Tournament Results

The Ace of Hearts Sectional Tournament for players with fewer than 300 points was held on Saturday February 25.

This was a 2-session tournament. Participation was excellent with 11 tables in the morning and 12 in the afternoon.

The overall morning winners were Natalie Stevens and Susan DeGryp who both garnered 2.17 Silver Masterpoints.

Anne Callon and Sophie Watts won the afternoon with 2.27 Silvers.

Playing consistently in both morning and afternoon games, John Heck and Shiela Wansbrough came away with the biggest haul of 2.76 Silvers.

Detailed tournament results: morning / afternoon.

Congrats to Ruth Cain (chair), Ernie Tradewell (director) and an assortment of dedicated volunteers for putting on this great event!

As most Victoria players know, the Kirkwood Trophy is awarded to the District 19 resident who wins the most masterpoints at District regionals in a calendar year. Our four district regionals this year were Leavenworth, Penticton, Lynnwood and Whistler.

You can find more information, including this year’s rankings and the list of the past 54 winners by accessing D19’s Kirkwood Trophy page.

The page also features an awesome video of the actual Kirkwood Cup. Watch it and you can answer the following question: What was our District called when the cup was created? You won’t get a prize but I will appreciate receiving your answer (just click on the Contact Us button at the right).

The top 10 Victoria area players are shown in the table below:

The Oregon Coast Regional in Seaside is always a popular destination for Victoria bridge players. This year was no exception with eighteen of us making the trip south. Another six players from up island were also present.

Sandra and Doug Fraser scored big with 66 MPs, coming in 24th and 25th out of a field of 682 players.

Here are the scores and ranks of all Victoria attendees.

As reported in a previous post, a large contingent of Victoria players participated in the Penticton Regional. Left out was how they performed.

To find out, click here.

Several Victoria area players went down to San Diego to try their luck in the NABC. Here, to the best of my knowledge, are their results. Please let me know (by emailing the webmaster) if I have missed any.

Gerry McCully and Rhonda Foster had a 60.26% game in the second final session of the Senior Mixed Pairs to win the event by less than a board (55 top). The pair garnered 80 platinum MPs. With the win, McCully became a Grand Life Master. 

Winners of the Senior Mixed Pairs:
Rhonda Foster and Gerry McCully

After competing with reasonable success in the Penticton Regional this year, our little team of four aspiring players decided to take a shot at the big time.

We booked flights and accommodations for the San Diego NABC, arriving there on Thursday evening of November 23, the hottest Thanksgiving in San Diego ever at 85 F. Not the best time to arrive in the US as most restaurants are closed to allow for turkey dinners with family. Following a semi-successful Friday morning compact KO we looked for something appropriate to our rating. The afternoon featured the start of a “Senior Knockout Teams”. Should be right up our alley, all of us being seniors (60+ and even ++).

So we pay our money (having to pay for two 30-board games at $25 each US did not seem unreasonable given this was a special game and the Nationals after all) and Keith and I get to a table where a pleasant “young” man named Mike is already seated, shuffling cards in a very professional manner. He asks us what our seeding points are. Well that’s easy enough, we don’t have any. Soon his partner Bob shows up. They’re both very proficient players and after 15 boards, have a comfortable lead. Bob does compliment us on our fast play: “You guys play in very good tempo”.

This being half the boards, they are replaced by their teammates, Jeff and Eric, also pretty good players. Their faces seem familiar, where could we have seen them before? In any case it’s soon over and they have a huge lead.

Meanwhile at the other table, our partners are battling it out with Nick and Ralph who also have a coach. Holly and Esther manage a grand slam (not bid) where the opponents (Eric and Jeff) at our table only make six, so our defence was working well for that board at least. They also put the opponents down 1 in a slam try. But that’s not enough and we concede, trailing by 100+ points.

Although we did not win, it was an interesting learning experience. We now know that “Senior” has different meanings and is not necessarily related to the age of the players.

And we got to play against the top rated team of Frank Nickell, Ralph Katz, Robert Levin, Michael Rosenberg, Eric Rodwell and Jeff Meckstroth who were very kind to us despite our obvious blunder in signing up against the big boys.

For the rest of the week, we decided it was best to stay with our peers and play in regional-rated knockouts.

Playing 18 games over 8 days, we manage to win one KO and place in a few others for a total of 40+, mainly gold, points.

So an exhilarating and exhausting week. Fortunately, San Diego has some decent microbreweries and eateries and we were able to revive ourselves daily before tackling new challenges.

Holly Boudreau, Esther Wiebe, Keith Hibbert and JP Weber