Newsletter 19 February 2026
In our newsletter this week...
- Vale Diana Bergmark
- Workshop with Will Jenner-O'Shea
- Youthish Night
- Wednesday Night Pizzas
- Understanding Defence – The Hardest Part of the Game
- Upcoming Events
- 2026 ANC Selection Events
- Women's Selection Event Change of Schedule
- Australian Youth Team Selections
- Are We Sure That’s Optimal?
- Make a Wish Trivia Night
- Name Badge Order
- Calligraphy Skills?
- Rottnest Swim Fundraising
Vale Diana Bergmark
Diana passed away on Friday 13th February and is a sad loss to both myself and Wenda Brown. We both played with Diana for some years. She was a keen bridge player both at the Deakin bridge Club and the Royal Canberra Golf Club where she was a club member. On Wednesday this week at the evening presentation for golf members she will be remembered.
Her funeral will be held in Sydney at a later date.
- Graham Ward
Workshop with Will Jenner-O'Shea
Once again Canberra Bridge Club is very lucky to host a series of workshops presented by one of Australia's most gifted teachers!
Will's first workshop for 2026 will be held at CBC on Sunday 1st of March.
The workshop is on "Commonly Misunderstood Auctions, And How To Get Them Right" focusing on:
- Defining Which Jumps Are Strong And Weak
- How Many Cards And How Many Points
- Identifying When Conventions Apply, And Don’t
Details:
- $60 per player including a delicious morning tea, a light lunch, and a booklet of notes.
- $20 for players under 30. (A portion of entry fees and book sales goes towards Youth Bridge in the ACT)
- Sunday 1st March 10am to 3pm.
To make a booking click on the link below or with any enquiries please email
Youthish Night
The next Youthish night for ACT Bridge Players is on Friday 20 February 2026.
Entry is FREE and there will be a Pizza dinner!
All experience levels are welcome, no partner required.
Come to either session or both!
• Session 1: 4:30 PM - 6:30 PM
• Dinner: 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM
• Session 2: 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Contact CBC Youth Coordinator Suz Wilkinson
Wednesday Night Pizzas
The Wednesday night pizzas provide the opportunity for social interaction while enjoying a pizza sampling. It provides a great opportunity to talk to and socialise with your fellow players, which is not always the case when engaged in playing bridge.
- 25th February - 6:30pm
- $5 payable on the day for half a pizza
Those wishing to partake should place their name on a list on the noticeboard or contact Jon Pike directly. His email is
Understanding Defence – The Hardest Part of the Game
A series of workshops for the developing player
This is a practical series of workshops focussing on defending accurately. It will cover some of the well known defence aphorisms such as “Third Player Plays High”, “Always Return Your Partner’s Suit” and focus on why they are valuable and when you should ignore them!
As an experiment, we are offering these classes at our usual day time but also trialling an evening opportunity for players unavailable during the day. The Monday and Tuesday classes are repeats.
- Where is it: Canberra Bridge Club – Evening or Morning classes
- When is it:
• Monday Evenings – 6:45 pm until 9:00 pm
on 23rd, 30th March and 6th, 13th April
OR
• Tuesday Mornings – 9:45 am until 12:00 pm
on 24th, 31st March and 7th, 14th April - How much does it cost: $15 per lesson
- Who is giving it: Steve Geddes
This is a walk in event, no need to register. You can come as an individual or as a partnership. All lessons are on defence but even if you miss one, you can still attend the rest.
Further enquiries please contact:
Upcoming Events
The next Tuesday night competition is the BFACT State Open Teams starting on 3rd to 17th March 2026:
2026 ANC Selection Events
BFACT will be holding events to select pairs to play as ACT representatives at the Australian National Championships (ANC). Women, Senior, Open and Youth teams can go to the ANC.
The event (with the exception of the Youth Selection event which will be played on a Sunday) will be played on Saturday and Sunday, adding Friday evening if more than 10 entries, and the following Wednesday evening if more than 16 entries. Please see regulations for more detail.
Register in myABF through the links below :
- 20 - 22 Feb Women's Selection
- 06-08 Mar Seniors Selection
- 8 March Youth Selection
- 27-29 Mar Open Team Selection
Women's Selection Event Change of Schedule
It has been brought to my attention that there is a wedding of 2 members of CBC on the Sunday afternoon of the Womens ANC selection event and some players would like to play, but it conflicts with the wedding timing. After consultation with the director and notifying BFACT Council, I am setting the playing schedule as follows:
- start playing at 7:15 pm on Friday, 20 February,
- play all day Saturday from 10:00,
- play Sunday morning from 10:00, finishing at lunchtime.
This should allow all interested players to compete in the selection event.
- Niek Van Vucht
Australian Youth Team Selections
New ABF Youth Coordinator Laura Ginnan has made it possible to send 5 Youth Rep teams to Heifi, China, Aug 3-8.
The U26 was selected and ratified in January and will receive full ABF rep subsidies.
The other teams are U16, U21, U31 and U26 Women's teams - they will be 'self-funded' with the ABF subsidising their uniform and entry fees.
Official Regs for selection have just been released.
Key dates:
- U26 Women's: Apply by 1pm, 21 Feb 2026; Selections on 28 Feb-1 Mar 2026 (if required). Applications are open now.
- U21: Apply by 1pm, 14 Mar 2026; Selections on 21-22 Mar 2026 (if required). Applications open soon!
- U16 and U31: Apply by 1pm, 21 Mar 2026, Selections on 28-29 Mar 2026 (if required). Applications open soon!
