Matamata, Te Aroha, Morrinsville Clubs

The 2018 year has nearly wrapped up (although Te Aroha is playing bridge this Friday - 11.30 if anybody keen to come along).

A selection of photos from the Te Aroha and Matamata Xmas and prizegivings are attached - with more available via the facebook pages.

Keep an eye on this webpage for start up dates in 2019.

MErry Christmas everybody

MAtamata Xmas

Matamata Xmas

Matamata Xmas

Te Aroha

Te Aroha

Ken and Kathy travelled down to Wellington last weekend and had an emphatic win in the 15A National Teams along with Auckland players Malcolm Mayer and Jonathon Westoby.

The NZ Bridge article discusses their success (http://www.nzbridge.co.nz/latest-updates,listing,4860,national-teams-at-...) where they held the top spot for most of the tournament with just a small loss on one match out of 8 matches of 12 boards per match.

Kathy and Ken have had a very successful year at the bridge table and it bodes well for 2019 to see our pair finishing the year strongly.

Albeit the year isn't over for Kathy yet - she will be representing the Waikato Bays region at the Inter Provincials which start tomorrow in Auckland along with Jo Simpson from Tauranga. They are competing in the Women's competition while our other Te Aroha locals - Tim Rigter and Rochelle van Heuven are competing in the Intermediate team. The other two categories are the Senior and Open Grades which are being contested across seven regions of New Zealand.

Some matches will be on vugraph and timetable updates and results will be available via the following page http://www.nzbridge.co.nz/2018-ips.html

Keep an eye on the NZ Bridge Face Book page also where information and photos will be streaming over the weekend https://www.facebook.com/NZBridge/

Make sure you get behind and supporting our local representatives and the rest of the Waikato Bays team!

Noel and Kathy had one hand on the ham after the first session with a great 64% session in the morning which was the top score of the day. They had a good second session as well but didn't match the first and ended up in third overall. This meant no ham but still a nice turkey to augment the Christmas dinner table.

Noel and Kathy: Noel and Kathy with their turkey roll

Winners on the day were Mary Ronke and Olive Davis from the Waikato club followed by Grant Jarvis and Gary Chen from Franklin/Akarana.

The field was split into 4 sections (Spades, Hearts, Diamonds & Clubs) based on their rating points which shared the prizes around.

Thames also put on a splendid after match supper which was excellent value for the $25 entry price.

Matamata events til the end of the year

AGM
Thursday 29 November at 7pm
To be followed by 2nd night of bridge competition-New combination for the year.
Nominations for positions on the committee can be made on forms on the wall.

Christmas Parties and Prizegivings
Wednesday -5th December. Shared lunch. Prizegiving and Bridge.

Thursday 6th December
Pot luck Dinner 6pm Followed by Prizegiving and then Bridge. Finish at usual time.

Holiday Bridge Wednesday 12th December 1-4 pm and Thursday 13 th December 7.30pm-10pm

See you all at these fun events.

We had a joint celebration at Te Aroha last night with two milestones and 160 candles … (well actually only 12 candles and they took long enough to light!)

The combined 160 was split two ways - George Sherrell has just celebrated turning 90 in the weekend while Joan Darby-Smith turned 70 on Tuesday.

Joan and George

No excuse needed to have a decent supper in Te Aroha ... and Corolyn outdid herself with the two birthday cakes.

George ended up with a double celebration ... after he and Malcolm took first place North-South with 57% score. Suppose it is too much to score the same as your age!

Congratulations Joan and George - it is great having you as part of our club.

Well done Noel Grigg who partnered with Waikato's Yuzhong Chen for second place in the Hamilton Congress swiss pairs today …

They got to table one after round 2 and held the position until the last match … the bugger was that even though they were the only pair who finished up with 6 wins from 6 matches but were pipped at the post by Auckland's Mike Curry and Owen Camp.

Still a stirling effort!

yuzhong and noel

p.s. ignore the previous comments about a win to Joanne and Judith winning the Intermediate - it appears that old results were posted. However Malcolm and Eunice did come in at 6th place on Saturday!

An afternoon of Bridge and betting with some eating and drinking thrown in!

Melbourne cup

Be at the Bridge Club wearing your most original hat, at 1pm to purchase tickets in the sweepstake run by our own Bookmaker extraordinaire, Zelda Clements, for $2 a ticket.

Please bring along a small plate to share for afternoon tea, bring along some alcohol if you wish but we will also have wine for sale at $3 a glass as well.

See you there

Ian Bond is Matamata's latest Grand Master - Ian reached the lofty heights during Congress where his team won the back to the future and then placed 17th (missing out by just one place to get into the play-offs) but doing enough to earn around 25 A points for his week which pushed him past the 1000 points required to earn this title (of which 500 must be A points).

Ian Bond: Ian congratulated by president Beth Vosper

Ian followed his partner (in life, crime and at the bridge table) Lynette who got to GM status earlier in the year. The other Matamata grand masters are Ken and Kathy Yule and Lesley Quilty. Out of all the affiliated bridge players in New Zealand less than 2% achieve the rank of GM or higher.

Awesome work Ian:)

More competition success at the National Congress for our players.

The National Pairs continued after the knockout stages with Kathy and Ken Yule making the cut then performing brilliantly to come 4th overall ... an outstanding achievement out of 144 pairs.

In the meantime, non qualifiers contested a back to the futures event where a team of four plays three sessions with each of the other members of the team. The local team of Lynette Morgan-Ian Bond-Lesley Quilty and Anna Kalma managed to make it inot the final and suprised themselves by winning the final session to come top overall.

The major event of the tournament is the Teams where 108 teams of 4 started the contest. The best of our locals was Kathy and Ken's team who made it through into the top 16 qualifiers and have since won their match meaning to make it into the top 8 but were knocked out in the quarter finals.

Unlucky to miss out on the top 16 was team MORGAN - Lynette, Ian Bond, Mike Neels and Ella Gray. They ended up in 17th but that gave Ian the requisite 25+ A points he required to take him into GrandMaster territory. AWESOME WORK IAN - apparently they celebrated with a Thai in Cambridge on Wednesday Night but I'm sure they will be recognised properly in due course!

Thursday while the knockouts of the Teams takes place the competitions continue with the Mixed, Intermediate, Same Sex and Senior Pairs being played. There was a good morning session for Judith Howard and Joanne Swanwick in the Intermediate who take pole position but faded a bit in the afternoon to end up in 10th while Rochelle van Heuven and Tim Rigter had two solid sessions to come in 7th.

Lesley and Tom Henwood won the morning session in the Senior Pairs but fell back a bit to end up in a credible 9th place.

All eyes on the Teams quarter finals, and the senior, intermediate teams tomorrow where we hope to enjoy further success:)

Clare and Anna

Congratulations to Anna and partner Clare Coles from Cambridge who had only their second outing playing together at National Congress this weekend. They finished in third place in the NZ Restricted Pairs. A fantastic result!