No Kiwi Teams for 2010

Unfortunately there will be no kiwi teams this year. I had intended to restart in March but I find that I am just too busy on other things at the moment. I may try again in 2011.

If any one else wants to run kiwi teams or something similar I am more than happy to help get them started.

Thanks to all of you who have supported kiwi teams so wonderfully over the last couple of years.

Regards
Russell Wilson

Hand from Knockout Final

After last night's November Knockout Final I asked seychelles, captain of the victorious No Strumpets to write up a hand from the final. Modestly she chose a hand that her team was a little lucky on. This was the first board of the extra 4 boards required after Antihomers were behind by one imp at the end of the first 12.

Seychelles explains:


"1C = strong NT hand or distributional with C or D
2H = we must have H our way
4H = intrepid bid by my partner!!! (she is sitting over the C & has S shortage)

We got lucky – with the lead of AS followed by QS.

When East wins the 1st trump, he leads a C which I take with the A on table. After east wins the 2nd trump, he continues C , KC is trumped and I can cross to dummy to discard a losing diamond on JC (I had decided that east had already shown all his points – he would have x with the strong NT type - therefore I decided that the ruffing finesse in C was necessary)

At the other table east opened a precision style 2c and there it played. This made an overtrick and we collected 11 imps."

- Well played seychelles and congratulations again to No Strumpets on their win. I do feel a bit for dolbeldjd however. With no attractive lead he chose to risk that the KS was either with partner or dummy. Partner in fact turned out to have 2 of the 3 outstanding kings, but not the king of the suit that he had bid! Looking at all four hands it is clear an early diamond switch will defeat the contract but looking only at the east hand when a diamond risks either blowing a trick or saving declarer from a guess.

NO STRUMPETS take Knockout

No Strumpets came from behind to win the close and exciting finale to the November Knockout tonight. Runners up Antihomers were leading 21-14 with three boards to play but then the No Strumpets got a total of 4 vulnerable undertricks when Antihomers were in partscores at both tables. That was worth 9 imps and Antihomers could only get 1 imp on the last two boards so it was 23-22 after 12 boards.

Under the rules of the event Antihomers had an ace up their sleeve. Because they had won all their games in qualifying for the final they were able to call on an extra 4 boards. This they duly did but when No Strumpets claimed 20 imps off the first two of these boards it was all but over.

There was still interest down to the last board as a bidding accident saw No Strumpets playing in partscore when a vulnerable slam is makeable. However, the lead was 17 imps and the reward for bidding and making the slam would only have been 16 imps! As it happens the slam which needs a bit of good guessing was neither bid nor made at the other table but the vulnerable game pulled back 11 imps to leave the final score 43-37.

Congratulations to No Strumpets who are:
seychelles aka Gillian Gonthier
egmont aka Trish Anagnostou (an ex pat Kiwi currently in Malaysia)
mairi62 aka Mairi Bristow
kermit aka Pam Livingston
(mwb aka Matthew Bristow filled in for the Final because kermit was tied up playing the Fall Nationals in San Diego!)

In the Plate Final the Central Gnats prevailed over Homers Heros by 39-10. Congratulations to noelwz/ljs/mastersg/toddnz. Although it has to be said that in the last two weeks Central Gnats had help from no less that 5 subs! These were kiwi_joker/ceejae, jenstar/nable and buch99.

Thats it for kiwi teams for 2009. We start again on 1st March 2010. I hope all participants enjoyed kiwi teams this year and will be back for more next year!

Finalists Found

The semi finals round of the November Knockout took place tonight and after two hard fought battles the finalists are:

Antihomers: abeljan/andrewnz & hda/dolbeldjd, and
NO STRUMPETS: seychelles/egmont & kermit/mairi62



The match between Antihomers and Beauty & the Beast was relatively even if you take out the two middle boards. Unfortunately (for Beauty) two hiccups on those two boards saw Antihomers pick up 12 imps each and that was the bulk of the difference in the 48-20 scoreline.



The match between NO STRUMPETS and Breg was much closer. Breg was 20-0 up after three boards. Breg pairs had bid and made three non vul games on each of these boards when game wasn't bid at the other table. However 2 "overbid" slams trump 3 "underbid" games and later in the match each Breg pair managed to bid and fail in a slam. Particularly harrowing was Board 11 where bruzo/tarakiwi bid to a pushy but making 6d. However, the declarer play was too difficult for tarakiwi and NO STRUMPETS took the lead 20-24. On to the last and both pairs were in a non vul 2s. Its difficult to get 4 imps out of that and an extra undertrick for Breg still left them trailing 22-24.



Antihomers will have home advantage in the final and also the advantage of being able to demand an extra four boards if they are behind after 12. They have earnt that by being the only team to have won all their games to date.



