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Looking forward to a real bridge year

There are still uncertainties ahead, but the bridge world appears determined to ride out the storm, with both online and face-to-face activities filling up the 2022 calendar.

A few State Championships were concluded this month. Congratulations to the MORRISON team Kim Morrison - Bruce Neill - Mike Hughes - David Weston - Julian Foster who defeated the LAZER team in the final of the 2021 State Open Teams held on RealBridge, December 11-12.

The Country Teams playoff was won by Outer Metropolitan 1 Sharon Mayo - Greg Mayo - Paul McGrath - Michael Simes defeating Northern 1. Full results can be viewed on the NSWBA website.

The 2021 State Open Teams was won by the MORRISON team Kim Morrison - Bruce Neill - David Weston - Julian Foster - Mike Hughes.

The 2021 State Country Teams was won by Outer Metropolitan 1 Greg & Sharon Mayo - Paul McGrath - Michael Simes.

The last 3 rounds of the Grand National Open Teams (GNOT) involved 4 teams from NSW. Congratulations to SYDNEY 7, Peter Jeffery - Wayne Zhu - Yumin Li - Wei Zhang - Simon Zhang, who defeated SYDNEY 1 in the final of the 2021 Grand National Open Teams held on RealBridge, November 26-28. Full results are available on the NSWBA website.

The new year will be kick-started with the NSW Open Interstate Team Selection on Monday 10th January 2022. Note the much earlier start in 2022! Both Stage I and Stage II qualifying will be held over 3 Monday nights (Stage I over 10th, 24th and 31st January and Stage II over 28th February, 14th & 21st March) on RealBridge. The Final will be held face-to-face at NSWBA in April. Please find the details on the NSWBA website and enter via MyABF.

The Women's Interstate Team Selection will also run earlier than usual in 2022. It will be held face-to-face over the weekend on Friday 28th, Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th January. Please find the details on the NSWBA website and enter via MyABF.

Next year some National Gold Points Events are planned to be held online, while others are scheduled to run face-to-face. The Canberra Summer Festival of Bridge will be held on RealBridge from 13th - 23rd January 2022. The Gold Coast Congress will be held face-to-face from 18th - 26th February 2022. Please find details on MyABF / congresses. Please consult the event's official website for conditions of entry for face-to-face congresses.

Upcoming Events

The NSWBA Tournament Calendar now allows you to filter the list of congresses so that you can see which are face-to-face and which are online - the online congresses can be filtered by platform.

NSWBA EVENTS
Jan 10-31 (over 3 Mondays) NSWBA on RealBridge
Open Interstate Team Selection Stage I

Jan 28-30 (Fri-Sun) NSWBA on Goulburn Street
Women's Interstate Team Selection

F2F EVENTS
Dec 26-Jan 2 (Sun-Sun) Trumps Bridge Centre
Festival of Bridge

Jan 26 (Wed) Sydney Bridge Centre
Australia Day Matchpointed Pairs

ONLINE EVENTS
Jan 30 (Sun) North Shore Bridge Club on RealBridge
Australia Day Weekend Online Swiss Pairs

Every Sunday, 2.30pm start. ABF on BBO
National Online Pairs (Open, Restricted and Novice)

NATIONAL EVENTS
Jan 13-23 (Thu-Sun) ABF - SFOB on RealBridge
Summer Festival of Bridge

Feb 18-26 (Fri-Sat) QBA - GCC at Gold Coast Convention Centre
Gold Coast Congress

FEATURED ARTICLES

Congress Stories by
Rakesh Kumar

Rakesh reports on the SOT Swiss Pairs congress, a Sunday event on the weekend of the State Open Teams Final. This time he focuses on defence.

NSWBA SOT Swiss Pairs
A focus on defence

Directors Course
For club administrators
If you represent a club and would like to host a Directors Course, please contact NSWBA for further details.

For players
To better understand situations that arise when a director is called, Matthew McManus has explained several of them in detail, together with the reasons behind the rulings. His articles are written from the perspective of players – you may find them helpful in your quest to be a better congress player. Review his columns here >

CONGRESS PSYCHE REGISTER

The NSWBA has established a central psyche register for all congresses held in NSW.

The laws permit players to deviate from their systemic agreements so long as the partner of the player who does so has no greater reason to be aware of this deviation than the opponents. Once your partnership has a history of deviating from its agreements in a certain situation you are required to inform your opponents of this tendency.

If you feel that your opponents have psyched against you, please email details of the hand to the psyche register – no action will be taken against players who are reported to the psyche register but once a pair has multiple entries in the psyche register, congress directors will be informed so that they are aware of this history when making their rulings.

A form which can be used for submissions is available HERE.

ABOUT eCONGRESS

The eCongress News is a monthly newsletter published by the NSW Bridge Association. It updates you with the latest congress info, interesting hands and analysis from events, and reviewing newly published bridge books.

Subscribe now >

NSW Bridge Association
+61 2 9264 8111
office@nswba.com.au
www.nswba.com.au
Level 1, 162 Goulburn Street,
East Sydney 2010

SEND US YOUR STORIES

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