APBF 2025

The Asia Pacific Bridge Federation championships are being held in Hefei, China this year. I'm in the New Zealand mixed team playing with Jan Alabaster. My wife Chisa and I arrived at the venue a couple of days early. It's no good travelling and then launching into bridge without settling in a little first.

It's just a game, I know, but it's a little simplistic to write it off as just that. All the players here will have put many, many hours, days, weeks, months, years and in most cases decades playing, studying and practicing to get to this level. Let's call it serious fun.

What tends to happen at long bridge events is that after a day or two the world shrinks. Suddenly it's just the cards, the score up, the inevitable discussion of hands and onto the next match. To be honest, I can't say I think that's altogether a good thing. I’m glad Chisa doesn't play bridge because I get some normality during the week. This morning we went to the gym together. Physical health is important, not just for bridge of course, but sitting for days on end playing cards takes its toll unless you're careful.

We went for a walk with Zachary Yan and he took that photo. He's from Auckland and also playing here. Zac is such a great guy. All the young kiwi players are so nice and doing well with their bridge. When I think of how I was when I was in my twenties I think I'd have to say they're all nicer than I was!

Friday, 11am

Shortly we'll be having a few warm up hands with some of the New Zealand contingent then I have a captains meeting where we’ll get told how all the admin things work.

Hopefully I'll be able to share some interesting hands and highlights as the week progresses. Talk soon!

Friday, 5pm

So we played 6 practice hands but I was dummy 4 times and simply followed suit as defender for the other two. Fine by me, I’ll be well rested for kick off tomorrow.

Not much happened at the captains meeting. Amusing to learn that if anyone wants to go to the bathroom during a match we have to ask the director and then be accompanied by a same gender member of the opposition team. It’s all to do with not passing information to team mates.

The draw was done at the captains meeting and we have three matches tomorrow. The last match is against China. In the match programme we were all given there are photos of all the players plus photos of the head coach of the Chinese mixed team. The head coach. They must have other coaches then. Maybe a declarer play coach. A defence coach. A leads against notrump coach. Luckily I already have a good method for leads against notrumps so I don’t need a coach. I simply use the leads against notrumps left hand rule of thumb. Basically I just look at my left thumb and lead whichever card is closest.

Heading out for some dinner now.

Friday, 9pm

You can't really see it on the photo, but trust me, those two towers are the hotel we're staying at which is also the venue for the event. The text you see on the building is continuously scrolling and it reads 'Welcome to the 54th Asia Pacific Bridge Championships'. Pretty cool!

Saturday, 10pm

This is my partner Jan Alabaster and me this morning getting ready to play. There are three pairs in our team so that we don't have to play all the time. Almost every team has three pairs playing because it's too tiring to play every match. Jan and I had the first match off and played the second two today.

I'll tell you right now that our team lost all three matches! Not badly, though, so we're still accumulating some points. I thought we played pretty well, too, but things didn't fall our way.

When I'm writing about hands I'll sometimes rotate the dealer to make it easier to see.

Very First Hand

Our opposition North opened 1NT showing 15-17 points and South had to decide what to respond. What would you do if you were South?

Our oppostion South chose a slightly conservative pass, not bothering even to invite to game. That worked well for them because 1NT made exactly 1. I knew that there was no way our team mates would be able to stop in 1NT and sure enough they got to 3NT going down 1. So right from the start it looked like it was going to be a tough day!

Your lead

South's 2♦ bid was an artifical game force enquiry. North's 2♥ bid showed 3 card heart support. 5♣ showed 1 'key card' which means either any ace or the King of trumps.

I was West on this hand and had to decide what to lead against South's 5♥ contract. What would you lead?

This was a fun one. I chose to lead a diamond because with North having opened 1♦ I thought there was a good chance that either East or South had a singleton diamond. If East had the singleton I'd be able to get in with the ♥A, lead another diamond and give partner a ruff. That'd be two tricks and we'd only need one more.

The first part of the plan worked because I was indeed able to give partner a ruff. It's the one more that proved to be a problem. So 5♥ made exactlty 5. Same result at the other table.