The Plate final will be a straight head to head between Homers Heros and Central Gnats with Homers Heros gaining home advantage by the toss of a coin.



The finals of the November Knockout will be the last week of kiwi teams for this year. After next week we go into summer recess until March 2010. A tentative program for 2010 will be posted here soon.

Antihomers Qualify Top

After the third round of the November Knockout the Antihomers team of abeljan/andrewnz/hda/dolbeldjd/agt1 have qualified in top position for the semi finals. They did this by virtue of a comfortable win over the only other previously unbeaten team; Breg.

Earlier Antihomers had lived up to their name by beating Homer's Heros. Because of the double elimination format Homer's Heros got a second chance and this this time they were desperately unlucky to lose to Beauty & the Beast by one imp! When you lose by that margin all boards are potentially crucial but the one that hurt Homers the most was Board 7. At one table Beauty were doubled in a vulnerable 3c which was booked for 2 off. At the other Homers were always going one off in 3d. Unfortunately for Homers the minus 2 in 3cx turned into 3cx making when the major suit winners were cashed in what turned out to be the wrong order. This turned +10 imps into -13 imps! Beauty held their nerve and they were leading by 9 imps going into the last board. They could afford to give up 8 imps which they duly did! The final score was 26 - 25 to Beauty & the Beast.

By virtue of being unbeaten Antihomers have the choice of semi final opponents from amongst Breg, NO STRUMPETS and Beauty & the Beast.

They have chosen the "Homer killers" Beauty & the Beast. Will they come to regret that decision?

This leaves NO STRUMPETS and Breg playing off in the other semi final for the main event. The main event is now a straight knockout from hereon. However, if Antihomers win again this week they will have the advantage of being able to insist on an extra four boards in the final if they need them. This seems only fair since their opponent will already have lost one match in reaching the final.

The remaining four teams now play a straight knockout (semi finals and finals) for the plate title.

Homer's Heros are 2009 Champions

After a solid 19-11 win tonight Homer's Heros have completed their domination of the inaugral Kiwi Teams Championships. Runners up TigerBees had needed a win tonight by 19-11 but instead found themselves on the wrong side of that result. Homer's Heros won all but one of their 10 matches. They qualified first with a margin of 20 VPs and they have won all the games in the final to win by 15 VPs.

Beauty & the Beast had a big last round win over Breg to take out the Bronze medal.

In the Plate, Palmy Punters beat The GEMs 21-9 to sort out first and second there. Palmy Punters won all their plate matches. A last round draw was enough to enable Cross Ruffers to hold off Freezing Jokers for third.

A big last round win to Starlites completed their clean sweep to take out the Consolation. Fairly close behind were TopTown Girls and Gurus in second and third.

So...drum roll please, Congratulations to:

Homer’s Heros: patricck/qwikjanz/barry/jenm - FIRST

TigerBees: buzzybee/tigerboy1/abeljan/andrewnz/hda/dolbeldjd - SECOND

Beauty & the Beast: trudy nz/gogga/nztipg8/halfbach - THIRD

Palmy Punters: janwhy/ken 436 & noelwz/ljs - FIRST IN PLATE

Starlites: acolitecs/jenstar/hoki/limboman/long toni/kiwijane - FIRST IN CONSOLATION

I hope all teams will be back for the November knock out and I hope there may be a few extra teams then too.

Finally a special mention for Beauty & the Beast and Gurus. Not only did these two teams field the same line up for all 10 weeks of the competition but their captains emailed in the line-ups on time every week without fail!

Past Competition Winners

With the Monday night Championships coming up I thought it was a good time to publish on the blog the past winners of previous kiwi teams competitions. Here they are:

2008 Wednesday Ladder: Central Climbers: kermit/cascade/gerry/tarakiwi/diatribe

2008 November Knockout: Palmy Punters: ljs/noelwz & ken436/janwhy

2009 Winter Swiss: Homers Heros: patricck/qwikjanz/jenm/barry

The Championships start on 20th July. Entries close 19th July. See here for further details.

Lucky Lotto Ladder Cancelled, Club Champs coming soon

We only had four teams entered for the Luckly Lotto Ladder. This is not a viable number so it has been cancelled. We will just have casual matches on Mondays until the "Club Champs" start on the 20th July.

The "Club Champs" will run for 10 weeks finishing just before the NZ National Congress. There will be a round robin pool qualifying stage and a final/consolation format after that. There may even be a head to head final depending on the numbers and format. All games will be played in the 8 pm time slot. I'm accepting entries now, they will close on 19th July.

Please start getting your teams organised now for this event. It will be a great chance to practise for Congress or a great chance for Interprovincial Teams to practice.

Homers Heros take out Winter Swiss

Congratulations to Homers Heros who extended the daylight between them and the rest of the Winter Swiss field with a 19-11 win over Breg tonight.

