Results and Winners Bidders Challenge 2023-8

The Top Bidders for Set 2023-8

This was another high-scoring set. The average score was 49.13 but selecting the most popular choice of competition entrants on every deal would have scored 68/80. We have a solo winner this month, and all those who appear on the Août Honour Roll outscored the panel, where the highest score was a tie at 76/80

Congratulations go to this month’s winner, with a score of 79/80:

Claus Hastrup (cphastrup) from Mørke, Denmark

47 years old and educated as a journalist, Claus lives on the outskirts of Aarhus with his wife and two daughters and plays on a team in the Danish 3^rd division. He says, “I like reading bridge books and I have a large collection. I just returned from a vacation in London, where I stumbled across Chess and Bridge in Baker Street. My unimpressed family had to wait while I agonized over which books NOT to buy - they had World Championship books on sale for €5... At the airport we had to rearrange the luggage to avoid overweight.”

Also on the Juillet 'Roll of Honor’:

With a score of 78/80:

Jordan Karol (jordotron) from USA,
Gareth Birdsall (Gareth) from U.K.,
Ignacio Jover de Castro (nachojc) from Spain,
Oded Pachtmann (oded) from Isreal, and
Paul Boudreau (pons_) from Los Angeles CA, USA

and, with a score of 77/80:

Cheng Luo (iverson200) from Singapore,
Piotr Marcinowski (dyplomata) from Poland,
Ahmet Gürkan Polat (abic_68) from Turkey, and
Linda Green (LPGAug8) from USA

On what has proven to be another high-scoring set, you need a score of 72/80 or more to make the leader-board this month. Congratulations to everyone who makes the list.

The 2023 Annual Competition

After eight months, we still have a remarkable 14 players who are averaging 70/80 or higher, and 11 of those 14 made it onto this month’s leader-board.

Paul led the way with 78/80 and widens the gap between himself and those immediately behind him by a couple of points. Both Bob and Dave scored 76/80 and thus inch the top three a little further ahead of the chasing pack.

Ian moves back ahead of Michael as the leading Canadian. Five of the six inhabited continents are represented in the Top 10, with only Africa absent. This month’s winner, Claus Hastrup from Denmark and Jon Cooke from England move up into the Top 20.

Alexander, John, Arif and Todd pose the biggest immediate threat to those above them, as they all have scores in the 50s to drop. That means that although Alexander is 10 points behind those just above him in the rankings, if they score the same he will move 4 points ahead of them. Watch out for Paul Dubois from California too, who although currently ranked only around 70th, missed Janvier and is averaging 71/80 over his seven sets so far.

Experience suggests that the leaders should not get too comfortable. We have seen in previous years how quickly quite large gaps can close when players start dropping their weakest scores towards the end of the year.

You currently need an average score of 60/80 or more to make the annual competition leader-board. Congratulations to everyone who makes the list, which represents around the top 120 bidders from amongst the many thousands who take part every month.