-Suz Wilkinson
Are We Sure That’s Optimal?
Judith Anderson and Colin Beaton showed me the following hand which came up at the Southern Cross Bridge Club this week. Everyone is vulnerable and North is the Dealer.
♠ AJ7
♥ AT
♦ AKJT84
♣ 96
Not a bad hand at all! Their partner held the following:
♠ K9852
♥ QJ6
♦ 7
♣ AKQ7
This hand feels fraught with potential but I’m not sure how easy it would be to get to the best contract. I could easily imagine wandering too high, stopping too low or ending up in the wrong denomination. I bid it through in my head and got to a good contract, but I’m not sure I’ve bid very well.
Sitting North, I would open One Diamond. My plan is to jump rebid in No Trumps (showing 18-19 HCP and a balanced hand. If I’m going to lie about my shape, I may as well lie about my points too).
South has an easy One Spade response and I would persevere with my intended portrayal of the North cards with Two No Trumps.
South can then use an indispensable convention known as “Checkback”. They should bid Three Clubs which is artificial and asks their partner to describe their hand further. North will respond Three Diamonds to show they have extra length in Diamonds and South will bid Three Spades (showing it’s a five card suit).
If I held the North cards, I would be quite keen at this point - we’ve found a fit in Spades and I have a hand almost tailor made for slam. Furthermore, the lead is going to go around to my partner – through my Aces and around to their minor honours (which is great) and potentially making a lone King of Clubs in the South hand an iron clad stopper. I would want to tell my partner I have perfect cards for slam, but I am going to run into problems unless my partner and I have very clear agreements.
What I want to do is to bid Four Diamonds as a Cue Bid. This would mean “I have a fit for Spades and a great hand for slam. I have first or second round control in Diamonds, but I have two small Clubs. Can you help with that?” On this hand, South can definitely help and after keycarding and discovering we hold all the keycards but not the Queen of Spades, we would settle in Six Spades.
However I have to remember the auction:
One Diamond : One Spade
Two No Trumps : Three Clubs* (Checkback)
Three Diamonds: Three Spades
Four Diamonds….
Is that going to look like a cue agreeing Spades as trumps? Or does it look like I’m just banging on about my Diamonds again? (It should be a cue agreeing Spades – but we’ve all seen auctions go off the rails in these unfamiliar positions. What looks obvious from our side of the table can appear like something else completely to our partner.
Maybe North should take control of the auction? Bid Four No Trumps keycard and they will hopefully know whether we can make six or not. The trouble with this is that North doesn’t know how good South’s hand is. South could have bid Three Clubs with the following hand:
♠ Q8432
♥ Q984
♦ 7
♣ QJ5
Now we could easily be going off in game! It feels quite silly when one goes slam hunting and it turns out game is on a finesse….
High level bidding agreements can be nerve wracking because no matter how thoroughly we discuss them, they often don’t come up for months afterwards and we can never be sure that we’re remembering the conversation the same way that our partner is.
How would your partnership bid this hand? Would you get to slam? Would you want to? If you were in slam, which slam would you have bid?
I’m still not sure what the answer is. Here’s my best answer:
1D : 1S
2N : 3C1
3D2 : 3S3
4D4 : 4N5
5D6 : 5H7
5S8 : 6S9
1 – Checkback
2 – I have extra Diamonds (notionally a 5332)
3 – I have a fifth Spade
4 – We have a fit in Spades, I have control in Diamonds but not Clubs
5 – I have control in clubs, how many keycards do you have
6 – I have three keycards or zero
7 – Do you have the Queen of Spades?
8 – No
9 – We don’t want to bid slam missing the Queen of Trumps in an eight card fit
The question of how to play the hand is not a trivial one either. It’s surprising that with Thirty Two HCPs and a fit we have found ourselves in a slam needing to negotiate three finesse positions. Which ones would you take? Which ones would you avoid?
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
Make a Wish Trivia Night
Our Bridge Club is supporting Make a Wish, a fine charity dedicated to granting cherished wishes for children fighting serious and life threatening illness. The local branch is running a trivia night on Saturday 14 March to raise funds. Grab some friends and of course, your bridge partner, and test your general knowledge - all for a great cause. Club secretary, CJ McKenzie, is putting together a table so you can email her at
The Canberra branch of Make A Wish currently has over 15 wish children at various stages of the wish granting process. With support from the community they can achieve the Make A Wish goal of making sure every child is able to have a wish granted.
Name Badge Order
If you would like a magnetic name badge please submit your order by clicking on the link below. The badge will display your full name and abf number unless you add in the notes section your preferred name.
- Click here to order a name badge through myABF
- Cost: $20 - please pay when you register
Do you have Calligraphy Skills?
ANC organisers are seeking for a member with calligraphy skills who might be willing to help in preparing certificates for prize winners in the ANC in July.
Please contact Lyn Carter at
Rottnest Swim Fundraising
Now only 3 days to go before the 2026 Rottnest Channel swim, and my goal of raising $3500 has been reached. Thank you everyone from this club who have contributed. Altogether, our family team have raised over $28,000, which is beyond my wildest dreams.
The forecast weather includes south-westerly wind of up to 25- 35 knots, so it could be a rough crossing. I will post photos next week, always assuming the Association does not cancel the event last the last minute!
The link to my fundraising page is https://rottnestchannelswim26.grassrootz.com/victor-chang-cardiac-research-institute/tim-mather
- Tim Mather
Have a great week everyone!
Elizabeth
