VICTORY DINNER. Today s Program (Mon, 27th June) Tomorrow s Program (Tue, 28th June)

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1 Editor: Andy Hung Issue No. 3 hung.andy.p@gmail.com Monday, 7th June 016 After day one, NSW are leading in the Open and the Youth. The largest lead margin is in the Women s where QLD are leading by 63 VPs over SA. In the Seniors, ACT are just ahead of ACT by 7 VPs. With 17 matches to go, anything can still happen. Good luck to all! Tournament Website: Today s Program (Mon, 7th June) 09:30 ITC RR1 S5 (O, W, S, Y) ***Earlier Start*** 11:35 ITC RR1 S6 (O, W, S), RR S1 (Youth) 14:05 ITC RR1 S7 (O, W, S), RR S (Y) 16:10 ITC Rnd 8 RR S1 (O, W, S), RR S3 (Y) 18:15 ITC Rnd 9 RR S (O, W, S), No play for Youth Tomorrow s Program (Tue, 8th June) 10:00 ITC Rnd 10 RR S3 (O, W, S), Rnd 9 RR S4 (Y) 1:15 ITC Rnd 11 RR S4 (O, W, S), Rnd 10 RR S5 (Y) 14:45 ITC Rnd 1 RR S5 (O, W, S), Rnd 11 RR3 S1 (Y) 17:00 ITC Rnd 13 RR S6 (O, W, S), Rnd 1 RR3 S (Y) VICTORY DINNER When: Friday 1st July at 7pm Deadline: Monday 7th June, please buy your tickets before then. All attendees need to pay for tickets in advance. Tickets can be purchased by using the form in this brochure. Prepaid tickets can be collected from the Hospitality desk at the venue. You must produce your ticket to gain entry to the dinner. Enjoy good company, excellent food and a selection of wine, beer and soft drink.

2 Start Times (Monday) 09:30 11:35 14:05 16:10 18:15 OPEN Rnd 5 (RR1, S5) Rnd 6(RR1, S6) WA TAS TAS QLD QLD SA SA WA NSW Bye NSW ACT ACT VIC VIC Bye Rnd 7 (RR1, S7) Rnd 8 (RR, S1) Rnd 9 (RR, S) SA TAS TAS ACT VIC NSW WA QLD VIC WA WA SA VIC NSW SA NSW ACT QLD ACT Bye QLD Bye TAS Bye SENIORS Rnd 5 (RR1, S5) Rnd 6 (RR1, S6) TAS ACT ACT WA WA NSW NSW TAS SA Bye SA QLD QLD VIC VIC Bye Rnd 7 (RR1, S7) Rnd 8 (RR, S1) Rnd 9 (RR, S) NSW ACT ACT QLD VIA SA TAS WA VIC TAS TAS NSW VIC SA NSW SA QLD WA QLD Bye WA Bye ACT Bye WOMEN S Rnd 5 (RR1, S5) Rnd 6(RR1, S6) QLD SA SA VIC VIC TAS TAS QLD ACT Bye ACT WA WA NSW NSW Bye Rnd 7 (RR1, S7) Rnd 8 (RR, S1) Rnd 9 (RR, S) TAS SA SA WA WA NSW QLD VIC NSW QLD ACT VIC NSW ACT TAS ACT SA QLD WA Bye VIC Bye TAS Bye YOUTH Rnd 5 (RR1, S5) Rnd 6(RR, S1) WA SA SA NSW ACT QLD WA QLD VIC NSW ACT VIC Rnd 7 (RR, S) Rnd 8 (RR, S3) SA VIC QLD SA WA ACT VIC WA NSW QLD ACT NSW Mobile phones and Elect. Devices Mobile telephones, pager and other electronic equipment must be switched off during session time unless a specific exception is permitted by the Chief Tournament Director. Breach of this regulation incurs a disciplinary penalty, after one warning. During the Interstate Teams Championships, players may not bring mobile phones, etc. into the playing area during session time. LINE-UPS For all of the fields (Open, Women s, Seniors, Youth), the line-ups for the second round robin, the first named team has seating rights (i.e. second named team must put in their line-ups first. E.g. If QLD vs SA, SA sits first and QLD can choose). * Captains, it is your responsibility to submit the line-ups in time penalties apply for late line-ups! Page Monday, 7th June 016

