Monday, 11 November 2019

Bridge Success

Our team of four contract bridge players spent something like 13 hours playing the game over the two days of last weekend (9th and 10th November) combating 12 opposing teams. The 13 table teams event had fewer participants than usual for some unknown reason, but the competition was as stiff as usual. Our team announced its standing from the very first round after which we were second and we held on to that position for most of the two days. And, at the end, we were still second. That won us a cash prize of $300 to share between us, or A$75 each. Given that the entry fee was $80, that meant we nearly broke even. Mind you, the Armidale Bridge Club (ABC) provided us with free drink - including wines and beers - and brilliant lunches and other nibbles. Perhaps the most stressful part of the tournament was trying not to consume too much delicious food.

Ours Spring teams is a regional tournament so there quite numerous players from such places as Tamworth, Glen Innes and such coastal locations as Coffs Harbour. Our team included myself and Ed Hahn playing the Precision system - we play that regularly together once a week. The other pair, Bas Bolt and David Cohen, came from other tablelands clubs. Of the four, it seems I was much the oldest. Here we are receiving our prize-money presented by Glenda Parmenter, ABC's President, after playing altogether 108 deals over the weekend. Left to right we have Bas, Glenda, Ed, me and David


The winners had two local members, both of them GPs. They're Brian on the left and Eric Baker third from the left. Their captain Gerald Dawson is from Glen Innes, but I don't know  Sarah Strickland's home base.


In retrospect, we had our worst result against the winners and had we won that we might have come first! Watching on while the presentations were being made were various contestants in the lovely club premises we own. However, I should point out that my camera was tilted and the club floor is horizontal and not sloping!


This event over, it is now my duty to construct some wicked deals for the club's Christmas party a little over a month away. Dressed as the Devil, I don't play. My job is to make club member's life a misery! I won't say just how in case some of them read this blog post. I'm the one gets fun out of the event. Despite my nauseating deals somehow or other I usually get something like 16 tables in play, three more than we had for last weekend's Teams tournament.

One final thing! The tournament director kept track of the relative performance of each of the 26 pairs playing. Ed and I were pleased to come a fairly clear second!! The winners had a 'modified datum' of 138.8, we had 107.3 and third was 95. The worst MD was -166, which means that this anonymous pair had a terrible time losing most deals.

AS

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