Message to the club from Yvonne Black

Unfortunately I bring the sad news that Jill Glynn finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer and passed away peacefully in her sleep last week. 

Jill was a keen bridge player and had been a valued member of Aylesbury Aces for several years. Her bridge partnership with Claire Linder had endured for nine years but Jill also partnered other members of the club at a variety of bridge events and venues including the Marsworth charity bridge day , the Horton bridge club and the annual bridge break in Bournemouth.

When not playing bridge Jill was also a keen walker, an interest she shared with some of our club members. 

Although a reserved and private person, Jill could always be relied upon for a kindly word of encouragement and was always ready to  extend a welcome to newcomers at the bridge table.

I am sure you will wish to join me in sending condolences to her daughter Kate, son Christopher and four grandchildren.

She will be much missed.

RIP gentle lady

Yvonne

Dear Friends

Thank you all so much for supporting the Strawberry Bridge last week, whether by playing, buying raffle tickets or making donations.  Thanks to your generosity we made a whopping £4,600, every penny of which will be spent on giving Oxford Mencap’s members a lovely break at Hill End Camp after what has been a horrible fifteen months for them.  The holidays are now in full swing and going wonderfully well.

Very best wishes

Krzysia Gossage

New Opportunity to Learn to Play Bridge with Paul Morris

A new online course will start on Tuesday September 14th.  The initial course will last for ten weeks and each lesson will last for about two hours starting at 10:00.  The cost will be £6 per session plus either a textbook or subscription to the EBED website.  A typical lesson will include about 45 minutes instruction followed by a supervised play session on Realbridge.

I will be teaching standard Acol (weak no trump) and using EBU student packs which contain full notes and information.  The course will assume no previous knowledge of bridge or any other card game.  It will be a practical course, based on Bridge for All designed by the English Bridge Union, with the emphasis on playing the game and having fun.

If you know of anyone who is looking for lessons please talk to me or contact me at paulbridgelessons@gmail.com.

If you are interested but cannot make that day or time please get in touch with me to discuss options.

Currently Aylesbury Aces is hosting two Club Online Sessions each week.

On a Tuesday evening at 7:30 pm there is a Club Night which follows the full EBU online rules and is on Bridge Base Online.

On a Thursday evening at 7:30 pm there is a Club Night which follows the full EBU online rules and is on Realbridge.

On a Wednesday morning at 10:00 am there is a Relaxed Bridge Session for learners and improvers.  This is restricted to players or partnerships with an NGS grade of 6 or less.  It also uses Realbridge.  The Wednesday morning bridge session is now on its summer break and will return on Wednesday 1st September.

If you want to join either of these sessions please contact Paul Morris on paulbridgelessons@gmail.com.

If you are interested in learning how to play bridge, improving your game or returning to playing bridge after a gap of a few years please contact Paul Morris on paulbridgelessons@gmail.com.

From now on the link will appear under the calendar entry on the right hand side of this screen.  The session will open at about 18:00.

The links to previous events now appear as part of the results calendar - in the list of pairs and scores it is the final item in the menu above the table.

Alerting and Announcing
For Tuesday bridge on BBO you need to self alert and announce.  On Thursdays on Realbridge you should alert and announce your partners bids as you would face to face.  If you are having microphone issues please use the chat.  There is a full list of what needs to be alerted and announced in the menu to the left under Conventions Explained - Convention Cards.  The most frequent announcements are for 1 Club when it doesn't mean clubs, point count for 1NT and 2NT, stayman and transfers.   Alerts include any artificial bids on the first round of the auction - e.g. Landy.  If your partner makes an artifical bid you should press the alert button and provide an explanation if requested by your opponents.  If you partner wrongly gives an explanation of their own bid this is unauthorised information and you should bid as though they hadn't said anything.  

Undos are not permitted except in exceptional circumstances and if authorised by the director.

Every hour please click the redial button - two arrows (next to the eye).

Each session costs £2-50 and you will be billed at the end of the month.

The Wednesday morning bridge session is now on its summer break and will return on Wednesday 1st September

You may have seen the message about video on BBO.  In the forum there are a few more details:

"We're still beta-testing. You can try it out, of course, but it only works for pay tournaments (with a BB$ entry fee), and only on desktop for now.  We'll publish the official announcement and instructions in a couple of day once we're sure everything is working as expected and is stable."

We will be assessing whether BBO have implemented it for the devices that are used in our competitions and how easy it is to use.  This will include whether the connections change automatically when you move tables (this wasn't the case with the audio feed when we tried it) and whether people with weak broadband connections can turn it off.

Some people have asked recently about returning to playing face to face bridge and this is a brief outline of the current position.

The government is due to issue new guidelines on social distancing some time before June 21st.  The current official guidelines are that players should be 2m apart and the size of the room we use makes it difficult to fit in as many tables as we are used to which are that distance apart.  There are other issues - for example our tables are about 1m square.

