| GNOT s at Newcastle on Sunday 4th August |
The Grand National Open Teams Regional Final was held at Newcastle Bridge Club on Sunday 4th August. 24 Teams attended representing most of the clubs in the region, from Hawks Nest in the North to Belmont in the South and Maitland in the West, 9 clubs in all. Charlestown was represented by Jill Achurch, Colleen Wilson, Enza Di Stefano and Alan Hemmingway. The arrangement was 6 x 9 board matches over the day with teams playing the nearest team on the ladder after the first round.
Charlestown was seeded 12 and played Hawks Nest (Seeded 24) in the first round. They had a comfortable win, with the highlight being Jill playing 3 diamonds doubled as west on board 7 making with an overtrick to score 870, while Enza made 3 Hearts as South at the other table, total score 1010 and plus 14 imps. This brought them up to 4th position and the next match was much tougher against Tomaree 2 (Seeded 5). Charlestown lost by 11 imps and dropped to 11th to face Maitland 4 who were 7th seed. Another loss saw them drop to 14th with 2 bad boards being the difference. Now they faced the 18th seeded Maitland 2 team against whom they had a good win of 29 imps with only one negative board. So back up to 8th position and next opponents the 4th seeded team from Tomaree, with another good win by 19 imps, with no negative boards. So now for the last match with Charlestown in 4th position, pitted against the top seeded team of Newcastle 1 (Sharon and Greg Mayo, Paul McGrath and Michael Simes, all grand masters) and the expected loss by 19 imps. A valiant attempt, finishing in 7th position overall and earning more than 1 gold masterpoint for their 3 wins. In addition Jill And Alan were 8th out of 48 in the pair datums! Well done Charlestown!
Other Charlestown players at the day included Linda Thomas and Margaret Vale playing for Belmont with 2 wins (15th), Cheryl Pletz and Lesley and Charles Bowen-Thomas playing with Diana Ellis in the "House" team with 3 wins (20th), Jody Swaine partnered by Paul Rooms, with Deanna and John Stuart (Newcastle 2) finished 5th, Kerrie Stien and Caroline Carey played for Lake Macquarie and our old friend Ronnie Antill was playing for Toronto .
Ken Wilks controlled the day superbly and the Newcastle Club provided a great range of snacks to keep 96 hungry bridge players very happy. A very competitive day enjoyed by all, with the top 3 teams going on to a three day knockout on Real Bridge in September.
John Stuart 5th August 2024
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| Charlestown team Performs well in Country Teams Regional Final |
Report on Country Teams Regional Final held at Tomaree Bridge Club Sunday 30th June 2024
The Charlestown representative team of Colleen Wilson, Jody Swaine, Jill Achurch and Alan Hemmingway finished 4th out of 20 teams on Sunday at Tomaree. Teams from all over the Hunter Region competed for the right to proceed to the next round, the Zonal final to be held in September. Teams from Muswellbrook, Southlakes, Maitland, Toronto, Hawkes Nest, Tomaree, Tilligerry, Newcastle and Charlestown were represented. 10 out of the 20 teams could qualify for the next round. The competition involved 7 x 8 Board matches in Swiss Teams (teams are ranked in order of victory points after each round and play the closest team in the next round).
Charlestown started against Tomaree 4 and lost by 20 imps putting them in 17th position. Next they played Tomaree 6 and had a good win by 25 imps bringing them up to 9th. A highlight of this round was Board 9 on which Colleen and Jody held the opposition to 9 tricks in 3 hearts while Jill and Alan made 3NT vulnerable for a 10 imp swing. Next they were pitted against Tomaree 3 and won by 13 imps, followed by their biggest win of the day against Maitland 2 by 41 imps giving them almost maximum VPs (19.85, max is 20!). This placed them in 2nd position and meant their next opponents were the very strong unbeaten Newcastle 1 team (Sharon and Greg Mayo, Paul McGrath and Chris Dibley). They succumbed by 35 imps to drop to 6th, but responded well in the 6th round by defeating Tomaree 5 by 35 imps! Now in 3rd position they played Newcastle 3 in the last round suffering a 15 imp loss to finish in a very creditable 4th place and will proceed to the next round. Interesting that they played nearly all the Tomaree teams, only missing out on Tomaree 1! Charlestown finished just ahead of Tomaree 4 by a fraction of a Victory Point. The 3 Newcastle teams filled the first 3 spots.
The day was directed by John McIlraith and ran very smoothly and the Tomaree Club put on an amazing spread of snacks throughout the day. Results can be found on the NSWBA website under Country Teams Regional Finals - Hunter.
John Stuart 30th June 2024.
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