Balancing double

I was West again and ended up in 3♦, down 1. Nothing I could do about it. What do you think of that auction and result?

What on earth was Jan thinking about making a take out double at the 2 level when I'd already passed? Well, let's see if we can put ourselves in Jan's seat and figure it out.

The opposition have opened the bidding, found a spade fit and stopped in 2♠. Why stop? Because they've worked out they're not strong enough for game. Actually, everybody has worked it out, including Jan, and everybody, including Jan, has worked out that the points must be fairly evely spread.

Let's see what else Jan might be thinking. She's got three small spades and knows the opposition have at least 8 between them leaving me 2 at most.

What else? All Jan's points are in the other suits. That's a good time to be playing in one of the other suits so Jan doubled, asking me to bid.

At the other table, our team mates were left to play in 2♠ making 2 so my 3♦ down 1 ended up being a good sacrifice. Phew! Finally something good happened.

So, you see, that was a great double by Jan.

Saturday, 11pm

That was a great day. So much fun and Jan was a superb partner in every way. Yeah, the results could have been better, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. I know if we keep playing the way we did today we'll have some better days.

Had a nice dinner, feeling relaxed, time to sleep.

Sunday, 2pm

Much better today as we started with a couple of good wins. Funny how it goes because I don't think we're playing any better than we did yesterday. It just seems easier.

How high?

Not vulnerable, Jan opened 3♦ and I was responder with this hand. How would you respond?

One thing I know for sure is that Jan won't have an outside Ace. So we're missing the ♠A for sure. What about the ♠K? There's simply no way I could find out.

In the end I decided that if I bid 6♦ Jan might have the the ♠K or possibly a singleton spade. Also, the opposition might not lead a spade and Jan might get to throw her losing spades away on my longish club suit. That turned out well because Jan was void in spades so we ended up in 6♦ making 7 while our opponents at the other table stopped in 5♦.

Sunday, 5pm

We just had another small lass to Hong Kong. I went down in a contract I should have made. That wasn't good. We also bid a few close games not making. Still it's been a good day so far and Jan and I are resting for the last match of the day.

Sunday, 6pm

This is Chisa with her new friend Vivian. Vivian runs the cafe in the lobby of the hotel. We've been going there a lot for delicious tea and coffee. Vivian gave us two holding fans to keep us cool and always has a lovely smile when we come to the cafe to relax.

Sunday, 11pm

A reasonable win for the team to finish the day and we're currently in fourth position out of the ten teams playing. After yesterday's slow start that feels a bit better!

Had a pleasant dinner with a few other kiwis and not one, not two but three zero alcohol beers so I'm feeling ready for bed. See you tomorrow.

Monday, 11pm

Busy day for me today so just one hand to share. But I did get a match off which gave me time to attend a Chinese Tea Ceremony!

Ok, so here's the hand you might find interesting:

West opened 2♣ which was a game force hand, nothing to do with clubs at this stage. 2♦ from East was a waiting bid, just keeping the bidding low to give West a chance to describe his hand. I had the South hand a bid 5♦ as a preempt to try and make it difficult for our opponents.

West now passed even though he had a very strong hand. Seems strange but he didn't know what to do and because he's already opened 2♣ he knows his partner won't pass. Maybe she'll double, maybe she'll bid but show won't pass.

Now East didn't know what to do but she did have a few poimts ( I think it was 8 but it's late and I'm getting sleepy ). Anyway she figured she had enough for slam opposite partner's 2♣ opening bid but she didn't know what suit to bid. That 5NT bid said to partner 'I think we have enough for slam but could you please choose the suit'. West bid 6♣ and made 7. Nice bidding from our opponents.

Tuesday, 11pm

We had a tough time yesterday and today as we start the second round robin. Enjoying the bridge even if the results aren't in our favour as often as we'd like them to be.

Here's a couple of big hands from this morning's match.

Jan's 4NT bid was showing both minors. I was still busy thinking about whether to bid a slam or a grand slam when West bid 6♠. I was very tempted to bid on but I hated the thought of going down 1 missing the AH or losing some other trick so I chose to defend and collected 1700.

