♠ ♥ ♦ ♣  New Teaching Programme for 2022/23 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

The new Bridge Teaching Programme for 2022/23 has now been published including a

new Fast Track Weekend course

Please click here for flyer

Please click here for further information

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣  Changes to Friday Relaxed Sessions and Supervised Play ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

The club recently carried out a survey of club member's views regarding the Friday morning Relaxed sessions.

As a result Friday Relaxed Sessions will move to F2F only from Friday 8th July and will be available every Friday.  This session will be F2F only. There will be no online option. The charge will remain at £2 which will be payable at the club.
Please register your intention to attend on the calendar event.   People needing partners should either make a comment on the form, use the WhatsApp group or contact Sam Golding. It is hoped that this will be relaxed with a short break during the play for social interaction and hopefully some nibbles!

In addition Supervised Play will finish on 1st July - at least until the end of the summer. 

Thank you to everyone who took part in the survey.

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ Mollie Simmons Swiss Pairs Results ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

Congratulations to John Fairhurst & Phil Brown who came top and Graham Ledger and Lindsay McDougall who were runners up in the Mollie Simmons Swiss Pairs Charity event held on Monday 29th June.

The club raised £117 for the Samaritans.

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣  New Virtual Pairs Venture with Milton Keynes starting 8th April 2022 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
 

New joint Friday night venture with Milton Keynes Bridge Club.

As always please register your intention to play on the calendar entry, then go to the shop to pay for the session which will be on RealBridge (£2 per member £2.50 for non member).  A link to the session will be provided with your ticket.

Click here for the shop. 

PLEASE NOTE THAT START TIME FOR THIS IS 7.30PM - LOG IN FROM 7PM

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣  WhatsApp ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

Did you know that the club has its own WhatsApp Chat group?  WhatsApp is a free messaging and video calling app that works on most phones. If you are interested in joining the group please email John Fairhurst on bstokebridge.chairman@gmail.com, providing details of your mobile number. 

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ COVID UPDATE JUNE 2022 - PLEASE READ ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

As from Weds 23rd February all Wednesday and Thursday sessions will move back to F2F at the clubhouse unless otherwise specified. As from Friday 8th February the Friday Relaxed Session will move to F2F.

All other sessions will continue to be online for the moment.

Please read the appropriate requirements for playing F2F (shown on the Home Page).

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣  Want to play Social Teams on RealBridge? ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

Have you struggled to play teams in the Social Lounge on RealBridge?   A new product is available for purchase in the shop.  It is to buy a Teams Social Session on Realbridge which has already been setup for you.  The product is for 2 rounds of 8 boards. You purchase the session for £5 members, £10 non members then tell us what date you would like it and we will send you a link to a RealBridge session which has already been configured for you to play teams with 7 others.  Please give us a few days notice so we can do the admin work to set this up for you.  You will then be sent the link to be distributed to other team members with instructions on how to run the session.

To purchase this product, go to the Shop and log in.  Click on Shop (not Book Sessions), then choose Social Teams from the drop down menu.  You will then see the product.  Purchase as normal.

As always we welcome feedback on any of our new initiatives.

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ '9 High' Session ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

Following the success of the first 9 HIGH TEAM EVENT this will continue every month.  See Calendar for further details.

The 9-high session is aimed at less experienced players and shortly we will be using this session to introduce those currently in the beginner classes to duplicate bridge.  Consequently, the session will be run with Simple Systems only - that is basic ACOL bidding. This permits all the standard ACOL strong and weak 2 openings.  You can make any conventional bids after the first round of bidding has completed.  It specifically excludes the use of Multi-2D openings and the Multi-Landy defence to 1NT as these are first round bids that can have multiple meanings and do not define at least 1 specific suit.  

We are going to retain the 'mature' 9-high criteria for taking part as this is being set as a standard across many counties for this type of session.  Whilst not making it a formal constraint on attendance we suggest that this session is best suited for those who are up to and including 'Master' in the Master Point rankings, to emphasise the focus on the expected level of experience.

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣  Online sessions ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

These sessions will be run mainly on RealBridge.   There are 5 types of sessions:

• Club pairs - running on Monday and Friday evenings on RealBridge
• Club teams - running on the last Monday of the month on RealBridge/
• 9-High pairs - most Tuesday evenings on RealBridge
• 9-High teams - once a month on a Tuesday evening on RealBridge
• Club Social Lounge - every day from 9.30am to 9.30pm.

More details about each of these sessions can be found using the menu on the left of this page.

Check the calendar for details of dates and times

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣  Social Lounge Sessions Every Day with Extended Hours ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

Following feedback, from Saturday 17th July 2021 the club will be offering Social Lounge Sessions on RealBridge every day from 9.30 am to 9.30 pm.  Up to 20 boards.  £2 for members and £3 for non members per table.  The person who pays for the table needs to forward the RealBridge link to the other players.

The sessions will not be on the calendar but you can book a session as usual through the shop by clicking here.  You can purchase a session up to 7pm on the same day as the session. 

Enjoy!!

 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣  Club Shop  ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

You can use the shop to do any of the following:

• Pay table money for sessions on RealBridge or special charity events on RealBridge or BBO. 
• Apply for new Membership of the club or renew your membership.
• Book training sessions.

More information on how the shop operates can be seen from the 'Shop' tab on the left of this page.  When using the shop, the first point of entry should be the Home Page - where you register or log in to your account.  Click here to access the shop.

We would like to encourage members using the site to purchase an Account Top-Up providing funds that can be used to buy sessions or other products from the shop.