The Abbey Smith Bridge Club was started in January 2012. It was primarily set up to ensure people who were being taught could play in a nice and friendly atmosphere. Since 2012 the club has grown and now has 10+tables most Thursday evenings. The experience of the members varies from near beginner (those who have just completed the most recent beginner course) to those who have been playing for years. Anyone wishing to play duplicate bridge is welcome. 

The Thursday evenings duplicates are held at Little Horwood Recreation Ground Village Hall. It is a nice light hall, which looks out onto the cricket pitch (although more bridge is being played than cricket nowadays!). The hall has great facitlities, recently updated cloakrooms and a nice kitchen which you can help yourselves to tea/coffee and biscuits (and Marg's yummy cakes). Since running the bridge club there the hall has treated us to brand new comfortable chairs and tasteful curtains & blinds to keep it cosy in the winter. 

The club has grown quickly and has the luxury of having a duplimator so all duplicate results are recorded with hand copies, including makeable contracts and optimum scores (although sometimes impossible to work how how to get there!!). In recent months the club has benefited from Bridgemates. This means results are available as soon as the final board is recorded. You can see what was lead on each hand and try to work out how on earth that table managed to make 4S doubled!!!

I am very proud of how far the bridge club has come in such a short space of time. The club feels fresh and up to date and is helped by having new faces introduced regularly from lessons. The members all respect my philosophy that bridge is a game to be enjoyed and as many people should be encouraged to play in clubs as possible. This has shone through in the atmosphere and goes a long way to explaining why the club has grown so much over the last couple of years. 

The Abbey Smith Bridge Club is EBU affiliated and awards masterpoints for duplicates. The club has already ventured into holding the occasional EBU Simultaneous Pairs. As the club develops over the next few years, I hope we will be able to enter teams into the local leagues and hold in house competitions.....watch this space