Anna Kalma's blog

Club members have had some success at tournaments played over the past week.

Lynette Morgan and Lesley Quilty combined at the Tauranga Ladies tournament on Wednesday to put in two great performances to take home second overall with an average of 61% across two sessions.

And at the 5A Open Tournament in Hamilton on Saturday against a field of crack shot bridge players, local players featured in each of the three sessions. Session prizes were won by Lesley Quilty and Heather Kneebone in the first session, followed by Hermanna Hemmes and Anna Kalma in the second session and Lynette Morgan and Ian Bond in the final session meaning all the Matamata players went home with an envelope:)

Richard Solomon and Christine Richardson from Auckland were overall winners of the Open, while Graeme Saunders and John Little from Waikato won the Intermediate section.

AND then to top the weekend off Michelle Liddle & Beth Vosper competed at the junior restricted tournament in Cambridge on Sunday afternoon and came first North/South with a very impressive score of 66%. This tournament was well attended with 15 tables of afternoon bridge.

The Citizens Advice Bureau will receive a nice donation thanks to the generosity of the visitors and locals who supported the raffle and “White Elephant” auction on Benefit Night.

Unfortunately the set up for scoring didn't quite go to plan so competitive bridge became social bridge and winning a prize depended entirely on luck. Many thanks must go to the visitors from Morrinsville, Putaruru and TeAroha who took the situation in good humour and enjoyed the delicious supper and willingly supported the auction.

The Waihou Shield is the coveted trophy for the interclub teams competition between Matamata and Putaruru. Putaruru have dominated the competition in the past but this year Matamata were convincing winners. Four junior/intermediate teams from each club competes in this afternoon of bridge which has become an annual event.

The Putaruru pairing of Eileen Barker and Ann Berben were the top pair on the day but the more consistent scoring by the Matamata teams gave them enough points to take the trophy.

The highest scoring team for Matamata were June Thomson, Jim Anelay, Tony Pearson and Stella Macilquham.

Waihou Trophy victors: Stella proudly displays the Waihou Shield in front of some of the Matamata contingent.

Congratulations to the Chinese destroyers (oh and Richard Solomon) who came and conquered at the Te Aroha Spa Town Teams. Team Solomon (Richard, Gary Chen, William Liu & George Sun) were up against their nemesis and eventual runners-up Team Jones (Barry Jones, Jenny Millington, Patrick Carter and Kenneth Yule) and managed a sizeable win over in their last set giving them an eventual 5VP win.

The day ended with a bit of confusion due to adjustments required due to two misdealt boards which caused a delay in the final placings and unfortunately the announced placings were deemed incorrect after some further analysis.

Third place eventually went to team Harris (Mike Barton, Karen Harris, John and Rona Driscoll).

The intermediate section was won by our emergency team from Putaruru: Eileen Barker, Anne Berben, Maria Leach & Ross Provan.

Intermediate winners: Intermediate Section winners from Putaruru

Thanks to everybody from the club who had a hand in helping out with the raffles and organisation on the day. Also thanks to all the people who played on the day. We are in awe of the calibre of bridge players who come down to Te Aroha to support our Spa Town Tournament.

Results are available on the Xclub site available here..

Spa Town teams: play

After a few last minute dropouts due to frosty conditions, an eventual turnout of 12 tables competed at the Matamata 5A Open in the weekend. The field was a mix of veteran locals and enthusiastic intermediates who mixed it with some of the best in the region which included NZ representatives and NZ's newest Grandmaster in Yuzhong Chen.

The director was Rona Driscoll and she wisely decided against going for three sessions opting for a 28 board Mitchell in the morning and splitting the field into two Howell sections playing 33 boards in the afternoon.

Top of the billing at the lunch break was Yuzhong Chen and Herman Yuan who sat East West and Kate McFadyen and Gwynn Lobb who took NS honours.

The afternoon's play had Karen Harris and Ian Clayton top of Section A howell and locals Lesley Quilty and Heather Kneebone taking honours at the other side of the room.

Once weightings had been added to take into account the differing number of boards played in each session; the overall victors were Karen Harris and Ian Clayton from Hamilton, Christine and Jenna Gibbons came in second and the best locals Heather Kneebone and Lesley Quilty finished in third place.

Apologies for the lack of photo's of the day and those who finished on the podium ... The lure of the roast dinner and a glass of wine at the RSA following play took precedence over the need to record events for prosperity!

Results available via the results tab: http://www.piako.bridge-club.org/resultmam

Just when I thought some of the newish players are coming to grips with sacrifice bids, I stumble across the following summary of the contract played on Tuesday Night at Te Aroha bridge club. 4600 points - in case anybody was wondering what 8 light redoubled and vulnerable was worth:)

sacrifice bid?

At the very least, I admire their gumption although I do wonder what the partner was thinking!

A huge turn out of 20 tables competed at the Morrinsville Open 8B tournament this weekend.

Heather Kneebone and Lesley Quilty topped the field with an impressive average of 64 against strong opposition. A great result:)

The other notable performance from locals was a fine 7th from Tim Rigter and Victor Kooter. Victor was the only junior featuring in the top half of the field and they were the top non-open pairs.

Attached are the final placings.

We received sad news that Allan Barclay of Thames died on Tuesday after a short battle with cancer. Allan was instrumental in organising and running the Thames summer festival of bridge, was a recent NZ Bridge board member and also proactive in organising interclub events with Te Aroha which is where most of our new members will remember him from.

Richard Solomon from NZ Bridge has written a very fine obituary on the NZCBA website and can be accessed via the following link here.

The funeral will be held at 11am on Monday 15th June at St Francis Catholic Church in Thames.

The Waikato Team of Lesley Chubb, Judy Butler, Brian Nicholson and Alan Dawkins have finally triumphed in the Quilty Trays after competing in every event since it was opened to visiting teams.

They had an emphatic win and could have gone home at supper with an unbeatable 32 point lead at supper time on the final night. It turned out that their last match against runner-ups (and last year's winners of Lesley Quilty, Sonia Crawford, Ann Ring and Heather Kneebone)was their closest with just a 1 IMP win but meant they retained their perfect record of 9 wins from 9 matches.

Third place was the Hamilton Team consisting of MAlcolm Smith, Alison Smith, Linda Lin, Richard Fletcher and Richard Hooper!

Well done to Ari and Tim Rigter for winning the 2015 Championship Pairs. Ari and Tim are long time members of the Te Aroha club and have paired up for this competition for many years without success until this year which makes their victory all the sweeter.

Ari and Tim

Their victory was aided with a timely 70% score in the penultimate week which left a bit of breathing space between them and the chasing pack.

The winners of the Mokena Handicap Trophy which is run alongside the event was Pamela Clydesdale and Laurie Belfield. A great result for Pamela who just learnt bridge in the past year.