Bridge Blog 

2025 was certainly an eventful year for the Bridge Section with the renovation work and related adjustments we all had to make. It was good to see the year finishing on a high note. We had a good turnout on Saturday 6th December for our Annual Bridge Christmas party as well as a full house on 18th December for the Social Duplicate Christmas party evening. Our Christmas Eve social session was also very enjoyable with some delicious food and mulled wine to accompany some very relaxed Bridge. Many thanks to Belinda for organising these events and supplying the different provisions and to Ron for running his highly original approach to Bridge at the Social Duplicate party.

Club competitions

The first internal competition will be the Miller Cup (for individuals) on Monday 19th January starting at the usual 1.30pm time.

As previously mentioned, there are several exciting new events to look forward to this year, in addition to the normal matches and competitions, arising from the 125th anniversary celebrations. These are also set out in the Calendar for 2026. They include a lunch and Bridge session with Zia Mahmoud on 19th June, a special anniversary duplicate on 22nd April and a new mixed pairs event on 20th April.

Matches

Until we update the 2026 Calendar, please note that the AELTC away match will be on Wednesday 25th March and not Tuesday 24th March.

Club sessions  

Niall has restarted his lessons from 5th January. James will restart his beginners’ class (Term 2) on Tuesday 20th January.

The Tuesday afternoon supervised bridge sessions managed by Arnold and Loulou restarted on Tuesday 6th January. The Tuesday evening beginners practice bridge sessions also resumed on Tuesday 6th January.

It was very encouraging to see that the introductory duplicate sessions run by Niall in place of his regular practice sessions on Friday 7th December and Friday 9th January were well attended and went well. Based on the positive feedback we have been receiving we will be looking to continue these and possibly increase their number.

External events

The 9th Annual Hurlingham Swiss Teams Invitational Event will take place on Saturday 24th January 2026 from 10am to approximately 4.30pm. Entry details are available on the Bridge noticeboard. The event seems to have attracted some good interest from Roehampton Club players, unsurprisingly.

We have three teams entered for the Devonshire Cup taking place at the RAC over consecutive Tuesday evenings in February. Roehampton Club has an excellent record in the competition over recent years, and it will be good if we can keep this up.

Happy New Year and hope to see you in the Bridge Room soon.

Malcolm Bricknell, Bridge Chair