Young Kiwi Lysandra Zheng (675), a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of Auckland, went to the head of the leader-board with victory in the May competition and thereafter no one could catch her. Lysandra learned bridge in 2015 and started playing tournaments just over a year ago. She says, “I am thankful to my long-term partner, friends, and community for their continued support and encouragement.” She wins the annual competition at her first attempt.
Dave Williams (669) from Llangollen, Wales, has been the most consistent bidder in this competition, finishing third, fourth, first and, now, second in the annual competition. Dave trained as a mathematician and recently retired from his role as a Youth Information and Advice Worker. Dave says, “I love to binge watch box sets and used to have a bridge library of over 650 books but, after a sort out, it is now down to about 330, mostly advanced ones, quizzes, first editions and several by a certain English author.” Clearly a man with excellent taste 😊
Paul Boudreau (668) from Los Angeles CA makes it onto the podium for a second time, having finished second last year. He is a semi-retired computer programmer who moved from Needham MA to the Los Angeles suburbs in 1978. Now unable to attend tournaments, he has been a student of this great game for over 50 years. He won “The Bridge World” Master Solver's Club title in 2018 and enjoys discussing bridge with his brother, Bob.
All three competitors who made the podium averaged more than 74/80 over their best nine scores. Indeed, it is a tribute to the high standard of this competition that 23 players scored 630 or higher, thus averaging 70/80 or more over their best nine scores.
For the fifth consecutive month, those in the Top 10 places on the leader-board remained unchanged. Those Top 10 finishers included three New Zealanders, three Americans, two Brits, and one each from Australia and India. In what has been a truly international competition, seven other countries also had a representative in the Top 25 – Singapore, Canada and five European nations, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece, France and Netherlands. Over the course of the year, players from 16 different countries either won or tied for the win in the monthly competition.
Competitors’ goal is to select the bid they think will be the most popular choice of the panelists, thus maximizing their score. Panelists are less concerned with picking up 10 marks, so will sometimes choose an action they think is right even though they know it will not be popular. Even so, it is a testament to the quality of the bidding by competition entrants this year that only two members of the expert panel produced a higher nine-month total: David Bird and Hanoi Rondon. Those who finished in the Top 25 on the leader-board can be extremely proud of finishing with a higher annual total than many members of our esteemed expert panel.
The annual score is the total of the best 9 monthly scores over the year.
