Congratulations to Nerida Gillies and Sandy Carter who won the Ivy Dahler Butler Swiss Pairs Restricted competition at the ABF Gold Coast Congress in February. This is a huge achievement with stiff competition and a gruelling 10 Rounds of Bridge.
Our volunteer run club needs to upgrade its marketing, both to support its important bridge education strategy (principally by attracting new beginners) and to enhance its internal and external image during its premises changes over the next few years. We would love to use any marketing experience and skills you (or a family member or friend?) may have gained in the past.
How this might work in practice depends on the experience, skills and willingness of those we are able to attract. There is also a possibility that we might be able to find a marketing student intern that might join the team.
If you (or someone you know) are able to offer us marketing experience and skills, please talk to me (David Farmer 0415 715 743) or to our Secretary, Simon Hunter (0451 130 330). Thank you in advance!
Our club is diverse but our website doesn't always get all the best stories. If you have an ear for a story and would like to help these stories find an appreciative audience via our newsletter, then please help.
What's involved? Keeping an ear, an eye and/or a nose out for a story that would be of interest to our members - could be profiling one of our volunteers or new members or old members. Compile a short easy-to-read story and ideally grab a photo to go with it. And send it in.
If you'd like to try, let me (Simon Hunter) know on 0451 130 330 or at
The Cath Whiddon Cup was very much interrupted this year by Covid. Despite this the Club was very motivated to persevere and was determined to hold this important Honour Board event.
The event commenced at the Clubhouse in June. We initially had strong interest, however almost immediately we went into lockdown and the competition had to be moved to be played on BBO. Unfortunately the number of entrants dropped from this point, as some members were unable, for various reasons, to play online.
The final results and congratulations to the following members are:
1st Debbie Sate and Sachiko Cathcart
2nd Jane Cummings and Anne Moulston
3rd Kay Armstrong and Dianne Sidoti
4th Neil Mitchell and John O’Riordan
Well done Debbie and Sachiko. Thank you to Simon Hunter, John Rogers and David Farmer for their combined efforts in directing the event.
Trish Berry, Convenor
The Metro North Interclub pairs event was held on Sunday 31st, online on RealBridge. For the full results see here.
Overall, North Shore were the winners. For Peninsula, a special mention of Patrick Starck and Barbara Gassman who came 1st in the U750 and Sandy Carter and Nerida Gillies and Susan Jensen and Annegrete Kolding who came 2nd and 3rd in the U300 sections.
The number of participants was very disappointing, EG only 9 pairs in the U100. I have heard people say they don't like RealBridge but i thought it was fine. BBO, StepBridge and RealBridge are quite similar; the distinctive feature of RealBridge is that it enables video and audio during the play. Personally i am not interested in the video but the audio allowed people to chat. In fact in the U100 section it was a very relaxed and friendly day.
RealBridge is likely to be used in serious competitions as the audio-visuals help reduce the possibility of cheating. If you are interested in trying it, they run free 8 board taster sessions.
The last of our lockdown cumulative events came to an end on Tuesday. As usual, there were some surprise finishes and the only division which did not see a change of leader was the Open and that was because only three pairs turned up so the event was cancelled. After three rounds the winners were Anne Small and Hans van Weeren with Cath Whiddon and David Farmer as runners-up.
The Competition was much hotter in the U300 division. Bill Davis and Mike Gibb had a very strong finishing round to pip Di Agostino and Leofric Kingsford-Smith with Christine Banham and Grahame Elith not far away in third.
It was a similar story in the U50s. Janelle Halliwell and Jan Grant had a brilliant last round to leap from fifth place to the top of the ladder. Peter Wilson and Jeremy Trahair snuck ahead of Leah and David Boyd for the minor placings.
Tuesdays online will now give way to a resumption of the Tuesday morning (10.00 a.m. start) session in the clubhouse. Cumulative results can be found here.
2 Peninsula teams participated in the State Open Teams Metro Final run in conjunction with the Spring Nationals Jacaranda Teams. Unfortunately participation by other clubs was very disappointing and there were only 5 teams in the running for the SOT. There were 28 teams in the event.
The Devries Team with Robin Devries, Alan Davies, Peter Bendelstein and Vivien Eldridge had a very good finish and overtook the other teams to qualify for the actual State Open Teams.
The other team comprised Patrick Starck, Lyn Smith, Jocelyn Bertram and Cath Whiddon.
10 Teams from the NSWBA, the Sydney Metropolitan zone, the Outer Metropolitan, Northern, Southern and Western zones will play in the John Arkinstall State Teams Round Robin on Friday and Saturday 10-11 December. On Sunday 12 December the top two teams will play in the Final and the top two Country Teams will play in the Country Teams final.
Peninsula Bridge Club will run the State Open Pairs qualifiers online on BBO for three weeks starting next week.
The dates are Thursdays 14th, 21st and 28th October at 1:15pm. One substitute is permitted. See the NSWBA site for more information.
Percentages for the 3 sessions will be aggregated and the top 3 qualifying and willing pairs will be partially and conditionally sponsored by the club to attend the Metro Final (online possibly?) on Saturday and Sunday November 20 & 21.
Anyone who doesn't qualify may attend at their own expense ($120) and be entered through the club.
Please find a partner and turn up to the session next week. Red points will be awarded to all participants whether they attend the final or not.
