Lucie Armstrong

Former Club President Lucie Armstrong


Former Club President and secondary school teacher  Lucie Armstrong is a much-loved member and regular fixture of the Hamilton Bridge Club. She started playing bridge in the late 1970s in the town of Marton.
When she moved to Palmerston North she began to play tournaments. By 1984 she had moved to Taihape and was the club president there and also gave lessons via night school, with the proceeds from those used to buy the club’s first computer. She recalls using canvas card holders, a forerunner to the boards we use today.

In 1990 she and husband (and also bridge player and club member) Sam moved to Hamilton and in 1996 she achieved her biggest success in bridge, winning the New Zealand Intermediate Pairs at Congress with regular partner Richard Fletcher (also a secondary school teacher, still playing at Hamilton).
A few years into her time at Hamilton she joined the Club Committee and served as President in 2010 and 2011. At this time she was also in the role of Manager for the Waikato Area Pairs event.

She and Sam don’t play a lot together – indeed Lucie believes their not playing together has been a reason for the success of their marriage. Lucie admits to being very competitive, while Sam is more of a social player and gambler at the table. It’s fair to say that playing in 6NT missing 2 aces and 2 kings is not Lucie’s idea of fun!

Lucie is also well known for her involvement with the Lions. She has been a Lion for over 30 years and was only the third woman in the world  to be elected to the position of International Director of the Lions Club International Board.

Lucie has made a number of efforts to combine her love of bridge with her desire to help others. In 2011, along with myself, she organised a fund-raiser at the Hamilton Club for the Lions Cancer Lodge and in 2014 we teamed up again to raise funds for the Alzheimers NZ WandaTrak program. It is the Lucie Armstrongs of the world, who with their selfless acts, that make clubs and societies successful.

She has accumulated 220 A points and 613 B points in her bridge life, and is currently ranked as a National Master with one star and she isn’t finished yet!

Lucie is still a very active player and you will usually see her on Tuesday afternoons, Wednesday nights, and Friday mornings at the Club. She and Richard play the Waikato Area Pairs regularly and she is a presence at a large number of tournaments in the Waikato Region.




Ed Roggeveen