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Gary Foidl and Brett Glass. 

Waikato Win in National Swiss Pairs.

Brett Glass and Gary Foidl hit the lead at just the right time in the 9 round National Swiss Pairs held this past weekend at the Tauranga Bridge Club. After a small loss and then a draw in their first two matches, they moved up the 44 pair field with 7 successive wins to finish first by 5.76 vps. That was unlucky for Pat Carter and Julie Atkinson who had led for the previous 5 rounds but who lost their last 2 matches, including to Gary and Brett, by 16 imps each time and who finished second:

						vps
1	Brett	Glass		Gary	Foidl	116.77
2	Julie	Atkinson		Patrick	Carter	111.01
3	Wayne	Burrows		Clair	Miao	110.17
4	Grant	Jarvis		Jonathan	Westoby	109.94
5	Christine	Gibbons		Jenna	Gibbons	108.24
6	Jan	Alabaster		Jane	Lennon	105.54
7	Stephen	Francks		Amanda	Matthews	105.03
8	Zachary	Yan		Michael	Ware	103.67
9	John	Wang		Kevin	Hu	100.68
10	Rob	Davies		Aaron	Starr	98.69

 

Boards in the last round of such a competition seem to take on greater significance. The following certainly sealed victory for Brett and Gary. It came just in time too as it was their last board of the tournament.

 

2NT showed both majors. Rather strangely, Gary, North, passed rather than doubled, though when the bidding came round to him, he doubled. The double had to show values. So, with good spades, Brett passed.

With his opponents clearly in trouble, Brett led Q followed by A and switched to a heart. Declarer took the ace to play J which Brett won to continue hearts. Gary played three top hearts in total keeping one winner in his hand. Brett discarded two clubs.

 Next, Gary played A ruffed in dummy. 10 drew Brett’s small trump. Q went to Gary's A. He cashed his heart winner  and then switched to a second diamond with Brett’s KJ taking the last two tricks. All declarer took were 2 trumps and A…down 6 and + 1400 and 12.48 most valuable imps. They won the 12 board match by 10.19 imps. Thus, a very significant last board.

This was Brett and Gary’s first 20 A Point win. It was a nice weekend, too, for 4^th placed Grant Jarvis who at the start of the event was presented with his Platinum Grand Master plaque. He picked up a further 21As over the weekend.

  Our two Platinum Grand Masters

 
 Grant closed the A Point gap between Michael Ware and himself slightly over the weekend. 
 Michael has 10113 A Points and Grant a mere 7549. Grant has of course more B Points than Michael. 

A very well organised tournament thanks to all at the Tauranga Club, the director, David Stephen and scorer, Kevin Walker.

Richard Solomon

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