Kathy makes Gold GrandMaster and other Congress results

Great achievement by Kathy Yule to become a Gold Grand Master during the NZ Bridge Congress being held in Hamilton this week and joining her husband Ken who achieved the ranking a year ago.

Kathy GGM
Kathy pictured with her good friend Jo Simpson

The rank of Gold Grand Master is rare … only 30 others in New Zealand have reached the rank … it requires 4000 rating points of which 2500 have to be A points. With Kathy's recent illness she was doubtful she would ever get to GGM but some investigation by Noel Grigg found she was missing a heap of historical A points that should have been awarded when she was competing in Australia that has a a reciprocal masterpoint programme. Well done Kathy - we are proud of you!

In other Congress News …

We've had a week of bridge and it was great to see club members rock up to play during the week with varying amounts of success.

Anna and Clare

Anna Kalma partnered with Clare Coles from Cambridge and were 2nd in the Open Restricted Pairs at the start of the week. At the end of the competition they were lying 3rd but discovered a scoring error that put them into 2nd at the expense of Auckland pair KC Lee and John Craig … funny thing was that a year ago Anna and Clare ended up second after play in the same competiton but discovered a scoring error which relegated them to third … and guess who? KC Lee and John Craig from Auckland were bumped up to second!

Kathy and Ken Yule made the cut for the New Zealand pairs finishing 24th out of 150 pairs but failed to progress further.

Great to see Colin Le Quesne and Joy Williams tackle the Novice Event on Sunday afternoon and finish in second place.

Then onto the big event of the week which is the Teams which was being played in the Open and the Open Restricted divisions. Kathy and Ken (along with their friends Jo and Sam Simpson and Steph Jacob and Rebecca Wood) finished 28 out of 100 teams while in the Open Restricted Anna Kalma (playing with Melanie Rex, Graeme Reid and Di Emms from Tauranga and Cambridge) finished in 4th place.

The next notable event that featured local players was the multigrade where Anna Kalma, Lesley Quilty, Lynette Morgan and Ian Bond combined to finish 7th overall.

Finally the Junior and Intermediate Swiss Pairs and again great to see a few more members venture out for the final days.

Well done Colin Le Quesne and John Krukerink who finished midfield in the Junior Pairs after only learning this year.

Judith Howard and Joanne Swanwick combined to do well in the ntermediate Swiss Pairs finishing up in 11th place while Anna Kalma and Hermanna Hemmes ended up in 10th place in the Open Restricted.

A whole heap of bridge was had this week. Hope those that took part enjoyed the experience and look forward to seeing more members at the event next year!