[nickf]

Few of the yellows are more committed to BBO than Cascade and congratulations to him, today qualifying for the New Zealand Open team after a long trials process.

nickf
sydney

[Flame]

well done !

[Walddk]

Indeed. Wayne is a great asset to BBO in many areas. Congratulations and good luck in Shanghai!

Roland

[Gerardo]

Congrats!

[macaw]

Neat!!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations

[inquiry]

Looks like a new gold star to me.... wd.

[fred]

inquiry, on Apr 17 2006, 01:00 PM, said:

Looks like a new gold star to me.... wd.

I have added stars to Cascade's and Kermit's profiles.

Big congrats Wayne and Pam!!!

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[cherdano]

Congratulations!

[hrothgar]

Great news...

[Echognome]

Well done! A heart congratulation.

[pclayton]

Wayne: well done. Good luck in Shanghai.

----Phil ((currently looking for a winter home in Chile (or maybe a summer place in Bulgaria). Perhaps if I get dual citizenship and represent a country, I'll get a star . Seems easier than winning a NABC event anyway. )

[mikeh]

Well done, wayne.... all those hand analyses with Richie and me (and others) in the BBO Juniors club have paid off

More seriously, congratulations for a well-deserved win and good luck....I look forward to doing some vugraph of you.....

[cherdano]

pclayton, on Apr 17 2006, 08:10 PM, said:

----Phil ((currently looking for a winter home in Chile (or maybe a summer place in Bulgaria). Perhaps if I get dual citizenship and represent a country, I'll get a star  . Seems easier than winning a NABC event anyway.  )

Phil, I am sure you'll make it some way, no need to get desperate yet

Arend

[Cascade]

Thanks all.

We are very excited.

This was our first foray at this level of competition. I had previously played a trial (actually Zone 7 championships) with a different partner in 2001.

We had been seeded 9th out of ten pairs that entered for the trial. The trials were in 3 stages with the first two stages being pairs scored by cross-imps. We finished 5th in the first stage and 5th again in the 2nd stage. The top pair (Newell and Reid who were around 3rd in the datums at last years Bowl) directly made the team. The next four pairs were formed into two teams with the winning team being added to the national team. We were teamed with Ashley Bach and Michael Cornell who will be known to many. Michael has represented NZ many times since 1972!!! He also usually plays the Cavendish - last year with Michael Rosenberg. He won the Cavendish Teams two years ago. Ashley Bach is perhaps currently NZs most talented player. He has won a North American title - the IMP pairs at the Summer Nationals in Anaheim 2000. He was also has a silver medal from the World Junior teams in Bali 1995.

Ironically the team that we beat included Stephen Burgess with whom Ashley won his North American title. Yes he is a bona fide NZer although he has played most of his representative bridge for Australia - they claim anything good from NZ as their own: Phar Lap; pavlova; Russell Crowe. Not to mention many fine kiwi bridge players including Paul Marston and Ishmael Del Monte.

Mike is correct that in his inference that we have achieved this result in no small part due to BBO and the many good friends we have here. Pam and I live three hours drive from each other. I have no doubt that we would not have developed such a solid partnership without BBO. We have a semi-regular game with two friends once per week but more importantly use the BBO features to practice as often as possible. We use the partnership bidding feature and play (usually defend) against the GIBs. We use the GIBs since they don't complain if we UNDO or sit around talking about a situation. I have a hand generator that will create lin files that I can upload to partnership bidding or teaching tables so that we can practice specific situations or often I just let it create interesting hands so we practice the uncommon situations more often. This paid off we had only three system misunderstandings in 332 boards in the trial and we survived them all.

One splinter was misread but I was able to deduce that the wheels had fallen off when Pam bypassed a spade cue and then cued spades on the next round. She was a passed hand so it didnt make any sense. Because we play kickback 4NT was her spade cue so I was able to pass and hope and she brought in ten tricks.

We had the inevitable misunderstanding with kickback although I honestly cannot remember the last time that we had a kickback issue. Anyway again I was a passed hand it seemed so unlikely that Pam could be making a grandslam try opposite a passed hand with the opponents in the auction that I passed her "king ask". Again she made.

Our third misunderstanding was with exclusion blackwood but we found a playable slam anyway. If there had been a grand we would have missed out.

This sounds bad but of course there were 329 boards on which we had no misunderstandings (well perhaps a couple of minor issues). I will not document those.

BBO has also been great for practicing declarer play with Fred's Bridgemaster deals which we both have used.

And of course the vugraph where we get to watch the world's finest players. I occasionally I get to commentate on them and with them. This has not been an unselfish experience for me - I have soaked in the style and comments of the world masters. I come from a small city (70,000) in provincial New Zealand. I have seldom had the opportunity to play with better players than myself so the BBO experience has been invaluable.

I put a little something back into bridge and BBO. I really enjoy teaching and playing with beginners and intermediate players which I have done on BBO in the BIL, the Acol Bridge Club and with BBOJuniors. My involvement in BBO juniors like vugraph in particular has been not completely unselfish. I am sure I have learnt more from Richie, Mike, Hedy and others than I have contributed.

So thanks again to all of you well wishers.

And a special thanks to BBO, Fred, Uday, Sheri, Roland (vugraph coordinator), Richie, Mike and many others who I have commented with and learnt from on BBO and here on forums.

[han]

Congrats Wayne on your great result. I enjoyed reading what you wrote here very much, and I think many of us BBO regulars will.

[luke warm]

wayne, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy (i don't know your partner, but i'm sure she's every bit as nice)... break a leg!!!

[northo_49]

Congatulations Wayne and Pam !!!

[Cascade]

Pam featured on the front page of the newspaper in her city this morning.

Apparently she will be the third woman to play for NZ. Val Gardiner played at the PABF last year and I am still trying to find out who the 1st woman was.

Pam Livingston in Taranaki Daily News

[KiwiBridge]

I don't think Val had to endure the rigours of an intense 332 board trial, which makes Pam's achievement all the more worthy. Those of us who know Wayne and Pam personally are so very thrilled by this result, and wish them all the very best when they make their debut on the international stage.

[joker_gib]

Congratulations and good luck !

Alain