Bridge Blog

Dear All,

There is a slight glimmer of light in this miserable second lockdown. As I now can’t play golf, I have rediscovered Paul’s online lessons. If you haven’t tried them I would strongly recommend that you give them a go – very entertaining, very informative and very useful.

Paul’s regular sessions are:

Intermediate – Wednesday at 10.30am

Advanced – Thursday at 10.15am 

Paul is also running two seminars: 

Teams of Four Tactics – Friday 27th November at 2pm 

Duplicate Special – Tuesday 8th December at 2pm

If you would like to join any of Paul’s sessions and do not already receive his emails with the Zoom links please email Paul at pm@aceoftrumps.com and he will send you the link to be able to access them.  

The Diamond Team in the Business House League have had two matches in the last two weeks. One they won against Balliol by 32 imps. Unfortunately they lost the return match against Balliol by 47 imps. 

In both matches the results hinged on slam bids, either with one team bidding and making a slam where the other didn’t bid it or one team bidding a slam and not making where their opponents stopped in a game contract.  

Congratulations to Peter Hardyment and Malcolm Bricknell for yet more success in a Pairs competition. This time they have won The RAC Pall Mall annual Championship Swiss Pairs. 

As a Bridge section we are extremely grateful to the Club for their financial support this year. However, as it becomes clear that we will continue to play Bridge online for the foreseeable future, it is unsustainable for the Club to continue to pay for all our Duplicate. Ralph has looked at the costs we incur, TD charges, the EBU Ums subscriptions, and the Servers’ charges and we feel that £2 per session will cover most of them, so from the New Year we will be charging £2 for each Duplicate session. 

I have spoken to the Club about the best way to administer this and how to collect the money. We have agreed that the simplest way would be to use the Club Cards. 

Each month the Bridge Section will give a register of how many sessions each person has played to the Finance Department and the money will be deducted monthly from each Member’s card. 

The money will need to be taken from Top Up rather than the basic levy. This means that you will need to add some money to your card, if you haven’t yet done so. For example if you added £20 this would cover you for ten Duplicate sessions. 

Members can Top Up Club cards online or by contacting Club Reception to add funds so hopefully it won’t prove too difficult. Top Up lasts for five years. 

The Club won’t be able to issue monthly electronic receipts so you won’t have an official record of what you are spending. However, you can check your balance online or at Reception.

Please do come and join us for a festive Duplicate session on Real Bridge at 6pm on 15th December. 

Kate Blake