Jol and Catherine Glyde
Rising bridge stars Jol and Catherine Glyde both come from card playing backgrounds. Like many bridge players they played five hundred and graduated from there to bridge.
They were married in 1990 and a few years later when Catherine was pregnant with their first child, her sister learned to play. Catherine and Jol didn’t go to any lessons but read about the game with the idea of playing some home games. As luck would have it, when they went to Catherine’s sister to play for the first time, Catherine promptly went into labour bringing the game to an abrupt end! She then planned to do some more reading and learn more about the game while nursing her new-born baby but it didn’t quite work out that way and it wasn’t until 2013 that they both got back to it.
lessons run by Blair Fisher and quickly realised that they enjoyed the game and had some ability at it. They took part in the “Mini Moos” which was a series of small tournaments organised by Jane Stearns and Nick Whitten and played club bridge fairly regularly. They mostly played on a Tuesday night but also began to play other nights to try and extend their knowledge.
In 2014 they played a few tournaments and achieved some notable results. They placed well in the Hamilton and Mt Maunganui Junior tournaments but it was at the Regional Novice tournament on 21 September at Matamata that their names became well known as they scored an extraordinary 77.5% in the second session to win the tournament by a big margin. This was quickly followed up on 19 October at the Cambridge Intermediate where they scored an impressive 54.61 and 62.91 to finish in 3rd place out of 31 pairs (I directed this event and it was one of the best fields I have seen for an Intermediate so for a pair in their 2nd year of bridge this was a remarkable result). They also took part in the Cambridge Sixes and performed well again, finishing 6th of 36 pairs in the Junior Competition. Of the three pairs in their team they contributed the most Victory Points towards the final score.
Catherine and Jol decided to take up bridge because they both enjoy playing cards and saw it as something they can do together. There have been a number of successful husband and wife bridge partnerships, but it is fair to say that these are the exception rather than the norm. So far it has been smooth sailing. While they keep bridge and home separate, bridge is a subject for discussion at home and both like to discuss what has gone wrong and right, share ideas, and learn from each other. They plan to continue playing together aiming to improve and do as well as they can by playing in some more tournaments and also at the club once or twice a week (Mondays and Thursday are the sessions they are most likely to play). In 2014 they accumulated a large number of B points and Jol finished the year on 26 Rating Points and Catherine on 28. This means they can still play as Juniors this year but are certain to go up to Intermediate in 2016 and who knows what will happen from there?
Ed Roggeveen
