Newsletter 04 September 2025
In our newsletter this week...
- A Remarkable Effort
- Southern Tablelands Congress
- Message from the Committee
- BFACT AGM
- New Members
- Workshop with Will Jenner-O'Shea
- Canberra in Bloom
- Refresher Course
- GALA Pairs and Rookies/Novice Championship
- Upcoming Events
- Results
- You Had Eight Points! Why Didn’t You Bid More?
- Travel Associates Promotion Winners
- Lighter Moments
A Remarkable Effort
The Australian Women's team recently competed in the World Championship of bridge. The team, Renee Cooper/Ella Jacob, Sue Lust/Therese DeMarco, and Dagmar Neuman/Jodi Tutty, finished 8th of the 24 entered teams in the round robin matches, thus making the quarter finals. In the quarter finals they lost to the Netherlands team, which went on to win to become the world champions. CBC and BFACT congratulate all the team members on a remarkable effort, particularly Jodi Tutty, a hard working member of the Canberra Bridge Club.
- Niek Van Vucht
SOUTHERN TABLELANDS TEAMS CONGRESS
After an extended hiatus the Southern Tablelands Teams Congress is back.
Date: Friday to Sunday, 14-16 November 2025.
Venue: Canberra Bridge Club clubrooms, 5-7 Duff Place, Deakin, ACT
Director: Daryl Whitfield
Convenor: John Brockwell (<email
PROGRAMME
Friday ─ 7.00 pm
Champagne Walk-In Pairs
Saturday ─ 10.00 am
Open Teams
Novice/Restricted Teams
Regional Masters Pairs
Novice/Restricted Pairs
Regional Teams
Sunday ─ 9.30 am
Regional Teams
Open Pairs
Sunday ─ 3.30 pm
Presentation
ENTRY FEES
- Friday $15 per player
- Saturday Pairs $55 per player, Teams $55 per player
- Sunday Pairs $55 per player, Teams $55 per player
Entries via MyABF - link will be published next week
MASTERPOINTS
Red masterpoints awarded for every event
CATERING
All the time Tea & coffee
Friday Champagne or sparkling water on arrival
Saturday & Sunday
Light lunch & refreshments. (Please advise re dietary requirements)
Sunday after play
Drinks & finger food
__________________________________________________________________________
Message from the Committee
Would you like to be an active player in helping direct the Club’s future? Why not nominate to join the Committee in 2025-26 and be part of the enthusiastic members dedicated to assisting with the business and activities of the Canberra Bridge Club. Being part of the Committee brings many benefits including getting to know the Club’s members, participating in decisions about the Club and its directions, and bringing a varied expertise to the Committee. Nomination forms can be obtained from the Manager.
SAVE THE DATE - CANBERRA BRIDGE CLUB ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2025
The Canberra Bridge Club will hold its 2025 AGM on 14th October 2025 at 5:30 PM in the Olive Lott Room.
A Notice of AGM will be circulated to members 21 days prior on 23rd September 2025.
Please save the date.
BFACT AGM
- BFACT AGM will be on Friday 26th September at the CBC clubrooms in Deakin, for a 4:30pm start (after the afternoon bridge session).
There will also be refreshments, which those connecting via zoom may have to have virtually….. Hope you can all make it and a big thanks to Canberra Bridge Club for enabling this.
Cathy Nichols - BFACT Secretary
New Members
Canberra Bridge Club welcomes the following new and returning members to our club:
- Aaron Kendal
Workshop with Will Jenner-O'Shea
Will's next workshop will be held at CBC on Sunday 28th September at 10am. This workshop focuses on Strong Hands and Slams:
- Showing Your Point Range Accurately
- The Splinter Convention, and Valuing Shortages
- Introducing and Expanding Roman Keycard 14/30
- Some Advanced Play Tips!
While this workshop does contain some more advanced topics, it is suitable for players of all levels.
- 28th September 2025 at 10am
- Cost: $60
- Morning Tea and Lunch are included.
- Click here to Register
Canberra in Bloom - Volunteers Needed!
To run Canberra in Bloom we need people who can volunteer just an hour of their time. This won't stop you playing in the tournament, as the work is done outside playing hours. We need people to:
- Be at the welcome desk at the Labor Club before the start of play each day, to ensure people know where they are playing and where the facilities are
- At the end of each day, set up for the following day (eg putting out scoring booklets etc)
- Help set up on Thursday afternoon 2nd October (eg setting up tables, tablecloths etc)
- Help pack up on Monday afternoon 6th October
- Help set up between events on Sunday lunchtime 5th October
We are looking for 30 people in total as that will enable all the work to be done easily. Your work will be much appreciated and well recognised. Most of the work involved is quite light, so anyone can help out. If you can help out with an hour of your time, please email the tournament convenor Roger Brake at
Refresher Course
Barb's refresher course has started and there are just 2 more coming up, so don't miss them!