We are also monitoring advice issued by the EBU which draws on plans made by other clubs.  We may need a booking system, screens, a thermometer for testing, a large screen for displaying results, large supplies of hand sanitiser and gloves.  A new rota system of volunteers for various tasks will be required e.g sanitising the bidding boxes between sessions.  Our insurance cover requires us to implement the same precautions as a business.  We have not made any detailled plans pending the new government guidelines.

The minutes of the committee meeting which discussed these matters have been circulated to members.  The main conclusions were to aim to restart face to face bridge in September 2021 if possible and to implement a mixture of face to face and online bridge.  The format of this has yet to be decided.

This is all a bit gloomy.  Let us hope current progress is maintained and we can return to something as close to normal as possible very soon.

There is a list below of special events for the year.  Lets hope we can play some of them face to face.

March 9th - Tuesday - Major and Minor Championship
June 10th - Thursday - Mens and Ladies Pairs
July 27th - Tuesday - EBU Summer Sims
September 7th - Tuesday - Burrows Cup
October 14th - Thursday - Autumn Sim Pairs
November 9th - Tuesday - Children in Need (?)

Robots as Partners

All members that play online bridge need to be aware that the policy decided by the Committee is that it is not permitted to play with a robot if you cannot find a partner through WhatsApp or another method.

Congratulations to all the cup winners this year, announced at this year’s AGM.

Congratulations to the winners of the Mens and Ladies Pairs

Ladies: Norma Moore and Pat Lindsey

Men: Graham Arnold and Paul Morris

On-Line Competitions

Aylesbury Aces are now holding on-line competitions on Tuesday and Thursday, in line with the face-to-face club.

If you want to join in please contact Paul Morris at paulbridgelessons@gmail.com.

Burrows Cup - weighted results below

Click on the menu item 'Lockdown Ladder' to see how you are doing during these strange times.

Every Wednesday morning session and the new Tuesday evening sessions are included. To get onto the ladder you have to play at least 25% of the sessions. The 'random players' that Paul sometimes has to bring in to make up the numbers don't count but may appear on the list.

I am very sad to inform you of the death of Peter Jordan having contracted Covid 19 at his care home.  I know that some of you will have known Peter through his work promoting bridge in the area through Cafe Bridge, lessons and Really Easy events.  I am sure we would all want to send our sincere condolences to his family and friends

We have had the following message from Barbara:

Dear Friends

In light of the current situation we are not be able to come together in person to commemorate Peter's life. We will aim to do something when circumstances allow and we will let you know the details, but we don't know when that will be. In the meantime, we have created an online memorial page which you can visit, and leave a message on if you would like to. We have also set up a Just Giving page in Peter's name. We've already had so many lovely flowers there isn't much room for many more so if you would like to make a small donation instead that would be lovely. We'll donate any money evenly between Chiltern Air Ambulance Trust and the Towersey Playing Fields Fund. 

Thanks you again for all your kind wishes

Barbara

Links

https://www.mykeeper.com/momentos/PeterJordan/#96085

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/peter-jordan-thame

Bridge Club Live (https://www.bridgeclublive.com/) are now accepting new members after halting new applications for a short while.  If you are on the waiting list you will get an email describing how to join.  Don't forget there is a special trial memebership for EBU members on the EBU website page:  under the heading ​​​​ "A special offer for EBU Members - try BCL for free".  Instructions covering the way to register and play have been issued by the club.    

Funbridge is another option and I'm not aware of any capacity issues.  They offer daily competitions against three robot players including ones awarding EBU masterpoints.

Please contact me if you need help on paulbridgelessons@gmail.com or 07956442273.

Other ways to play online are shown on the EBU website: https://www.ebu.co.uk/.

Tuesday March 10th

Congratulations to 

Major Pairs champions : Paul Morris and Martin Wright

Minor Pairs champions : Norma Moore and Sheila Sylvester

Trophies will be presented at the AGM in October

We meet twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Community Centre, Prince Rupert Drive, Buckingham Park, Aylesbury.

Sessions start at 7.25 (for 7.30) and finish around 10.30.

Our aim is to provide Duplicate bridge with an emphasis on enjoyment in a friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

We are affiliated to the EBU and use pre-dealt boards and BridgeMate scoring which means hand records and results are usually available on the night before players leave.
In addition to the normal club sessions we run quarterly social events (often on a Sunday afternoon) where, in addition to the bridge, a sumptuous tea provided.
Visitors are welcome to come and play at normal club sessions and the social events, although there are some restrictions on Simultaneous Pairs evenings.
We are delighted to welcome new players and do our very best to provide a host to partner visiting individuals - SEE LEFT HAND SIDE BOX.

This site is built with BridgeWebs, the easy web solution.

Since our club was set up in 2009, Aylesbury Aces has been committed to raising money for charity through our annual Charity Bridge teas and Chldren in Need Sim Pairs.

At our last AGM a member asked how much had been raised over the years, After much 'digging' through the records it was a pleasant surprise to learn that we have in fact donated around £6,500; including the generous fund match from Lloyds bank, to various local charities including Age Concern, British heart Foundation, Alzheimer's Society and the Florence Nightingale Hospice as well as nearly £1,000 to Children in Need.

It's nice to know that we are helping good causes whilst enjoying playing bridge with our friends.