Drum Roll please for the full 2009 Winter Swiss awards:

Champions: Homers Heros
Plate: Tiger-Bees
Consolation: Ojays

In the plate Tiger-bees secureed their win with a 20-10 over Online Go Girls. They were chased hard though by the Musketeers who also had a good win but 22-8 was not quite enough and even a 25 would have seen them 1.4 VPs short.

The real excitement was in the Consolation. The Masters went into their match against Ojays 8 VPs ahead and their superior net imps meant that so long as they didn't lose by more than 11-19 they would be ok. Ojays went into the last board 8 imps ahead. That converts to only a 17-13 result. On Board 12 N/S were cold for a vulnerable 4h but there was no way to make 5. Ikanarat and judz1 found a good dive of 5c which pushed The Masters N/S to 5. They will be kicking themselves for not doubling. At the other table E/W were a little unlucky not to find their club fit and 4h were bid and made for 12 imps to the Ojays. That pushed the difference out to 20 imps which converts to (you guessed it) 20-10 and the Ojays were home by the narrowest of margins.

Final Standings

Full Results for 15/6

Program for Mondays for rest of 2009

Enter Lucky Lotto Ladder

Homers Heros tighten grip

Homer's Heros tightened their grip on the title of Winter Swiss Champions this week. They had a resounding 25-1 win over the House team. With one week to go they are well clear of the field. Second placed Breg can snatch the title but they will have to win by 25-5 or better!

In the plate its a three way race. Tiger-bees are on top after their 25-2 win this week. They need 19 VPs next week to stay there. However, their third placed opposition, Online Go Girls, can overtake them with a 22-8 win or better. In second place are the Musketeers who may sneak through if they have a win AND if the result of the other match is kind to them.

In the consolation it is a two way tussle between The Masters and Ojays. The Masters are in the box seat but if Ojays win by 20-10 or better it will be the latter who get the Consolation.

Homer's Heros take handy lead

Homer's Heros had a big win tonight to give them an 11 VP lead in the Final of the Winter Swiss. Breg remain in second after a modest win.

Online Go Girls have shot to the lead in the the plate event which is very close. They had a 18-12 win whilst former leaders; Tiger-bees had the narrowest of losses to Musketeers (14-16). Tiger-bees remain in second but you could put a blanket over the whole plate field.

The Masters are dominating in the consolation after a 24-6 win tonight. Not far away in second are Ojays who won 20-10 tonight.

There is no play next week due to Queens Birthday weekend but after that there is just two rounds on the 8th and 15th June to complete the event.

Kiwi Teams to restart on Wednesdays

Starting this Wednesday the 27th May 2009 kiwi teams will restart on Wednesdays in addition to Mondays. Matt Geare (known in BBO land as "veryeavy") has very kindly offered to organise kiwi teams on Wednesdays.

An email will be sent to all players on tarakiwi's distribution list advising of Matt's email address. If you are not on the list you should message veryeavy on BBO giving him your email address so he can add you to his distribution list.

Field Sorted for Winter Swiss Finals

The final round of qualifying tonight has sorted out the teams which will now slog out three rounds of round robin for the final, plate and consolation titles.

A top of the table draw saw Homer's Heros and Breg maintain their respective first and second places. They are joined in the top four by the House team who had a stunning 23-7 upset over the Musketeers to elevate themselves to third. Meanwhile Youthz & Oldz stung the Tiger-bees after illness to one of the "olds" (Tom Jacob) paved the way for wife (and mother), Steph, to come in and show them how it was done! Their 20-10 win took them to fourth.

Leading the plate (and favourites for it) are Tiger-bees. Online Go Girls had an 18-12 win over the Masters to slot in at 6th. Hugh's BBC and Musketeers will also compete for the plate.

The remaining four teams will fight it out for the Consolation. They all get a clear sheet with no carry over.

One interesting quirk is that after round 1 if you had swapped the Musketeers and the House team you would have the same teams filling top 4, middle 4 and bottom four as have done so after a further four rounds of swiss qualifying. Makes you wonder why we bothered playing all those rounds I guess! :-)

Winter Swiss Competition Starts Tonight

Kiwi Teams is alive and well with the 8 round Winter Swiss competition starting tonight. There are 12 teams entered. A full list of entries and the draw for round 1 will be published on this site prior to 7.00 pm tonight. Subsequently this blog site will be used to publish all draws, results and standings for the event.

Kiwi Teams went into recess at the end of November but restarted with casual games each Monday from the 9th March. After the first week we have had between 5 and 7 matches each week.

The Winter Swiss is only played at 8pm each Monday. Casual games will still be available for all who wish to participate at both the 8 pm and 9.30 pm time slots. Just enter in the usual way by responding to the weekly email.

If you are not already on the Kiwi Teams email list and want to be just send a BBO message to tarakiwi with your email address.