Liz and Blair Fisher were our team mates at the other table at which the opponents bid 7N making for 2220 when the club finesse worked. So our 1700 wasn't enough!

3♣ from Jan was Jacoby, 3♥ showed a minimum hand with a singleton or void in any suit. 3♠ asked for my shortage, 4♣ said short in clubs, 4♦ asked further, 4♥ showed a void in clubs, 4NT was Key Card Blackwood, 5♠ showed 2 Keycards plus the QS and Jan attempted to end the auction with 7♠. But East doubled, which in this case was a Lightner double showing a void somewhere. But North led a club and the contract rolled home.

At Liz and Blairs' table Liz had doubled a 5♦ bid during the bidding and Blair knew for sure to lead a diamond so 7♠ was down 1 for a big pick up.

Interestingly, both tables were in the wrong contract! 7NT always makes because after cashing the ♦A declarer finds the location of the ♦J and has a guaranteed four diamond tricks.

Wednesday, 7am

Just woke up and, as usual, a freshly laundered NZ shirt is waiting for me at end of the bed.

Thursday, 10am

We had a couple of small losses and a couple of big wins yesterday so pretty good overall.

This guy is helping run the event and he seems very nice but that's about all I know!

Here's Tan, Ib, Chisa and me. It's easy to make friends here.

This is one of the playing tables. The screens go across the table so that you can't see your partner and you only see one of your opponents. Notice under the table there's something to stop any footsies.

Friday, 7pm

The Asia Pacific Bridge Federation championships are over. Our team finished fifth out of ten which I'll call a satisfactory result. We played each team three times and by the third round all three of our team partnerships were going great. We had quite an inexperienced international team so in retrospect I'd say that maybe because of that lack of experience we made those first few days harder than we needed to. Hard to say for sure, just a hunch.

Having said all that, I did go down in yet another contract I should have made. Just lazy play and I'm annoyed with myself. Not for the mistake but for not knuckling down to complete the job. A good reminder for me to stay focussed.

The bridge is not over, though. Tomorrow we play a test match against Australia. Now I have to go to another darn captains meeting.

Saturday, 8pm

In a close battle with Australia we scraped home for a win in the test match.

Jan and I were playing a pretty simple bidding system and we had to rely a lot on, I'm not going to say guesswork, let's say judgement. In truth there was a bit of both.

Jessica Brake, the Australian player in the South seat took away a whole heap of our bidding space with her 3♥ preempt. I can only forgive her because she was such a pleasure to play against. I doubled for takeout and Jan jumped to 4♠, assuming that I had a 4 card spade suit. Normally I would have had one, but I thought I was too strong for 3NT. As far as I knew, it was possible that Jan had a balanced hand with four spades and four diamonds but I guessed she was more likely to have longer diamonds. At this stage all I could do was cross my fingers and bid 6♦.

It looks like Jan has to guess the spade suit correctly to make her contract but she played the hand very well by eliminating all suits except spades before taking a spade finesse into the North hand. North won the ♠J but had to return a spade giving Jan a free finesse and a well deserved twelfth trick.

A quick thank you

As captain of the New Zealand team there were a few bits and pieces I had to deal with and that involved some chats with Martin Doran, the captain of the Australian team. What a great guy! In fact, for the whole week he was always a calm, friendly person to talk to and that continued into the test match. Australia bridge is lucky to have him.

Kris Wooles and Jonathon Westoby were in China as captains of the New Zealand women and open teams. I was glad to have Kris and Jonathon to talk to and they both offered great support when I needed it.

Thanks, of course, to my partner Jan Alabaster, my team mates Ian Berrington, Fuxia Wen, Liz Fisher and Blair (K9) Fisher. You were the best international team I've ever played on. Also the first. But the best, for sure.

Thanks to Chisa, the real reason I bother to get up in the morning. And to Mum and Dad for having me which I think was a good decision.

Finally, thanks to all the people back home for your support.

That's it for now. We fly back home tomorrow and, with no rest for the wicked, I'll be soon preparing for the World Championships in Denmark, August 2025.