Following a sparkling performance from John Potts and Peter Nattress, they have emerged as clear favourites to win the monthly competition.

With only one more chance to catch them the second and third pairs have a lot of work to do!

David and Pru and Tom and Hazel will need to be outstanding in November to catch them up!

To John Burke

Apparently you contacted one of our members saying you were moving into the area and were hoping to join us.

I tried to contact you but the number I was given was not recognised.

Please ring Joe Ridyard on 01925 767187 if you still wish to join.

Please note that the start date for the next series of lessons has been postponed by one week:

It is now

Wednesday October 8th at 2pm

Last Sunday's Competition featured two scores over 70%.

A most unusual occurrence. Click on the box on the right to see if either qualified as the Highest Score of the Year

Another fine win for Doris and Bev maintained their recent good form.

None of the leading three did much to improve their positions and Dennis and Ralph stay in first place.

.........are coming back.

The new 20-week course will be for 'improvers' and starts on 1st October.

Tell your friends!!

Congratulations to Doris and Bev on an excellent win in this month's Championship Pairs.

Second place for David and Pru means, though, that they have consolidated their lead and are now strong favourites.

If you look at the overall positions in the Results menu, you will see that some players have now played seven times and so their lowest score is  discounted.

Click  here to see the leading positions

The Christmas party is now arranged for Sunday 21st December.

The event will be in the Annexe starting around 6pm and would be followed by Bridge in the usual form. The menu can be viewed by clicking onto the 'news' sub-menu.

We will subsidise the event as usual, but may need to make a small charge. Anyone wishing to bring a spouse/partner/friend is welcome to do so. They will, however, have to pay the full price, which is around £15.

As a 'sit-down' meal will take longer we will be having the annual presentation of prizes on the preceding Wednesday.

Joe

Amended result.

Due to an error in entering results on score slips there has been an amendment to the results of the Sunday handicap.

The results are hopefully now correct.

Members will be pleased to know that the Bridge Section are the winners in the latest club lottery.

We have won the magnificent sum of £500. I am sure we will not be short of suggestions as to how to spend it!

David and Pru maintained their lead in the competition with another sound performance.

 A good win for Peter and John means they are moviing up in second place. John and James are also moving up in the rankings as the competition hots up!

Here is a cautionary tale related to me last week.

One of our members picked up a 12-14 balanced hand and mistakenly pulled out the 2NT card and placed it on the table. He realised his mistake and asked if he could pick up the card and replace it. He was told by an opponent that he could not do so.

Was the opponent correct in doing this?

This is, in a sense, a trick question. The answer is that the opponent was wrong whatever he/she said! It is compulsory to call the TD for a ruling in these situations.

The TD must first establish if the call was 'inadvertent', i.e. a genuine mistake. If it was then the card can be picked up and corrected at any time until the partner of the person making the mistake has bid. If an opponent has bid that bidding card must be picked up as well.

Thanks to all those who helped to make this a successful event. I am sure the 'new' players were made to feel welcome and the attendance certainly justified the occasion.

Particular congratulations to the winning E-W pair of 'beginner' Ann Brown and her partner Mel Taylor on an outstanding performance!

The club behaviour code as outlined at the AGM is now available here.

Look for it in the 'Information' section.

Last Wednesday saw the annual Ged Lawrenson trophy.

Congratulations to this year's winners

Sue Eckersley and Graham Wells.

A fine win for David and Pru Dowson saw them take the lead after the second heat in the Championship Pairs competition.

See the placings in the Competitions menu.

The minutes of the recent Committee meeting can now be found in the Information sub-menu.

The teams competition this month was won easily by the team of Ken, Clive, Joe and Enid with 73 imps.

After handicapping the first place was the same so the prize goes to the second place after handicap. This was won by

with 55.6 imps after handicapping.

Full handicapped results can be seen in the Competitions sub-menu.

This week's results allow us the opportunity to restart this competition.

Congratulations to Steve and Frank on the first score of greater than 65% this year.

This Wednesday sees the start of the annual handicap competition, which will normally take place on the second Wednesday.

We will be using the handicap taken from the average achieved last year when playing only with the partner you have in the competition. For example, in my case it would only include averages with Peggy not Enid.