- Dates: Tuesday 9th September, and 16th September
- Time: 10.45 am – 12.00 noon
- Cost: $10 through myABF
GALA ‘GOLD’ Pairs and Rookie/Novice Butler Pairs Championship
The deadline to register for this event is this FRIDAY, please enter now through the link below:
- Saturday 6 September 9:30am
- Click here to Register
Upcoming Events
The next Tuesday night competition is the Alan Mcarthur Teams starting on 16th of September, running for 3 weeks.
- Tuesday 16, 23 and 30 September 2025, 07:15pm
- Click here to Enter
Upcoming Sponsored RED MP events in our calendar are:
Doubleshot RealBridge Pairs:
- 20th Sep -27th Sep on Saturdays 1:15pm
Results
The winners of the last Gold MP GNOT Qualifiers for the Saturday RealBridge are:
- Lynne Moss - Lyn Turner
- Anita Delorenzo - Johanna Thomas
Congratulations to following members who have won both the Swiss Pairs and the Team Event in the Restricted Category at the Cootamundra Congress last weekend!
Swiss Pairs Restricted winners
- PAUL BIRKBY / DEBRA BIRKBY
Restricted team winners
- CRAIG BECCONSALL - JOSH SCHWARTZ - MAXWELL ASHURST - BRICET KLOREN
The results for the Australia Wide Open Pairs are now on their website, see link below. Congratulations to the top two CBC pairs, Will and Vanessa are also coming 3rd in the official leaderboard with an amazing 70.8%!
1. Will Jenner-O'Shea & Vanessa Brown
2. Maxwell Ashurst & Josh Schwartz
You Had Eight Points! Why Didn’t You Bid More?
Last week, at the Illawarra Bridge Club, nobody was vulnerable and my partner dealt and opened One Spade. My Right Hand Opponent bid Three Clubs and I was looking at this:
♠ J953
♥ AKQJ5
♦ T872
♣ void
My golden rule is that once you find a major suit, you should show support for your partner. So my first instinct was to bid Four Spades. However, given my void, I suspected that my Left Hand Opponent was about to raise Clubs and the player in questoon is not shy about bidding to the FiveLevel. I figured that my partner would not know what sort of hand I have and might not be able to decide what to do over Five Clubs.
I thus decided to bid Three Hearts. This is forcing in our system and I knew I’d get a chance to bid Spades later. My thinking was that Partner would then know I had good hearts and Spade support and she would know whether doubling a high level Club contract was beƩer than bidding on.
Sure enough, my Left Hand Opponent now bid Four Clubs and I was all set to complete the picture by belatedly showing my Spade support. To my surprise, my partner doubled this (which for us is penalties) and it was passed around to me. I have another golden rule that you don’t pull your partner’s penalty doubles. A rule I yet again chose to ignore. I figured that she may well be expecting to cash some Spades on the grounds that I haven’t raised and this might not get her as many tricks as she was expecting.
I therefore bid Four Spades and this was passed out. The opponents led a not unexpected Club which Partner ruffed. She then drew trumps, cashed her Ten of Hearts and claimed all Thirteen tricks. Here were the two hands:
♠ J853
♥ AKQJ5
♦ T872
♣ void
♠ AKT8742
♥ T
♦ void
♣ JT864
It turns out Four Clubs goes three off which is 500 doubled (not quite as good as our 510) so despite breaking two golden rules in one hand it was not a bad result.
However, in thinking about it later, it is worth looking a little more deeply into this hand. Consider my partner’s hand. They could have pre-empted in Spades but made the excellent choice to open only One Spade (she’s expecting to bid Four Spades next time unless by some miracle I bid clubs or the opponents suggest a high level Club contract). Here was how the auction proceeded for her:
1S:3C:3H:4C
X : P : 4S: P
?
You might think that having opened and then made a penalty double, you have done enough bidding with your eight points. However…..I think you can expect that your partner has a good Heart Suit and
a Spade Fit and a club void (unless your opponents are in the habit of pre-empting four and five card suits!) It seems likely that you will be able to draw trumps in two rounds. Score two club ruffs in dummy and the other four trumps in your hand. That’s eight tricks. You only need four out of partner’s Heart suit (and he did bid them without raising Spades directly, so they have to be pretty good).
In my opinion. Having opened this eight count and then made a penalty double, you should now raise your partner’s “sign off” game bid to six!
How would your partnership have dealt with this hand?
If you have any interesting hands that come up (or hands you wish you’d known how to play) we would love to hear about them at:
- Steve Geddes
Travel Voucher Winners
Congratulations to our two lucky winners of the August Travel Associates Promotion:
- $500 Voucher goes to Gillian Kempton
- $300 Voucher goes to Alison Russell-French
We hope they enjoy their travels and that our members consider supporting Travel Associates next time they are planning an escape.
Lighter Moments
This morning we had a special celebration of the Raiders Minor Premiership win with biscuits that were too cute to eat, courtesy of Lisa Bradley and Marcia Howard.
Also happening in the Lighter Moments section this week is a claim of revoke by dummy! I need further details about this incident and will print the full story next week but just letting you all know that apparently dummy can revoke too.
Have a great week everyone!
Elizabeth
