Page 5 - ABF Newsletter August 2025

What a fantastic year it’s been so far for Australian bridge! From standout national events to our players shining on the world stage, there’s much to celebrate.
Masterpoint Centre outage
Earlier this month, the Masterpoint Centre website was offline for several days due to hardware issues experienced by our hosting provider. I want to reas- sure you that the outage was not caused by a deni- al-of-service attack or hacking attempt, and the in- tegrity of the data we store about Australia’s bridge players was never compromised.
However, the incident has highlighted the need for improved system redundancy. As a result, we are currently exploring short-term solutions to address this. In the longer term, the Masterpoint Centre’s technology will be integrated into My ABF – a proj- ect the My ABF team is actively working on, with im- plementation planned for 2026.
ANC
My congratulations to Julie Jeffries and her team for running the 2025 ANC so successfully. Congratula- tions also to the winning teams from SA (Open), WA (Women’s), NSW (Seniors’) and Victoria (Youth). It was great to see the spoils shared across four differ- ent states. It was also wonderful to see the Northern Territory participating in the Open category again this year. We hope to see them in the ACT again next year alongside Women’s and Seniors’ teams. Well done also to Kate McCallum and Axel Johannsson who backed up their win in the Open Teams by win- ning the Open Butler event. This event is by far the most grueling pairs event on the Australian calendar, played over six days. Congratulations also to Sophie Ashton and Dave Wiltshire, winners of the Mixed Butler event.
Summer Festival
The program for next year’s summer festival in Can- berra is now available on My ABF. With no Gold Coast event scheduled in 2026, we’re unsure whether the popularity of the Summer Festival will increase. It would greatly assist the organising team if you could submit your entries as soon as possible (payment isn’t required right away). The primary venue will again be the Canberra Rex Hotel, but if entries war- rant it, we will consider expanding to another venue.
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: August 2025
Player numbers
The number of registered bridge players has been slowly increasing since the pandemic caused a number of deregistrations. However, we have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that there are still many potential bridge players in the broader community who haven’t discovered the delights of our wonderful game. If just two in every ten of us introduced one friend or family member to bridge, we would achieve our goal of 37,000 mem- bers within the next couple of years.
International performance
Since our last newsletter two of our youth teams have participated in the 19th World Youth Cham- pionships in Italy. Both teams enjoyed the incredi- ble experience and were extremely grateful for the support they received from the Australian bridge community. Later this month, our Open, Women’s, Seniors’, and Mixed teams will compete at the World Championships in Denmark. You can follow their progress via our website and social media. I’m confi- dent they will do us all proud!
Playoffs
In 2026 the bridge calendar does not include any World Championship events. There will be events in both Europe and Asia where Australian players will have the opportunity to shine. The ABF has just an- nounced the timing, format and locations of the Open, Mixed, Seniors’ and Women’s Playoff events that will be held next year. Details are on the ABF website.
Upcoming events
If you’re seeking the excitement of a national bridge event or chasing gold points for your next ranking, several events are on the calendar over the coming months. Personally, I’m looking forward to attending the Territory Gold event in Alice Springs later this month for the first time. All the details of what’s on and where are available on the events page.
Thank you
Thank you for taking the time to read my article and our newsletter. I hope that you find the content both informative and enjoyable. If you have any sugges- tions on how we can improve the content of our newsletter, website or social media, please do not hesitate to contact me.
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