If someone plays with another partner in a particular week we will use their average when playing with that partner. Otherwise we will use each player's individual handicap compiled from playing all events in a year.

The partnership and individual averages can be seen in the Competitions menu as "Club Pairs 2007" and "Club Individual 2007". The handicap is how this differs from  50%.

The other change is to have unlimited handicaps. The maximum handicap has always been plus or minus 10% This will be scrapped to give the weaker players a chance to win. So a partnership averaging 30% in 2007 would be awarded 20% on each occasion.

Joe

Now that we are into the New Year the various competitions that we run are starting again.

You can see them listed in the Competitions menu. The "Individual" and "Partnership" lists will run through 2008 and so you can see your current average for this year.

Last years scores are found under "Club Pairs 2007" and "Club Individual 2007" and these will be used in this years Handicap competition.

This years competitions will be found under "Monthly Championship Pairs 2008" and "Monthly  Handicap Pairs 2008".

As last year we will be awarding a prize for the highest score of the year and recording all scores over 65%.

This years events calendar can be seen in the right hand column of the home page.

A printed version will be available in the new year if you can't read this because you have not got the internet!

Congratulations to the winning team in Wednesday's Autumn Teams.

Scores are shown after handicap applied.The handicap prize goes to the second placed team as the non-handicap prize is given to the team who were first in both competitions. To see the results before handicaps are applied see the 'Latest Results' menu.

1. Steve Glass, Susan Misra, Chris Burdekin, George Charleston 87

2. Hazel Evans, Margaret Nicholls, Pru and David Dowson 43

3. Enid Beddall, Joe Ridyard, Clive Goodwin, Ken McDowall 38

4. John Potts, Peter Nattress, Graham Wells, Sue Eckersley 25

5. Brian Aspinall, John Sharphouse, Paul and Frank Vose 26

6. James Carlisle, John Lockett, Steve Geoghegan, Frank Westwell 9

7. George and Pat Morgan, Peggy Hancock, Mary Woodcock 0

Due to an error in calculating results (wrong pair numbers entered), the results of the competition of Sunday 7th October have been amended from those appearing on the noticeboard.

Corrected results can be seen in the Results Calendar.

We now have our own web address:

http://www.culchethdatenbridgeclub.org.uk/

The present one will still work but it is a good idea to change to the new (more memorable) one!

Here is a hand played recently on the internet. It illustrates the fact that there is a large element of luck in scoring well in Bridge.

Sitting West you naturally open 1 club. You are very pleased to hear partner reply 1 diamond. Note that omitting the diamond bid to focus on the major, as some do, is not as good!

What to bid next? With such a powerful hand, slam possibilities loom. How to describe your hand further? A splinter bid! This shows a singleton in the suit bid. Does this partner play them? On the internet you can look at your partners 'profile' - a description of his system. A quick glance reveals the word 'splinters'. So next bid is 3 hearts.

Partner replies with 3 no-trumps. You conclude that this may score well but push the boat out by bidding 6 diamonds. You are then shocked to hear partner next bid 6 hearts! The splinter has not been understood after all!

You have no option but to grit your teeth and bid 7 diamonds.

Looking at the hands, you can see that a finesse in trumps and in clubs will be needed.

Both are right and you get an amazing plus score!

Here is a fairly run of the mill sort of deal that led to a rather surprising result.

West dealt and opened 1 diamond. The overcall from North (my partner) was 2 spades. I was unsure of the meaning of this. Since most people play weak jump overcalls, I thought 6-10 points and 6 card spade suit. East now bid 3H and so I decided to support partner and bid 3 spades. This was doubled, to my surprise, (would you with the East hand?) and that ended the bidding.

Looking at all four hands now it would seem that North will lose 1 spade, 1 heart, 1 diamond and 2 clubs for 8 tricks and and a 100 penalty. This is against an E-W contract in hearts which should lose 2 spades and a diamond. This looks like a very good score!

Partner is in the highest category of players on the BridgeClubLive site, so should be straightforward. You are invited to guess what happened in the play!

Did you know you can now have your results sent to you by automated e-mail?

Send me an e-mail to ask for this service!

We are now able to show the contract, number of tricks made and the opening lead in the scores page.

Simply click on your pair name to access these details.