ABF Newsletter December 2024

NEWSLETTER
AUSTRALIAN BRIDGE FEDERATION LTD.
Editor: Brad Coles (editor@abf.com.au) No. 230 December 2024
Approved for Print Post S65001/00163 ABN 70 053 651 666
Diamonds are forever
by John Brockwell
Fifteen thousand masterpoints! As the 2024 winter turned to spring in Sydney, Pauline Gumby was ascending a mountain. She was close to the summit where lay a glittering prize – Diamond Grand Master. The story of Pauline’s final steps of the ascent began long ago.
South Australian David Askew was an academic at Flinders University, an
accomplished bridge player, and an iconoclastic thinker. David had a brain-
wave – a national tournament for every bridge player in Australia. He called
it the Grand National Open Teams. It began in 1986. The GNOT is a multi-
step affair. Initial qualifying rounds are played in clubs, and the next rounds
are in regions. Teams that win regional finals qualify for a national final. At its zenith, the GNOT had a starting- gate field of nearly 7,000 players. Prior to 2024, all GNOT play was face-to-face. Then convenor Fraser Rew made an innovation – qualifying rounds could be played online.
ABF Masterpoint Manager, David Weston, describes the exciting culmination of Pauline Gumby’s ascent of Masterpoint Mountain. At the end of August, she had 14,988.76 MP. Early in September, she earned 0.50 from a club game at Hunters Hill and 10.27 from a GNOT qualifying round – and was now just 0.47 short of the 15,000 barrier. Then Pauline played two events simultaneously – a multi-session event at Hunters Hill and the online GNOT Sydney Metropolitan regional final. Which event would be first to register its masterpoints with the Masterpoint Centre? The GNOT finished on 22 September and registered 21.11 MP for player 24732 at 10:32am on 24 September. Pauline Gumby (ABF number 24732) was a Diamond Grand Master. (Less than two hours later Hunters Hill registered 3.76 MP.)
It takes a long time to accumulate 15,000 masterpoints. Pauline Gumby played her first duplicates at the Double Bay and Sydney bridge clubs. (She cannot recall when she first won masterpoints and official records are lost in the mists of time.) It did not take her long to rise to national prominence – in 1977 she and Ron Klinger won the Interstate (ANC) Mixed Pairs Championship. International prominence representing Australia commenced two years later – four Far East Women’s Teams Championships, two Women’s Olympiads, two Venice Cups. Pauline and Sue Hobley were partners in all but one of those internationals.
As time passed, Pauline Gumby sought the extra challenge posed by open competition. She formed a part- nership with Warren Lazer, and together they did wonderful things. They won a silver medal for Australia at the 2018 Commonwealth Nations Bridge Championships and represented on several other occasions. Over the years domestically, they won event after event at almost every tournament on the ABF’s national calendar (including, appropriately, the 2018 GNOT). As still more time passed, Pauline and Warren became eligible for seniors competition. It is no surprise to anyone that they continued to win – most significantly Interstate (ANC) Seniors Teams Championships in 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2024.
Anyone who has played a lot of bridge over a lot of years has had a lot of partners. How many people have had the privilege of partnering Pauline Gumby? No one knows, not even Pauline herself. But what everyone does know is that she has gathered far more masterpoints with Warren as her partner than with anyone else.
Pauline, every bridge player in Australia congratulates you on becoming a Diamond Grand Master. It’s a monumental achievement. Enjoy it. Diamonds are forever.