Augusta Margaret River Mail - Newspaper Article

This event is extremely popular on the Western Australian Bridge calendar, with over 100 participants from Perth and the South West.

The weekend started with the Minot Wines Welcome Pairs on Friday night in which people get a chance to settle into the venue, have a few drinks and catch up with old friends that they may not have seen recently.   This is also a great session for many of our local players since it is a less competitive atmosphere and gives them a chance to play against extremely strong competition.   The best performing local pair on Friday night was Alistair and Bernadette Campbell who came 6 th overall.

On Saturday, a Swiss pairs competition was held with a qualifying session in the morning followed by finals in the afternoon.   This is a much more serious competition, which really tests partnership understanding and your powers of concentration and stamina.   Our club had a very successful morning with the partnerships of Glenda Barter/Bernadette Campbell, Bruce Darby/Sally O'Rourke and Michael O'Hara/Steven Forward all qualifying for the final 14 (out of the 52 pairs).   Unfortunately none of us improved our position in the afternoon final, but this was still a great achievement given the size of our club.   The winners of the Swiss Pairs were Pauline Collett and Patricia McNamara from Perth.  

Earlier in the year, Glenda and Bernadette qualified to represent country Western Australia in the National Championships so competitions like this are great practice for them before they leave later in the year.

On Sunday, everyone returned for another 6 hour session, this time in Teams.   This consists of teams of 4 players competing over 5 rounds against other teams.   At the end of each round you are ranked and play the team who has a similar ranking to you.   The team that is ranked first at the end of the five rounds is the winner.   Our club didn't do very well during this competition, but we did have a lot of fun.   The eventual winners were Paul Brayshaw, Raisin Matthew, Mitchell and Therese Garbutt from Perth.