Release 2.19q
Recent Updates
Home Page
27th Mar 2024 13:09 GMT
0 0 0 0 0 0
Pages viewed in 2024
Bridge Education in Oxford

Oxford Bridge Club runs a comprehensive bridge education programme under the banner of Oxford Bridge School. Courses are available at all levels, from beginners to more experienced players. Further details are on their website.  

Junior Bridge - Spring Term

DO YOU KNOW ANY 8 – 19 YEAR OLDS?

Click here for further information about the Oxford Junior Bridge Club's sessions.

Wessex League
In the 2023-2024 season we have one team, captained by Holly, in Division Two of the (evening) Wessex League, a teams-of-eight competition for Oxfordshire clubs, played online. We also have two teams in the daytime league, captained by Sandra and Moira.
 
Fixtures and results for current season are from the links below.
 
For match reports, please scroll further down.
 
 
 
 
 
Match Reports

Both our main Wessex League team, and the A team in the Daytime League, have played their first matches of the season in early November.

The team in the Main League (now, thankfully, back to playing in Division 2) had a very pleasant match last night against Oxford D, with me (Sandra) acting as captain, since our real captain Holly wasn't playing in this one herself. Summertown were some way ahead at the end of the first half but the OBC team fought back hard during the second half: however, they didn't quite manage to catch up, leaving us with a narrow win which worked out at 11.54 - 8.46 in VPs.

Robert and Alison were the star turn for Summertown, coming top overall in the "cross-imping" (pairs ranking), largely because they managed to defeat two games that were made everywhere else. Well done and thank you to them and to the rest of the team, who were: myself and Krys, the Blisses, and Betty and Sara, with Linda and Dave standing by as reserves.

The A team in the Daytime League played this afternoon against Abingdon B and also had a very nice time, but unfortunately with much less success. The best that could be said was that we lost the second half by only 2 IMPs. However, since we'd already been thoroughly trounced in the first half, we emerged with a VP score of only 1.67 out of 20. Many thanks nevertheless to Robert who played with me, Holly and Steph who also played, and Erica and Ann who were reserves on this occasion.

Just to show you how difficult bidding can be, even when you think you've agreed almost everything that could possibly come up - here's something that happened during the Main League match:

You're playing an Acol-based system with four card majors and a weak NT. Your partner opens 1D, the next hand bids 1S and you double, indicating that without the intervention, you would have bid hearts - so you have at least 6 points, and four or possibly five hearts. Next hand passes and your partner now bids 1NT. What does this show? It must mean partner has spades; but is it a normal 1NT rebid with at least 15 points, or is it just the best partner can do with a minimum opening hand? 

There's no right or wrong answer here - but if you have a regular partner, it would certainly be worth a quick discussion to see if you're on the same wavelength. I won't tell you what actually happened when I had this hand last night, but it wasn't pretty!

Sandra

3.11.23

-----------------------------------------------

We played our second match of the season against Blewbury Bridge Club on Thursday evening and I'm sorry to have to report that it all went a bit wrong.

Sometimes, matches start well and fall apart and sometimes they fall apart from board 1 and I think that this is what happened on this particular occasion.  Everything we did was wrong and, I have to say, grudgingly, they were all rather good!

Anyway, we picked up in the second half (how often have you read that?) but the final result was 17.32 - 2.68.  I voted against these ridiculous divided scores but was outvoted so there we are.

We have three more matches so all is not lost and I would like to thank the team:

Robert Gasser and Alison Withers Green

Dave Dobson and Linda Allen

Zahir Soonawalla and myself

Ann Lee and Erica Sheppard

Special thanks to Ann and Erica, who were initially reserves, but stepped in at the 11th hour!

Holly

19.11.23

-----------------------------------------------

I'm delighted to report that the Wessex League A Team won their third match, which was against Banbury A on 27th February, scoring 10.71 to their 9.29VPs.  Although this may not seem like an outstanding result, Banbury has thus far, won all their other matches by a large margin and are leading the Division 2 league by a wide margin.

Although the end result is modest, Summertown were steaming ahead at half time due to two huge swings.  On board 6 both our pairs bid and made a vulnerable 4S whilst their pairs rested in a part score in diamonds.  Board 7 was a real coup when both our pairs bid and made 6D and their two pairs rested in game.

What do you bid when you 'pick up' this hand and your partner, as dealer, has opened 1D?

S: A

H: Q 6 3

D: A K 10 8 6 3

C: 10 7 3

One classy pair arrived at slam scientifically by cue bidding.  The other player holding the above hand, jumped directly to RKCB, delighted to find two aces, no Diamond Queen but confident that she would fall or could be finessed!

This was the opening hand:

S: Q 7

H: A K J 10

D: J 9 5 4 2

C: A 8

Many thanks to all the players:

Sandra Nicholson and Krys Kazmierczak

Robert Gasser and Alison Withers Green

Steven and Steph Bliss

Myself playing with Trevor Dawn

Huge thanks, too to Erica Sheppard and Betty Dick who stepped in at the 11th hour as reserves.

Holly

28.2.24