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:

Congratulations to GLBC members, Megan Grant and Margaret Boniface (pictured) who took out the Restricted prize at last weekend’s 2019 Tilligerry Swiss Pairs Congress. Running 6th E/W in a strong field of 30 E/W pairs, this was a commendable effort! (full results)

During Section A’s competition of the Autumn Pairs on 10 April 2019, it was discovered that a board was fouled well into the match. The board was unavoidably discounted from the competition and an average was taken across the section....

In an effort to increase the utility of this website and in response to members’ discussions, our tireless tournament director and website manager, Sylvia Goodwin has set up a hand records test for members to check out and provide feedback over the next 2 weeks – details below. Comments on format and usefulness are sought—please provide Sylvia with your ideas/comments in person at the club, via email/phone (see Contact Info below).

Our annual friendly clash with Taree Bridge Club for the Bruce Hunter trophy saw 7 teams each side competing last Friday – with GLBC winning back the (admittedly well-polished) trophy. Well done to all who competed (Results link). Many thanks to hosts Taree who, as ever, were very welcoming. It was a sociable event, laden with scrumptious goodies to help us through the gruelling task of - or perhaps to distract us from? - defeating Taree.

Good wishes abounded this week for Stewart Barnsley’s 90th birthday. At 80 years old, Stewart learned to play at our club and has certainly come a long way in 10 years. He continues to improve his game, placing 1st E/W in his last game. We hope he plays with us for many more years.