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A disappointing entry of just 4 teams played at Morrinsville on Sunday Aug 6.

And that included a team of four novices, all from different clubs, assembled just the evening before.

Not surprisingly that team did not fare well in the final reckoning especially as neither pair had played with each other before. We hope they enjoyed the day though, and perhaps learned something.
The teams played a 16-board match against each of the other three teams. Each match was split into two halves so each pair played against both pairs of the opposing team.

The winners were the Te Aroha team of Malcolm Kirkby, Peter Daffurn, Charlotte Jager and John Phillips. They won all their matches convincingly (although they didn’t quite score the maximum 20 VPs in any of them)

Second were the Hamilton team of Bryan Robb, Linley Robb, Jim Ward and Bill West with two wins (one of those WAS by 20 VPs).
Third were Jo Bowman & Jenny Shaw (Morrinsville) with Nicola Slade & Peter Tait-Jamieson (Te Aroha). They won one match with 20 VPs but lost the other two.

And the “encouragement award” goes to Lynne Boyack (Huntly), Mary Allen (Morrinsville), Lynn Ryan (Matamata) and Tineke Yates (Te Aroha).

Great to see a full room for the annual Matamata 5A open. Winners were team Franklin/Auckland.

Matamata Open winners: From L-R; Grant Jarvis, Richard Solomon, Gary Chen & Ian Berrington

Yes it was a dead heat thanks to a late scoring adjustment!

For those who want to work out who was playing with whom ... check out the results!

Third place: Carol Richardson and Steve Boughey combine for third place

Best Matamata Pair (and 5th overall): Kathy and Ken Yule, best Matamata pair and winners of the Kim Crawford wines

Other winners were Kate Terry and Judy Pawson who took fourth place.

The World Contract Bridge rule book gets updated every 10 years.   The 2017 edition has just been rolled out and will be in force in NZ from 1st August. Murray Wiggins, NZ Bridge Chief Director held a seminar for directors in Matamata last week to explain some of the changes

There have been a lot of minor changes to the rules which you probably don't need to be aware of (and many the rules have changed to reflect what people are doing already like it is now officially against the rules to move the board from the centre of the table during play).  

However, probably the biggest change is the introduction of a "comparable call" which is further explained in the attached flyer that Kathy Yule put together for us laypeople.

The key changes that you may experience at the bridge table and how the comparable bid can effect the play are as follows;

Pass or Bid out of turn

Previously:   If you passed/bid out of turn and the LHO didn't accept it, the penalty was that your bid was cancelled and you were ruled out of the bidding for one round.   This often caused partner to bid wildly guessing the final contract because their partner not being allowed another bid in the auction.

Now:   The bid is cancelled and you can continue to take part in the bidding contest as long as your next bid is comparable to your first bid (or is limited to your original mistaken pass/bid).  See notes for further explanation of comparable bids.

Insufficient Bid

This has also been rewritten to take into the new comparable rule ... so;

previously:   If you made an insufficient bid and were told to 'make it good' but this would change the meaning of the bid BUT a change of bid would mean that your partner could not bid again for the rest of the auction.

now:  If you make an insufficient bid using a convention then you can 'make it good' with a different bid as long as it had a comparable meaning to your first illegal bid.  

If you as the opposition feel aggrieved that your opponents have used unauthorised information through making a mistaken or insufficient bid to their advantage or they think the comparable bid is not really comparable - you can voice your case to the director and they will look at the hand on a case-by-case basis and see if any adjustment is required.

Thirty teams turned up to compete in the dual competition of a 5A open teams run alongside a 8B multigrade (where the team had a maximum of 200 A points).

Spa town winners

Congratulations to our Auckland friends; Andi Boughey, Carol Richardson, Michael Ware and Matthew Brown who rose to the top after 6 rounds undefeated.

Spa town Runners up

Second place were perennial podium getters - Patrick Carter, Barry Jones, Jenny Millington & Julie Atkinson from Hamilton and Auckland.

Spa Town Multigrade winners

Top team in the multigrade hailed from Mt Albert ... Don Gao Bi, Xiao Liu, William Wang & Phillip Zheng.

We are still working on the butler datums ... hopefully that will follow soon - although all other results are available.

Thanks everybody for supporting the event - we had a great new venue and our Te Aroha members did us proud with the catering (thanks also to Pub Charity for funding the venue and catering).

Look forward to seeing you all next year:)

Results are in ....

overall team results collated over the three sections are:

Waikato Inter-Club Teams

Collated Results by Club
VPs
1 Waikato 323.32
2 Hamilton 285.38
3 Matamata 264.16
4 Putaruru/Tokoroa 256.98
5 Cambridge 237.51
6 Thames 221.31
7 Morrinsville 211.69
8 Te Aroha 190.63
9 Huntly 170.00

The full results are up on the Hamilton website...

Well done to Matamata Open who topped their field and will be heading to the Waikato Bays play off and the Matamata junior team who came second in their division and will also be representing Waikato at the Waikato Bays final.

The annual NZ Bridge Congress is on our doorstep in Hamilton and is held from Saturday 30th September to Saturday 7th October.

There are a number of events you can take part in - from Novice through to Open across the week. And to encourage people who aren't regular congress goers, the Waikato Bays regional committee are sponsoring up to 4 people to congress to the value of $200 each. You can either self nominate to go into the draw ... or your club can nominate worthy recipients.

Conditions apply:
You need to be a member of a Waikato-Bays club that is affiliated to NZ Bridge.
Self-nomination:
You must have played in at least 2 tournaments in the Region since 1st September of the previous year.
You have not played more than once at Congress in the last 5 years (excluding the Top Teams event or Congress Novice Pairs).
Club-nomination:
Waikato Bays clubs may nominate any member of their club with a brief explanation as to why they wish to nominate this player.

Closing date for nominations will be 25 August 2017.
For each category, all names will go into a “hat” and two names in each category will be drawn soon after the closing date. If there are insufficient nominations at the closing date then those nominated are selected.

Please send your nomination to the Waikato-Bays Secretary with a list of tournaments played in between 1st September last year and 31st August this year (self-nomination) or brief explanation (club-nomination).

Matamata hosted Putaruru for their annual Waihou Trophy which is a competition between intermediate and junior pairs from each club.

It was a close fought thing with Matamata victorious by a narrow margin. Well done team!

Waihou Trophy

The top placed Matamata pair were Judith Howard and Jim Anelay with 61.90% while Putaruru's Peter Kraakman and Anne Patching topped the day with a massive 67.86

Waihou Trophy

Last week, the Jo Anne Prevett Teams event concluded at Matamata and good to see everybody got into the spirit of things (some more than others!) when it came to dressing up on the last night.

Joanne Prevett Teams

Winners were the aptly named BLT & Jalapeno (Barbara Keys, Lawrence Keys, Tony Pearson and Joan Darby-Smith) featured above.

Joanne Prevett Teams

Te Aroha Friday session has been moved forward and is now a 11.30am start. Please be seated by 11.25am.

We have brought it forward to allow for some of our players to meet the school bus or get home in time for afternoon milking! Therefore we aim to finish by 2.30pm.

Reminder that you don't need a partner or to be a member of Te Aroha to play on the Friday sessions. All welcome.

Hutt Valley's Vil Gravis produces a column each week on XClub site and I've been posting it for him the past weeks - thought this week's column about finessing might be useful for some of our members.

Wednesday Review 57 From Wednesday 31/5/17.

Board 2 Dealer E NS Vul

	753 AT864 86 QT3
AJT9 K5 AQT42 95		KQ QJ9 K9 AKJ742
	8642 732 J753 86

Newer players need to learn the very basic things about declarer play. Like playing on the suit that will produce the most tricks, and playing the suit the best way you can to make the most number of tricks. Finessing, and knowing when to finesse, and knowing HOW to finesse, are usually a “must know” part of a declarer's game. Witness this deal from a recent lower grade session. The basics seemed to be forgotten, because the results for many EW pairs were unbelievably poor, like 6NT down two, 4NT down two and 3NT making ONLY five. One East was in 6NT and did make six, by playing the hand the way people have been taught.

Let me tell you again. When do you finesse? When missing the QUEEN and you have an option to finesse or play the ace and king (i.e. 'going for the drop'), the odds favour the finesse IF you have EIGHT or fewer cards between you and dummy, and going for the drop if you have NINE or more cards between you and dummy. Tip: eight ever, nine never. Follow that unless you have evidence to the contrary. Then, another rule: play on the suit that will produce the most tricks. There are SIX clubs in the East hand and only five diamonds in the West hand, so playing the clubs will produce more tricks. The club suit also offers the opportunity to finesse, and with eight clubs in the two hands, the rule is to FINESSE. There is only one way to finesse if you are not going to lose a trick, and that is to lead from the WEST hand and put in the JACK from the East hand if North follows low. As you can see, North has the queen and the finesse works and declarer makes a total of twelve tricks if the ace of hearts has been taken at trick one, or a total of THIRTEEN tricks if the defence has not taken the ace at trick one. The reader may have noted that the diamond suit also has five potential tricks. Is it correct to play off three top diamonds and expect, or hope, that the jack falls in three rounds, or is it better to cash the king and then FINESSE, leading to the TEN? The odds of a 4-2 break in a suit are greater than 3-3 but I really do not know whether, taking the diamond suit in isolation the odds favour playing them from the top or finessing against the jack in the South hand. The experts could no doubt tell me but I would definitely play that suit from the top.
There are other considerations when playing a hand like this EW one. In 3NT you may be less worried about losing a trick, whereas in 6NT you would be very reluctant to take a finesse when you have lost one trick already. Nevertheless you should know the odds and play with them rather than against them. This deal provides other interesting things to think about so I will take the opportunity to do that now. Look at it again: Board 2 Dealer E NS Vul