3 After 4 rounds (of 1) OPEN Team VPs 1 NSW SA TAS ACT QLD WA VIC 74.8 WOMEN S Team VPs 1 QLD 19.4 SA ACT NSW WA VIC TAS 59.8 OPEN RR1, Session 1 TAS Bye NSW SA VIC QLD ACT WA RR1, Session TAS ACT SA Bye QLD NSW WA VIC RR1, Session 3 VIC TAS ACT SA QLD Bye NSW WA RR1, Session 4 TAS NSW SA VIC QLD ACT WA Bye WOMEN S RR1, Session 1 SA Bye ACT TAS NSW VIC WA QLD RR1, Session SA WA TAS Bye VIC ACT QLD NSW RR1, Session 3 NSW SA WA TAS VIC Bye ACT QLD RR1, Session 4 SA ACT TAS NSW VIC WA QLD Bye Monday, 7th June 016 Page 3

4 After 4 rounds (of 1, of 0 for Youth) SENIORS Team VPs 1 SA ACT NSW VIC 1. 5 QLD TAS WA YOUTH Team VPs 1 NSW 14.9 ACT VIC QLD SA WA 61. SENIORS RR1, Session 1 ACT Bye SA NSW VIC WA QLD TAS RR1, Session ACT QLD NSW Bye WA SA TAS VIC RR1, Session 3 VIC ACT QLD NSW WA Bye SA TAS RR1, Session 4 ACT SA NSW VIC WA QLD TAS Bye YOUTH RR1, Session 1 NSW SA QLD WA VIC ACT RR1, Session VIC SA WA ACT QLD NSW RR1, Session 3 SA QLD WA VIC NSW ACT RR1, Session 4 ACT SA NSW WA QLD VIC Page 4 Monday, 7th June 016

5 BIDDING CHALLENGE The second board of Match 3 saw South pick up a hand to remember (or to forget!), as it will undoubtedly be the strongest hand of the tournament. South held AKQ7 AKQ A AQJ43. What would your plan be? Opening is a start, but what would you rebid over partner s expected (waiting bid)? No doubt the K is the crucial key card to find out (the J will be too difficult to uncover), but also the number of clubs in partner s hand is likely to be important too, so 3 seems like a reasonable rebid. If partner is able to raise to 4, we ll be in a good position, as well as if partner rebids 3 (showing spades). This was the full deal: Dlr: East Vul: NS J 10 9 J Q K J K 8 5 W N S E A K Q 7 A K Q A A Q J After - -3, North s best bid now would be 4. A few players as North bid 3, but this is probably a red herring. When a player opens and rebids a minor, he will typically have at least a six-card suit. If he only has five, he (a) may be balanced and would have rebid NT s, or (b) may have a second suit, and if his shape is 5-4, he may have opened at the 1-level instead of. Thus, followed by 3- minor is likely to be bid with a six-card suit. After , South can simply ask for key cards, followed by a king ask. Once South discovers the K and K, he can bid 7NT with confidence. If North does not have any kings, then South can probably gamble on 7 which should have lots of chances. Walking around the room, here were some of the auctions some pairs produced: Tully Rankin N S 3 4 4NT 5 5 5NT 7 Belonogoff Gammon N S 3 4 7NT Haffer Croft N S 7NT Schmidli N Yoon S 3 7 Pele Rankin and Therese Tully for the QLD Women s did well to get to 7 after Pele found out about the club fit, the K, and an interest in grand (5 was a generic grand try). Perhaps a further try with 6 over 5NT might have found the 7NT? Cynthia Belonogoff and Susanne Gammon for the WA Women s had a no-fuss sequence. 3 received a 4 raise, and as 4 implied slam interest (5 would be fast arrival), Susanne was fairly confident and bid 7NT. The simplest auction of the entire field came from the SA Open Team. Haffer s showed two controls (which had to be two kings), and that was all was needed. Peter Schmidli and John Yoon from the ACT Youth were very erractic (only just John actually). Something compelled John to bid his four-card spade suit, and followed it up with a jump to grand! (Un)Luckily enough, 7 had play. The presence of the 8 and 7, along with an entry to dummy, gave John a restricted choice when West follows twice on the AK. How should you play the spades as West? Psst, don t tell anyone about your habits! Whatever you do, just don t play the J followed by the 9 (no one will believe you will do this with J9 doubleton). In a vacuum, it shouldn t matter how you play, as declarer will play with the restricted choice odds that West has a doubleton instead of tripleton. So did John go down in this grand slam? His LHO played the J followed by the 10. His table feel suggested to him that West was more likely to do this with J109 than J10, so he played for the 3-3 break. Afflick Collins N S NT 3 3 3NT Most of the Seniors had no trouble getting to the grand slam. Ian Afflick and Paul Collins had a strong auction where was 7+ pts, NT was 5+, 3 Puppet Stayman, 4 was key-card ask in clubs. In other Senior matches, ACT, TAS, and SA all reached 7NT, very well done! Monday, 7th June 016 Page 5

