Hi everyone, monthly prize winners for February 2026 are as follows:

Monday………..........Andy Kerr and Mark Ehrlich

Wednesday…………Chris Neukom and Mary Palin

Friday………………..Philip Waring

Congratulations to you all.

Join us for this county event on SUNDAY MARCH 29th 2026.

The Liverpool Open Pairs is a long-established, face-to-face competition which is returning after a break of a few years. This year, the event will also act as the qualifying heat for the EBU Nine-High Corwen.  The highest scoring three pairs with an NGS score of 9 or under will be invited, entry fee paid, to represent the County in the competition.  This really is an event for ALL Merseyside and Cheshire members.

The event will be held in the excellent new premises of Liverpool Bridge Club, Unit 8, Mersey House, 140 Speke Road, Liverpool L19 2PH. The format is 24-28 boards in 2 sessions with a break for refreshments. David Smith will direct and there are prizes for the winners and best performing 9 high pair.  The start time is 2.00 pm with a finish at around 5.30 to 6.00 pm.

To enter click here for the entry form on the county website.

During lockdown we played a series of online matches against other clubs, pitting a range of pairs against similar strength pairs - a much needed bridge fix to relieve the tedium!

One of those (very welcome) opponents was Tyler Hill BC from Canterbury in Kent and recently they contacted us to arrange a re-match. We managed to put together seven matches of which Deva won four and, overall we came out on top by 78 VPs to 62. Well done everybody and particular thank to those from both clubs who helped to organise the match. Here are the full results:

There are running marathons and there are bridge marathons! Deva Bridge Club ran a two day bridge marathon on January 24 & 25 with two sessions each day - we call it the Chester Congress. Players came from far and wide such as from clubs in Manchester, Liverpool, North Wales and Shropshire, as well as our own club. The Congress was ably Directed by James Vickers and assisted by Simon Anderson. Catering by Sophie was provided on both days with delicious meals and even more delicious desserts.

Saturday's Swiss Pairs competition was won by Bob Loveridge and Nicholas Sutcliffe and Tracy Sherman and Boris Ewart were runners up. They can be seen in the 1st photo below - the winners are holding the Capel Cups. Third place was Tom Slater & Daniel Kelsall and the Ascenders prize was won by Sebastian Jones and Keith Shuttleworth. Sunday's Swiss Teams competition was won by John Hassett, Alan Mould, John Holland, Jackie Pye (2nd photo - holding the Latham Knox Trophy) with Rhona Goldenfield, Kath Nelson, Jeff Smith and David Barton coming 2nd (3rd photo). Congratulations to all of you.

It is pleasing to see 2 Deva members doing well in last Saturday's Jack High event run by Cumbria County Bridge Association. Dave Stretch and Steve Ingleby played in both the morning (coming 1st out of 21 North/South pairs) and the afternoon (coming 2nd out of 24 East/West pairs). That was 40 boards in total. Well done Dave and Steve!

If you are interested, the competition was online (on RealBridge) and the next similar event is Saturday 7 March - but don't forget our fun President's Day is on Sunday 8th March!

President's Day is a fun day with duplicate bridge, games, a delicious meal and a glass of wine!  Come and join your President on Sunday 8 March 2026 at 1.30 for a 2pm start at your Bridge Club.

Price: £23.50 which will include a two course meal with four different choices – just state what you want when you sign up on the DBC Web site - click here for info and to register. Book NOW!

Proceeds from the day will be donated to the President’s Charity Chester Aid to the Homeless (CATH).
 

The Monday evening session on 12 January was a heat of an EBU Sim Pairs event. Results are in the results calendar for our club on its own. Results with all heats is on the EBU website together with analysis of the hands: click here.

It feels like Christmas now as we had our party last night (Sunday 7 December). No mince pies or mistletoe took part, but those there enjoyed a game of bridge, fun quizzes/games and a delicious meal. Here are photos of 1st and 2nd pairs in each direction:
    

It is good to be able to report that Deva was well represented in the Merseyside & Cheshire County team that played in the Tollemache Cup qualifier at the weekend (8&9 Nov). The competition is an EBU inter-county championship for teams of eight and the weekend involved 30 counties playing 98 boards in 2 heats. M&C came =6th in their heat (equal with London who have a very much larger pool of players to choose from) and missed qualifying for the final by just 5 IMPs. 

As you can imagine, it was a high standard of bridge and so the county being so close to qualifying is a remarkable achievement (although not as good as qualifying!). It is also a good result for Deva because 9 of the 10 players who played for the county were Deva members. Namely: Pope, Prothero, Murphy, Hopkins, Stone, Roberts, Merrill, Foster & Hampson. Well done to all of them!

Bob Graham was a long standing member and teacher at the Deva. He founded an individual competition in the mid 90s and also kept the club's original garden which is why the current garden is named after him.

The 2025 final of the competition took place last night (Thursday 30 October) with qualifiers taken from the Bob Graham Ladder based on results on Monday evenings for the club year September 2024 to August 2025. The final is a tournament of 19 boards with each player playing 1 board partnering each other finalist. It was a complicated movement and a bit like musical chairs as well as a game of bridge. Congratulations to the winner, Mo Borley who has her name engraved on the cup, and to Jeff Angove who was runner up.