Climbers reach the top

It's been and long and fraught ascent but the Central Climbers made it to the top of the ladder last night. The Snakes, who had beaten them twice previously, and who probably have the best overall record in the competition, self destructed in the last two boards. Earlier on they had given up 5 imps as a result of a misclick which wasn't noticed in time to use the undo button. It was a portent of things to come. With 3 boards to go it was 22-11 to the Snakes. Then nikzti/suescott for the snakes doubled and caught the weak 1nt. gerry/tarakiwi of the climbers wriggled and squirmed (snakes would have been proud of them) but nikzti/suescott kept their bottle and kept doubling. They collected 1100 against a vul game at the other table. It was now 32-11 to the Snakes and that should have been that. Next board nikzti/suescott had a gerber accident and played in 4c which gave 11 imps. On the final board at the other table jonz continued the kiwi teams tradition of strange and unusual things happening on the last board of matches by finding a different kind of abberation. She was declaring 3nt after partner had trasferred to spades. A cow flew by which momentarily distracted her into thinking she was playing in spades. The result was a vulnerable game swing and the final result 35-32 to the Climbers.

The bronze medal play off saw The Masters convincingly beat Western Gals 34-1. I don't have any details of this match. Perhaps one of the participants could post a comment filling us in.

In other mathes the higher teams prevailed so that the only change in the final week was at the top.

So (drum roll) I hereby present the medals:


Gold: - Central Climbers

Silver: - Snakes

Bronze: - The Masters


Thanks to all who participated. Running a ladder was a bit of an experiment and I'm not sure whether or not it worked that well and whether in future we would be best to try knock-outs, round-robins and/or swiss events. I would REALLY appreciate your feedback. Please post your comments below. See http://kiwiteams.blogspot.com/2008/09/posting-of-comments.html for how to post comments.