6 Chief Tournament Director Hi Laurie, thank you for taking your time to do this interview. You are the Chief Tournament Director for this year s ANC, and I hope everything goes well for you. Q: How long have you been directing at Bridge Events? And how has Bridge directing changed since you started directing? A: I directed my first club session as a teenager in Technology has changed the face of bridge considerably since then (especially in the areas of scoring and results presentation). Many other more gradual changes have also occurred. The current Laws now allow for a much greater proportion of 'equity' rulings than back then and this in turn has significantly reduced the average number of appeals at major events. In 'judgement' ruling situations player consultation (via polling) is now the norm and 'weighted' adjustments are now also quite common. Q: You direct bridge at all levels from Club sessions to the World Championships, do you find that you need to adjust how you deal with players at different levels? How do you do this? A: I tend to try to use less words when explaining rulings to international fields where English is not the first language of many of the participants. The majority of rulings at club-level are 'mechanical'; things like leads out-of-turn, revokes and insufficient bids. In high-level 'screened' events most rulings relate to either some form of misinformation or to potential unauthorised information situations. Rulings delivered by the Director to lower-level players often need to be accompanied by a fair bit of extra elaboration and explanation. Elite players usually have a basic understanding of the issues involved and are therefore really only interested in the outcome. Q: Why is there a move away from Appeals Committees at World Championships and is this good for Bridge? A: The first country to dispense with Appeals Committees was Italy (now more than a decade ago). In 013 the EBL replaced the old Appeals process with an alternative 'Review' protocol and the WBF adopted the same structure in 014. The ACBL will also dispense with player-based committees as of January 017. The efficacy of appeals committees really comes down to a cost-benefits analysis. The WBF catalogued all its past appeal cases and noted that in less than 0% of the cases brought to a committee was there any change to the original ruling. It then further subdivided into two groups the situations where the Committee's ruling was different from the Directors'; those where it believed the committee had 'improved' the final outcome, and those where it was felt that the committee had made things 'worse'. In the end it came to the conclusion that these essentially amateur committees were not doing a particularly good job. The Review process, which has now replaced the Appeals Committee structure at the elite level, is very similar in approach to a judicial review by an appellant court. The conduct of a 'review' involves the examination of the Director's ruling process rather than necessarily a re-evaluation of the actual ruling. The Reviewer normally checks that the Director has gathered the necessary evidence regarding what occurred when the infraction arose. The Reviewer then needs to be satisfied that the correct law was applied and that other Directors were consulted where appropriate. In matters requiring the exercise of bridge judgement the Reviewer clarifies that suitable players have been asked appropriate questions such that a clear judgemental view was obtained. Finally the Reviewer checks that the ruling issued (based upon all the information available) was within the bounds of reasonableness. If the Reviewer determines that the process has not been followed properly or that the ruling is defective in some other material way, he then instructs the CTD to correct the previous failings. Interview continues on Page 8 From the 016 European Open Team Championships: Dlr: N South Vul: Nil A Q 6 Q Q W N E You Pass 1 Pass 1 * Pass Pass 4 Pass Pass Pass East opens 1 (+ ), West bids 1 as a transfer to hearts showing 4+, and East bids which shows 1-14 with four card heart support. What do you lead? (Hand continues on page 7.) Page 6 Monday, 7th June 016

7 53rd European Bridge Team Championships Playing area Open Team Winners: FRANCE Margaret Bourke (ACT), Pele Rankin (QLD), Jodi Tutty (ACT), Therese Tully (QLD) Women s Team Winners: ENGLAND Jamie and his boiz (VIC Youth) Winners of Flighted Swiss Pairs Seniors Team Winners: ISRAEL The European Team Championships concluded just yesterday ending with a bang in all three contests. France had secured the Open title with a round to spare, whilst the titles for both the Women s and Seniors were determined on the very last board, when a failing grand slam gave England the Women s title and Israel victory in the Seniors. Open A: Dave Munro and David Schokman Open B: Graham Rusher and Tony Treloar Open C: David Bessell, Michael Clibbon From the 016 European Open Team Championships: Dlr: N Vul: Nil K853 AKJ W N S E A Q 6 Q Q10987 W N E You Pass 1 Pass 1 * Pass Pass 4 Pass Pass Pass Say you lead a club. Partner wins the A as declarer plays the 4. Partner now plays the. What s your plan? Full deal on page 8. Monday, 7th June 016 Page 7

8 Interview continued with Laurie Kelso from Page 6. Q: When, in your opinion, should the ABF move to adopt the same no appeals ideal? A: The ABF employed a 'review' structure earlier this year during the Australian Open, Women's and Seniors' play-offs. The closed nature of the Play-offs, coupled with a general lack of available AC personnel, (often there are no on-site, non-involved individuals of the appropriate standard required to be able to impanel a competent committee) meant that it was the ideal environment for us to initiate this particular approach. Q: When will the ABF have National Exams that Bridge Directors need to pass to be recognised as Club and State Directors throughout Australia rather than unique individual state qualifications? Do you think this will make for better directors? And why is this? A: I am not sure when, or if that will happen. Accreditation is only one of the many aspects to consider when trying to ensure that individuals who possess the necessary desire and aptitude are able to join the directing ranks. Accreditation is an affirmation that the individual has reached a certain level of proficiency and it confirms the presence of an expected set of competencies. Prior to undertaking any form of assessment, aspiring Directors really need to first learn their craft and then over time they gradually expand their knowledge base, which is why I consider formal assessment and accreditation to be one of the last steps in a Director's early development path. Most forms of written assessment will after all only test a Director's technical competency. There are plenty of individuals who have 'passed' the relevant examinations, but then subsequently flounder in the real-world environment because of poor interpersonal skills, a fear of technology, or an inability to handle conflict. Q: A comment heard is that Directors choose not to report incidents or exclude players from events for breaches of good behaviour because it is an inconvenience to do so, with that in mind how can Directors be encouraged to exclude players who have no respect for Good behaviour at Bridge? A: I don't think 'inconvenience' has anything to do with it. There is nothing difficult about penalising or suspending a player. The power of the Director to suspend is however limited to the session currently in progress. One might thus consider it analogous to the 'sin bin' used in various team contact sports. In order to actually disqualify a player, the Director needs the concurrence of the Tournament Organiser. This is where things often become more complicated, since the subsequent disciplinary processes that inevitably follow on from a disqualification are still in many jurisdictions quite poorly framed and often therefore vulnerable to a successful (or at least vexatious) challenge via the courts. Many of the game's governing bodies are now actively working towards improved protocols and procedures, such that in the future these types of serious behaviour issues can, with some assurance of finality, be more effectively dealt with from within the bridge community; thereby removing the means, as well as the need for either party to ever resort to an external (non-bridge) entity. Q: How often do you play face to face Bridge to maintain an appreciation of the real decisions that players make when at the stresses of the table? A: I play two, sometimes three of the smaller National events per year. I also play in the occasional Congress, but I don't play 'club' bridge any more. Thank you for your time Laurie. From the 016 European Open Team Championships: Dlr: N Vul: Nil K853 AKJ K AJ3 N W E S W N E You Pass 1 Pass 1 * Pass Pass 4 Pass Pass Pass J543 AQJ7 K54 A Q 6 Q Q10987 Switches in mid-game should be attitude based, that is, a low card should imply a likeness to that suit. If that s the case, North s switch should promise the K. The textbook defence therefore is to win the first spade with the A, followed by the Q. Partner should get the message and overtake to give us a spade ruff. In the Open Field, 4 was played by East 3 times, and of that 3, a trump was led twenty times, a club was led nine times, and a diamond was led three times. Of those nine tables that received a club lead, six defeated the contract. Page 8 Monday, 7th June 016