	753 AT864 86 QT3
AJT9 K5 AQT42 95		KQ QJ9 K9 AKJ742
	8642 732 J753 86

Let us consider it from how the bidding and play might go at a more advanced level. East would open 1C, West respond 1D, and East would bid 3NT. That should show at least 19 HCP, so West would bid 6NT though he might be a bit worried about a lead going through his K5 of hearts. After all, 19 plus 14 equals 33 which is the normal requirement for slam, and surely East would have at least the queen of hearts? If South leads 'fourth highest of longest and strongest' he will immediately give the slam away and declarer will have no more problems: there will be five diamond tricks, two club tricks, four spades and two hearts, but a hearts will have to be given away to the ace in order to ensure twelve tricks. All declarer has to do is ensure that the heart trick or tricks required are set up (after counting the certain tricks WITHOUT any more finesses required) and ensure there are no blockages when cashing the tricks (look at the spade suit, easy to get locked in the wrong hand which is East). South should know better than to lead a low diamond against a small slam given the bidding, so let's say South looks for the safest lead, one that will be least likely to give anything away, and chooses a spade as the opening lead. There is a paradox in this story because by not giving a vital tricks away on the opening lead by leading a diamond, South has a 50-50 chance of making a lead that could give a good declarer an overtrick in 6NT, as you will see when you read on. A club against 6NT by East is out of the question given East's opening bid, so South must choose a heart or a spade. With four small spades, it is less likely to do damage to partner's holding. But look what happens when South makes the apparently safest lead of a spade and a good declarer is at the helm. Declarer wins the first spade in hand and counts his top tricks: four spades, three diamonds, and two clubs. Two tricks can be developed by knocking out the ace of hearts but then either a club finesse would be required for the twelfth, or the jack of diamonds would need to drop. Let's take another look:
Board 2 Dealer E NS Vul

	753 AT864 86 QT3
AJT9 K5 AQT42 95		KQ QJ9 K9 AKJ742
	8642 732 J753 86

Declarer decides that rather than give up a trick to the ace of hearts immediately, he will rely on the chances offered in the club and diamond suits. He combines his chances by NOT playing on his long suit. That would involve taking the better odds finesse and losing a club would almost certainly lead to down one when the defence also take the heart ace. It is therefore a finesse that is too dangerous to take at an early stage. Declarer now looks at the diamond suit and sees that if the jack falls in three rounds, there will be five diamond tricks, four spades, two clubs and a heart could be established before taking the clubs, twelve easy tricks. The odds on the diamond suit are pretty good aren't they? Better than relying on a 50:50 club finesse, and that can also be left for later. So, declarer starts on diamonds and after playing off three rounds, gets the bad news, diamonds don't break, the jack hasn't fallen, and tricks are still required to make 6NT. Declarer still has the option of playing on hearts and hoping that South doesn't have the ace, which means he would also be able to take the jack of diamonds for down one. But declarer has been watching and counting and when North shows out on the third diamond, he is pretty sure that North will have more clubs than South. To test things further, declarer now leads his second spade and overtakes with the ace. Too many newer players find it goes against the grain to overtake a trick but there are many such plays when entries are scarce. This one is obvious and dummy now takes two more spade tricks. An extra trick is still required to make twelve, and declarer still has the option of a heart to establish a heart trick, or a club finesse. By watching carefully, declarer can usually decide which. In the play, declarer would probably have noticed enough hesitations, bum shifts etc to decide that North has either the ace of hearts or the queen of clubs. As it happens North has both, and by playing on hearts declarer would make six, by taking the club finesse, he would make an overtrick. Another consideration: If South had the ace of hearts, in an average match point game, would South not have led it on the opening lead? And there IS another way to combine the chances, by removing the ace of hearts first, then cashing two top Clubs and if the queen doesn't drop, play on diamonds and hope the jack falls, or take the diamond finesse if you can work out the better odds after taking all other available tricks (hearts and spades). What would YOU have done as declarer? For one declarer the club finesse yielded thirteen tricks (after a spade lead) and another made twelve after a heart lead. Those who failed could not have followed normal principles of declarer play, and would do well to get some practice and if they have access, read and re-read this chapter.