jacob, Vivien Cornell, Steph Jacob and Andi Boughey

The intermediate section was won by the Bay team of Gilda Rowland, Tina Dudley, Muriel Cruickshank and Carol Cullen.

Intermediate Spa Town Teams winners: Intermediate winners from L-R Tina Dudley, Carol Cullen, Muriel Cruickshank and Gilda Rowland

The day went relatively smoothly thanks largely to the directing of Norm Silcock and scoring maestro Jan Spaans. Also thanks to the many helpers of the Te Aroha Bridge Club, Matamata club for lending so much stuff required to hold the tournament off site and clubs who came to the rescue to put a team in to assist with team numbers.

Whilst the past few years we have had torrential rain to deal with, this year the old St Joes Hall was struggling to warm up after -2 degree frost in Te Aroha but at least the sun was shining ... or so we thought until some of the South/East players were hit with a bout of sun strike in the afternoon. There was some novel ways to overcome this including the 'napkin tucked into the glasses' method from Barry Jones...

Barry

With only two heats remaining, Lesley and Sonia have recaptured the lead on the WAP ladder after a sensational win (thanks to a blinding afternoon session) on a rainy day in Te Aroha over the weekend.

Lesley and Sonia: Lesley and Sonia

Thirty-one pairs turned up and played a couple of 26-board Webb movements under the direction of Dallas Dagg.

Another notable performance saw Malcolm Kirkby and Peter Daffurn finish as our top non-Open pair after a third in the morning session . Many congratulations to them on an outstanding achievement.

Malcolm and Peter: Malcolm and Peter

It was sadly noted that Melba Kerby passed away on Friday night at Waikato Hospital and there is a memorial service to her on Saturday the 21st of May at noon at the Te Aroha RSA.

Melba with Ari

While we haven't seen Melba much at the bridge table over the past couple of years, it was nice to see her at the Christmas Party and club members regularly kept in contact with her. She was a long time member of the bridge club - her family links go back to the founding of the club through her brother Lindsay Reid.

She will be sadly missed by those who knew her.

A couple of exciting new developments are happening in this area.

• Vil Gravis, long-time respected Grandmaster (since before 1992) has started contributing commentary on the X-Clubs Home Page
• Pianola reporting is coming to X-Clubs

Vil's commentaries are aimed at the newer players in his home club of Lower Hutt. They play on a Wednesday night so many of his comments are on boards that will have been played at other clubs too. Sometimes he discusses points that pop up in other sessions .. these articles provide valuable insight to all of us.

Bob Fearn, programmer of Compass scoring, is breaking new ground in working up Pianola reporting of X-Clubs results. This means that any registered player who completes an X-Clubs session can now be receiving their X-Clubs results in an e-mail from Pianola. All they have to do is register an email address to get an invitation to create a log-in with Pianola. There is no charge for this excellent service.

Thanks to the generosity of James Ward, founder and CEO of Pianola, it will not be strictly necessary for a club to subscribe to Pianola so that its members can get Pianola results. Pianola e-mails will be going out to any X-Clubs players who have registered their e-mail address with X-Clubs. It's very easy to unsubscribe from this new set of e-mails if it's just all TOO MUCH!! .. (but we hope you give it a shot before doing so).

Once you set up an account with Pianola your playing history will steadily accumulate on-line with the percentages being a much closer assessment of your result than what gets posted on the club noticeboard.

To register for Pianola - click here

Thanks in anticipation of your co-operation
Mike Neels

Pianola Reporting

The image shows what sort of information is accessible via Pianola - it gives you information such as where you underbid/overbid and made overtricks/undertricks ... Once you register - you will get an email after each X-Club session with a link to check out your playing stats.

Anna

A lot has been happening at the club over the past few months ... catch up through reading the latest newsletter which is attached.

A good turn out of 14 tables eventuated and while it was a beautiful day outside in the Waikato - the players hunkered down to play 52 boards across two sessions.

