The panel produced majority votes on all but two hands in this set, which means that the problems were easier than the previous couple months, right?
After consecutive sets on which around 15% of competitors registered scores in the 70s, this month that percentage halved, with only around 100 competition entrants out of 1400 hitting that target. The reason for this is that problems where the panel are divided tend to produces scores of 10-9-9-8 or similar, so many competitors score fairly well. However, on hands where the panel produce a clear majority vote, the scoring is more like 10-7-5, so it is easy to drop marks in bunches.
Two competitors, both previous winners, managed to avoid dropping any marks at all on this set, so they led this month’s field with perfect 80/80 scores:
Venkatesh Ramaratnam from India, and
Alexander Cook from Australia
Based in Bengaluru, India, Venkatesh took early retirement from the IT industry. He began playing 30+ years ago, and represented India in the World Junior Championships in the late 90s. He has subsequently won numerous national titles, and he has performed numerous roles including coach, commentator, director and administrator. This is Venkatesh’s second perfect score this year, having also hit that mark in the February competition.
Alexander has been playing competitive bridge for more than 20 years. He is a versatile bidder, playing four systems with four partners - Standard American, 2-over-1, a strong club variant based on the original Polish Club; and Standard Modern Precision. He is a perennial contender in the Australian Bridge Magazine bidding forum, and he is also a former winner of our annual competition.
Also on the July Honour Roll, with a score of 78/80:
Paul Boudreau from USA, and
Deb G from USA
and, with a score of 77/80:
John Hoffman from USA,
Todd Holes from USA, and
Bernie Miller from USA
That is consecutive months with a competitor from India sharing the top spot. Joining him is this year’s first winner from the southern hemisphere, a curiosity in itself after 2024, a year dominated by Kiwis.
Five Americans complete a rather sparse honour roll on what was clearly a difficult set of hands. Congratulations to them and everyone else who scored in the 70s.