Palmy Punters take Nov Knock

In a wild but close final the Palmy Punters have prevailed over the Auckland Tigers in the inaugral kiwi teams November Knockout. Both teams were battle fit after close wins in the semi-finals. In the final no less that 77 imps were exchanged as both sides socked it out. The Auckland Tigers needed 10 imps on the last board but could only manage 7. The final score 40-37 to the southern team.

The playoff for third and fourth was also close with BERGlers stealing the win over Homers Hero's by 28-21.

In the plate final DEAP Thinkers were more dominant in beating Minnt's Moments 52-14.

So the Awards go like this:

Cup: - Palmy Punters: ljs/noelwz & ken436/janwhy

Runners-up: - Auckland Tigers: hoki/gogga & tigerboy1/clavis

Third: - BERGlars: tarakiwi/gerry & diatribe/bruzo

Plate: - DEAP Thinkers: davetaupo/paul3210 & buch99/blinkers

Close Matches in first round of November Knockout

The November Knockout got underway tonight with three relatively close matches. The BERGlars prevailed over Mintt's Moments by 16 imps whilst the Palmy Punters had a winning margin of 15 over KAMM Carr's. The story of the round however came in the match between Auckland Tigers and DEAP Thinkers. The latter were ahead by 4 imps going into the last Board. At one table they chose to defend a vulnerable 3d doubled whilst at the other they defended 3s not vul and undoubled. Unfortunatly 3d made 5 and the net result was -14 imps.

The good news for DEAP Thinkers is that their 10 imp loss was the narrowest of the three losses which means that they are straight through to the plate final on 24th November.

The semi-finals for the Cup will be played on 17th November. They will be fought out between this weeks winners together with Homers Heros who, as top seeds, had the bye this week. Full details of all teams and how the draw works are at http://kiwiteams.blogspot.com/2008/11/draw-and-details-for-november-knockout.html.

November Knockout Starts

The Monday night November Knockout starts tonight. There are seven teams and will be three rounds to decide cup and a plate winners. A full draw and further details are contained in a separate post. Although the blog site has been somewhat dormant it will now spring back to life with draws and results each week!

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.

Snakes Secure Second

The Snakes won a close fought encounter against the Masters last night to maintain their spot at the top of the ladder. With only one week to go and with the last round involving first against second the Snakes cannot now finish worst than second. Of course they will be hoping for another win next week against Central Climbers, a team they have beaten twice already in this event. Central Climbers may be coming into form however as they sucessfully defended their second spot against previous leaders First Sun.

Lower down Western Gals and Judy + North Shore both won against teams below them meaning that for the first time in the event there was no change to the ladder positions.

It was a cruel slam hand which decided the fight for the top spot. You hold xx Kx AKJxxx Axx. Partner deals and opens with the auction starting 1s - 2d - 3s. After that you find out that you and partner hold all the aces and all the kings. Do you sign off, bid slam or grand slam? Who knows? I'm waiting for someone who knows more about biding than me to write the hand up! What I can tell you is that tuckaway opted for 7s. Cruelly that cost 22 imps as there is always one loser (a trump) and the hand was played in 4s on a slightly different auction at the other table. The Snakes won 32-19 so the result would have been different if tuckaway had opted for 6s!

Snakes Slither to Summit

The ladder had a big shake up this week as the draw contained matches where teams were generally 4 or 5 rungs apart. This was necessary in order to avoid having too many repeat matches.

The big match was the leaders, First Sun, up against the 5th placed Snakes. Aggressive game bidding by the Snakes on boards 3 and 4 saw a double game swing and a vulnerable swing to net 27 imps and effectively end the contest. First Sun fought on well but the Snakes ended their reign of 3 weeks at the top win a 46-25 win.

Central Climbers have risen to the second rung with a good win against Aussie Flavoured. It seems that their alternate name of Central Celler Dwellars will no be required. This team seems to have finally struck form with some being unkind enough to suggest that it was no co-incidence that tarakiwi was at the rugby last night!

In previous weeks, despite the reverse grid, lower runged teams have really struggled to beat their higher ranked opponents. The week The Masters were the only team to fend off the challenge from below. In a very close match the 13 imps exchanged on board 4 proved decisive. A very difficult 6nt was available. Tuckaway and Mastersg signed off in 5nt. Buch99 and Clarkson bid 6nt at the other table but buch99 couldn't quite bring it in. The Masters survived 25-21.

The previously unlucky Western Gals scored a 43-4 win against Trans Global. The board of that match being a grand slam bid and made by jenter62 and blinkers. Blinkers has been unwell and out of action for the past 8 weeks but she seems to have lost none of her edge. Trans Global have done a sterling job in the last 6 weeks to remain in the top four but are now unlucky to find themselves crashing all the way to the bottom on the strenth on one loss. Whoever plays them next week should be wary!