The day's results are accessible via the results tab: http://www.piako.bridge-club.org/resultmam

Best of the bunch after a consistently great morning and afternoon session were Melanie Rex and Jan Johnstone from Tauranga. Second place getters Barbara Stimson & Lyn Bailie were also from over the hill in Tauranga whilst best Waikato pair were Liz Clayton & Jenny Oxley hailing from Cambridge.

Junior Tournament: Winners Melanie and Jan

Junior Tournament: second place Barbara Stimson and Lyn Bailie

Junior Tournament: Third Place: Liz Clayton and Jenny Oxley

There was some exciting boards to be played - none more so than Board 28 for some

Board 28 from the morning session DLR W VUL N-S:

	QJT432 T7 QJ5 76
AK6 4 A74 AQT543		97 AKQJ5 K2 K982
	85 98632 T9863 J

Kudos to Melanie Rex and Jan Johnstone who were the only ones in the room to bid and make 7NT. The board assisted the Tauranga pair to top place East West after the morning session with Putaruru Pair Rodney Vercoe and Dexter Morgan the overall leaders and top North South heading into the lunch break.

Junior Tournament: session 1 winners Melanie Rex & Jan Johnstone face off against the other winners Rodney Vercoe and Dexter Morgan

And what a lovely lunch it was.

Many of the field enjoyed the opportunity to soak in the rays during the break.

A chocolate also was awarded to Melinda Wang and Catherine Cameron from Hamilton who were the only pair to make a doubled contract ... They ended up in 5x by North on board 23 which went something like;

Board 23 from the morning session DLR S VUL Both:

	KJ762 AT85 KQJ9
JT43 4 QJ943 765		AKQ65 95 K AT832
	9872 AQT83 762 4

You can see why East was tempted to double the 5 bid.

Junior tournament: Michelle looks wistful whilst President Jan is doing the concentrating

Junior Tournament: The Matamata locals

Junior Tournament: Te Aroha hopefuls Shirley and Pamela

Well done to Charlotte Jager who featured on the recent NZ Bridge Rank reports (which identifies the top 10 players in each rank who have earned rating points in 2016).

Charlotte and Anne: Charlotte and Anne at Waikato Restricted

Charlotte is listed as the 6th highest earning player who has earned 6 B points in the Certificate of Proficiency ranks. Charlotte also played with Anne Leighton to come 2nd in the Int-Jun division of the Restricted Tournament in Hamilton in the weekend.

Also featuring are Mark Kooter and Malcolm Kirkby who both have earned 3B points this year and are listed on the Male Certificate of Proficiency ranks.

Free bridge lessons start on April 12th from 7-9pm at the Matamata Bridge club.

Novice Tournament in Matamata: novice at Matamata

It would be great if everybody puts the word out amongst their friends, family and networks to tap people on the shoulder who you think would love to learn the game of bridge.

Any questions ring Judith Howard on 07 888 3670 or Jan Wills on 07 888 8350.

The recently held Joanne Prevett Teams event was held in Matamata and the winners were team Bond; Ian Bond, Lynette Morgan, Zelda Clements and Sonia Crawford.

Joanne Prevette Teams: The Bond team hold their cup aloft

While the Bond team were the number one seed, they had to overcome a hefty handicap to eventually snatch the win in their last match over the second place team consisting of George Sherrel; Laurie Belfield, Peter Daffurn and Malcolm Kirkby.

The Matamata Club hosts a double whammy on the weekend of April 30th and May 1st.

The Matamata Junior Tournament occurs on Saturday 30th April and is part of the Waikato Bays Junior League.

On the Sunday, we are privileged to have Gold Grandmaster, Barry Jones, come along to facilitate one of his very popular Jones Day Out. This is a day of interactive learning and an opportune time to brush up on your bridge skills. The day costs just $5 and this years' topic is Hand Evaluation: When to upgrade or downgrade your hand.

Please support these local events. Register for the Junior Tournament on this page (under Tournaments) and the Jones Day Out via the Waikato bays website: www.waikatobays.bridge-club.org.