Many of our members venture beyond the comfort of our club to compete in congresses in NSW and interstate. And they do very well – often punching above our weight! The linked list shows six of our members — two in Intermediate & four in Restricted — on the NSW Bridge Association (NSWBA) list of leading NSW Congress Players in 2019 (as at the end of May).

Our club sent 6 teams to the regional 2019 Country Teams competition in Port Macquarie on Sunday 2 June and yet again, our members did our club proud! Congratulations to Henry Hudson, Bronwyn Boehm, Carmel Pike & Ann Kynaston (pictured) on their hard-fought win and also to 2nd place-getters Maretta Callow, Sue Eishauer, Alison McGregor & Gail Gorman who had the most wins of the field. (results) We wish them luck in the Zone Finals at the end of the month!

Congratulations go to Robina MacDiarmid and Michael Mae who graduated to *Local Master in April – well done! (Information on Australian Bridge Federation (ABF) Masterpoints ranks can be found here.)

We have a historical matching game this week — scroll down for the answers to our previous questions about the Ace of Spades.

Match the (alleged) ruler represented by each playing card king (we've given you an identifying hint in brackets):

1.  King of Spades    2.  King of Hearts    3.  King of Diamonds    4.  King of Clubs

Congratulations go to Bob Gribble (pictured) on his recent promotion to *National Master and Pauline Erby to Grand Master! Also, congratulations to our club’s top 50 most improved players (as at 30 April 2019). It is heartening — and testament to our members, teachers and committee — that this list reflects our progressing abilities and the opportunities for improvement granted to us, encompassing all but 3 ranks from Graduate to Grand Master.

On Thursday 23 May 2019, our club will again be running the Australian Bridge Federation (ABF) national novice pairs event for players with less than 100 Masterpoints (as at 31 March 2019) — across a field of about 2800 players. We’ve had excellent participation and results in the past — including money prize winners — and hope to keep this up in 2019! A flyer is attached and a short summary is below. (A second movement for those not participating will still be run on the day.)

How did you go last week with our trivia questions? Answers are below, and here are more questions to ponder:

1. Apart from its status as the highest card in the deck, why was the Ace of Spades printed larger than any other card?
2. And what was this card’s significance during the war in Vietnam in the 1960s?

Answers from last week:

Due to a technical difficulty on Monday 22 April 2019, the last round of the Teams-of-Three competition had to be scored manually and hence is not available on the results tab above. Fortunately, Round 3 results are now available below, as well as the overall results and rankings for the event. The hand record for all 3 rounds is available via the R2 link on the results tab above. (The report below does not allow for category promotion. Final results are subject to the Law 79C/92B correction periods.)

Congratulations to overall winners of the recent two-week 2019 Autumn Pairs event — N/S Henry Hudson & Bronwyn Boehm; and E/W Alison McGregor & Gail Gorman. Congratulations also go to the other placegetters below:

Have you ever noticed that a deck of playing cards (in its modern form) emulates a calendar? There are: