Hunters Hill Bridge Club Inc.

The Australian Junior Team has been invited to the most prestigious Junior event in Europe, the White House Junior International in Amsterdam.
There will be a one-session pairs event on Saturday 13th March at 7.30pm to raise money to send the team Amsterdam. It will be held at the Grand Slam Bridge Club at Double Bay.

See the attached brochure for more details:

The Council has offered HHBC the use of the Henley Community Club. This building has much more space and wonderful views and the committee feels that would be a better venue for us. Many of you will be familiar with it as we held our congress there in September this year.

We feel the best way to handle the move is for it be a six month trial and then we will all know the pros and cons. We have also decided to delay the move from the Hunters Hill Bowling Club until we have sorted out any teething problems and so this means that Monday Bridge will continue for a short while to be at the Hunters Hill Bowling Club.

It’s always a good idea, as declarer, to pause before playing to the first trick and ask yourself “what could go wrong?” That way, you will be better equipped to deal with any surprises. This interesting deal comes from the 2004 Lindfield Super Congress. Dealer is South; both sides vulnerable.
West . . . . . . . . . East

AJ7642 K AKJ8 A5

K5 Q8653 9 KT963

With the opponents silent, West opens 2♣ and shows spades, East shows hearts and clubs, and the final contract is 4♠. North leads the ace of hearts, and switches to ♦2. South plays ♦Q and your ace takes the trick. So far, the defence has been more than helpful. The hand looks cold for eleven tricks, even twelve if trumps behave. Could anything go wrong?

At trick 3 you play ♠2, ♠3 from North, king from dummy, and South discards a small diamond. Oh, dear! With QT98 of trumps still sitting over you, dreams of +680 vanish. You will be happy to make your contract. What is your plan to avoid the loss of three trump tricks in addition to the ace of hearts?

We're trying a new format this year. We'd like to try to have all members gather together for one big party. To this end, there will be a party at the Hunters Hill Bowling Club on Wednesday, 16 December. Our regular Wednesday bridge session will be transferred to the Hunters Hill Club on that day and will run from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m., followed by a few formalities. Then hors d'oeuvres will be served and each HHBC member will be entitled to a glass of wine, beer or soft drink. You are welcome to stay on and socialise if you so choose. Further drinks and dinner will be available to purchase, even if you are not a member of the Hunters Hill Club.

In order that we (and Madeline’s Restaurant at the Club) will have some idea of how many to expect, lists will be circulated at all sessions so you can let us know if you will be attending. You may also tell us by e-mail. Please inform us if you intend to:

• Play bridge from 2:30 - 5:30 p.m.
• Stay on to enjoy a cup of cheer and nibbles afterward
• Not play bridge but drop in around 5:30 for the festivities
• Have dinner at the Club

In February 2009 Kay and I toured the south island of New Zealand for two weeks. During that time we visited two bridge clubs, one in Invercargill and one in Dunedin.
The clubs welcomed visitors and the people were very friendly. The clubs had their own quite large premises and they both opened the bar after play and sold drinks which most players imbibed while waiting for the scoring to be done.

The AGM will be held at Fairland Hall on Wednesday 18 November at 3.45 pm, after our regular Wednesday bridge session. The Committee encourages as many members as possible to attend.

As normal, all Committee positons will be declared vacant. There are nomination forms available at Fairland Hall and at the Hunters Hill Club.

The last round of the Club Teams Championship was held last night. The winner of the event was the WHITTON team by one Victory Point! Congratulations to Trish Whitton, Ron Fitzgerald, Rosemary Millar, Margaret Driscoll and Linda Allen.

Click on Read more for the details.

The final was held at the NSWBA on the weekend. There were 41 teams from 20 Sydney clubs including the NSWBA. The teams had all qualified at their own clubs. The event was run as a knockout with the defeated teams playing in a Swiss repechage. The two winning semi finalists were strong teams from North Shore Bridge Club and the NSWBA. They will go to the Australian final at Banora Point on the Gold Coast together with the first two placegetters in the Swiss who were teams from Parramatta and Strathfield.

The three teams from Hunters Hill and their finishing positions were:

Peter Gill has kindly agreed to write a blog for our website. We are privileged indeed to have an expert of Peter's calibre sharing his thoughts with us.
I would like to encourage all members to contribute comments to any blog or forum item on the website, or of course post new items to a forum. To contribute you need to log in. The first time you need to register. It is easy - just enter your name (or a pseudonym) and invent a password that you will remember.
We will soon have a separate section for blogs. Meanwhile here is Peter's first blog. Just click on Read More to continue.

Yesterday's Congress was a great success! Congratulations to the organisers and everyone involved.
The results were:

FIRST

David Weston, Michael Wilkinson, Nevena Djurovic, Jamie Ebery

SECOND (EQUAL)

Wayne Smith, Warren Dobes, Chris Dibley, Peter Livesey

SECOND (EQUAL)

Pauline Gumby, Warren Lazer, Andrew Peake, Orlando Wu

BEST HUNTERS HILL TEAM

Deborah Bennett, Carolyn Molloy, Heather Cusworth, Frances Lyons