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.  

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.

Congratluations to the winners:

Men: Paul Merrick and John Rogers

Ladies: Maggi Simpson and Marian Cripps

Realbridge link: 

https://play.realbridge.online/cx.html?p=210611126426&q=CC2t7wrQaU0s

We have been offered an opportunity to take part in a free event arranged by David Bird in conjunction with RealBridge. David is a well-known author, with an amusing and entertaining way of explaining things.  You can attend either as a pair or individually and we will make up partnerships on the day.

We will be playing four boards selected by David, to cover the topic declarer play and entry management.  This will be at 10:00 on Friday June 11th - the link to the session will appear here on the day.  At the start RealBridge will display a welcome note on each table. This will be a very short introduction to the deals.  Players play 4 rounds of 1 board each. Each player will be declarer once (but not in rotation).  After the 4^th board, RealBridge displays a link to a webpage containing a video.  This allows the players to watch David Bird talk about the instructive points of two of the deals. Under the video is commentary by David, in text, on all 4 boards.

Put these dates in your diary, grab a cup of coffee on the day and join us for half an hour to have some fun and learn from an expert.

As an aside:  David has written over 1,000 restaurant & hotel reviews on Tripadvisor (under the ID: BroLucius)

I am very sorry to tell you that Chris Ainley passed away on Monday (May 24th).  Chris attended the "Returning to Bridge" course with me at the EBU some years ago and was my first regular partner at a bridge club.  He had been suffering from cancer for a number of years.  He spent his final days with his wife Marie and his family.  He played at many local clubs and had recently been a regular playing online at Aces.  I will particularly remember his wickedly dry sense of humour.

Paul Morris

I have received this update from Chris's son, James:

We have now received detail of the arrangements for the funeral that will take place at 10.30am on Thursday 10^th June. Unfortunately, due to venue restrictions, it will be a small private service. The church will be providing an online option via their Facebook page (“The Schorne Team of Parishes”) for those who will not be with us in person, and the funeral directors have kindly created a memorial page for messages of condolence and to facilitate donations to the Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity - who took incredibly good care of my dad in his final days. 

Link to the memorial page:

Christopher Ainley | Services | CPJ Field

 Link to Facebook group:

(2) The Schorne Team of Parishes | Facebook

The link and hand records will appear on the new website - under the callendar entry to the right of the screen: 

www.bridgewebs.com/paulgillslessons

Hand records will be in the members area.  You will need a password to do this.  If you have a problem with this email me (Paul) and I can set one up for you.

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

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.

I am very sorry that I have to let you know that Geoffrey Runnicles, a longstanding member of the club, died on Monday April 26th.  He will be remembered as friendly and welcoming to the table, but fiercely competitive once the cards were in his hands.   We send our sincere sympathies to his wife Rosemary, his family and his other friends.  The funeral will take place in Long Crendon on Monday 17th May, it will be private, family only and flowers from family only. Donations may be made to Leukaemia Research or Sobel House hospice, through the funeral directors Surman and Horwood.

Congratulations to:

Mary Baker and Jean Carter winners of the Major Championship

Catherine Rowland and Joan Bridges winners of the Minor Championship

The Major and Minor Championship will take place on BBO on Tuesday March 9th.  Anyone can play on that night but only players who were members of the club before lockdown are eligible to win a trophy.  The Major winners will be the highest ranked pair on the night.  The Minor winners will be the highest ranked pair where neither of the pair has an NGS rank of 6 or above.

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 (?)

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.

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

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

Update on opportunity to learn to play bridge from Paul Morris

The initial course will last for ten weeks and will start on January 6th 2020.  It will take place at the Oaks Coffee Shop, Elm Court, Elm Farm Rd, Aylesbury HP21 7NQ on a Monday morning for two hours and will cost £8 per session.

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.

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.