The committee is sad to hear of the recent death of Nigel Marlow. Nigel died in his sleep overnight on Monday night. Nigel was our BBCBA treasurer for several years.

 The County Senior Pairs was held on Monday 19th May at South Bucks Bridge Centre. Twenty pairs took part, playing 36 boards.

 The winners of the Directors Cup were David Owen and Bob Holder with 60.24%.

2nd was Ed Scerri and Gilly Cardiff,  3rd Dick Davey and Paula Hopkinson
 
 

Well done to all who took part. We hope you enjoyed the day.

In a dramatic finish, with the lead changing hands twice in the last three boards, Gary Jones, a member of Amersham BC, was part of the Welsh international team which won the Teltscher Trophy last weekend.

The Teltscher Trophy (aka the Senior Camrose) is an annual event which takes place between international teams from the five countries of the British Isles. The event was inaugurated in 2008 and this year was held in Dublin. Gary and his Welsh partner, Paul Lamford, were also the leading pair after cross imping.

The Garden Cities Trophy is the EBU's inter-county championship for teams-of-eight.  

As winners of the 1st Division of the B&BCBA League-of-Eight, Amersham A qualified to represent Berks & Bucks in the competition. The Regional Finals of the Garden Cities trophy, see ( https://www.ebu.co.uk/article/garden-cities-finalists-known-3 ), took place over the weekend at four different venues around the country. Eight teams in total, including Amersham A,  qualified for the Garden Cities Final, which will take place on Saturday 7th June. 

The winners of each division in the League of 8 are now known although there are still a couple of matches to be played. 35 teams from 19 clubs played this season.

Congratulations to Amersham A for winning Division 1 and the Perkins Cup. They finished with the grand total of 151 VPs from their nine matches. Reading A were second with 139 VPs.

Congratulations to the leading teams in the other three divisions:

Division 2 (10 teams): Austenwood 1st with 128 VPs, just pipping Newbury A who had 127 VPs.

Division 3 (10 teams): Newbury B 1st with 125 VPs, Amersham C 2nd with 123 VPs.

Division 4 (5 teams playing 8 matches): Hazlemere and Maidenhead B, equal 1st with 99 VPs.

We thank all those who played and all the team captains for organising their teams and arranging matches. We look forward to another successful season starting in September and would welcome any new teams from clubs. The League Secretary will be asking for entries as usual in June.

At the end of a close-fought 48-board match, played against the Bakshi team at TGR's club in London, Carole Mueller's team was victorious in the final of the Hubert Phillips Plate KO. Pictured, left to right, are Herb Mueller, Chris Mooney, Carole Mueller and David Perkins.

A side note is that David Perkins was 92 this week, so he must be one of the 'more senior' winners of a national KO tournament, if not most senior!

B&B Jack High Friendly Pairs

The Berks & Bucks Jack High Friendly Pairs for the Finchampstead Plate was contested by 23 pairs this weekend.  The winners with 62.13% were Paul & Norma Lord, narrowly ahead of Tim Davies & Mary Nash on 62.03%. Congratulations to Paul and Norma Lord and thanks to all who took part. We hope you all enjoyed the event.

The final of the Waller Bowl competition was held on 16 February 2025 at Windsor.

There were 31 pairs entered from qualifying rounds held in clubs.

The winners were Sue & Graham Dickens with a  score of 61.93%.

Second were David Owen & Bob Holder with a score of 60.00%

and third were Bryn Smith & Malcolm Burch with a score of 58.91%.

Congrats to them and thanks to all 31 pairs for taking part. We hope you enjoyed the day.

 The Club teams final for the Committee Cup was held on Sunday 23rd March at Windsor. It was an all play all for 13 teams over 36 boards.

The winners were Ed Scerri & Gilly Cardiff with Nigel Wolfendale & Dick Davey from Amersham on 125 IMPs, second were Ian Robert & Sally Bride with Godfrey Vangeyzel & Carol Humphreys   on 73 IMPs.

The Jack High Friendly Pairs was held on Sunday 26th January at South Bucks BC

Thirty pairs took part and the winners were William Smyth & Angela Subramaniam  with a great score of 66.12%, second were Kumar Patel & Mike Rossiter with 60.07%. Well done indeed.

Thanks to all those played. We hope you enjoyed this event as the County are keen to encourage all levels of players to County events.

The committee is sad to hear of the recent death of Joyce Baldock in Basingstoke Hospital. Joyce was a former Berks & Bucks Committee member and Treasurer, and had continued to play until recently. She played in nearly all the county competitions, winning the Green Point Swiss Teams, the County Pairs and County Pairs Plate, and both the multiple teams and swiss teams versions of the Perkins Cup.

The County Pairs Championship Final was held on Sunday 19th January 2025 with 23 pairs competing in an all play all over 40 boards at Windsor.

The winners were Peter and Dee Lindon . Well done.

The top five pairs will be invited to represent the County in the EBU’s Corwen Trophy event, to be held 31st May/1st/2nne. The other four pairs are Mike Wenble and James Chapman, Marc Rivoira & Barry Read, Ed Scerri & Steve Eginton , Pat Dowdeswell & Mike Ribbins. Congratulations to all.

Congratulations to Stuart Burnett & Tony Truluck winners of the joint BBCBA/Hants & IoW Blue pointed Swiss pairs event held on the 27th November 2024.won overall. They take the (HIOW) Wessex Trophy.

Liz Senior & Mike Kinsey were 2nd and Tony Yip & Pak-Hin Lee were 3rd.

Jackie Davies & Rob Cliffe take 4th and take the (BBCBA) Denys Jenkins Trophy.   28 pairs took part.

We almost had a new world champion in the most unlikely of circumstances!
Ed Scerri was not selected for the England Senior team for what used to be called the Olympiad, in Buenos Aires,  He didn’t even play in the trials!
But when a medical problem prevented one of the team from playing at the last minute, he stepped into the breach to play with a regular partner of his, Malcolm Prior. Arranging last minute flights and accommodation.
But things, at first, did not go well.  Bad weather left one of the team’s pairs stranded in the UK, only arriving after the first day was completed and struggling to find form after that, as did all the pairs.  It got worse, two of the team were ill and Ed got mugged in the “Paris of South America”.  Unsurprisingly by the end of the round robin qualifier for the knockout stages they were well off the pace.
At this point, you might think that, like two of their team-mates, they would have given it a day, but not Ed and Malcolm.  They decided to play in the pairs event, lasting over nearly a week, in the same field as the open pairs, and with feed ins from the teams losing in the late Knockout stages of the teams. 
At this point their luck changed and they were never in doubt for qualifying, first for the semi-final round and then into the final of just 14 pairs.
In the two days of finals they were never out of the top places.  Although Ed also picked up his teammates’ virus on the last day, he headed into the final session of 14 boards with a comfortable lead.  
But, sadly, it seemed that  opponents could do no wrong and when the dust cleared he and Malcolm were agonizingly fewer than 4MPs (from a total of 650) behind the Canadian winners.
Nevertheless, it was a fantastic result - the only English medalists of the games and an outstanding achievement.  

Congratulations Ed!

Swiss Teams for the Richard Palmer Memorial Trophy

Congratulations to the winners of the teams event - Celia & Derek Oram with Peter & Dee Lindon. 18 teams competed on  Sunday at Windsor in the annual Green Pointed Congress. 

Swiss Pairs for the Anders Wallen Trophy

Congratulations to the winners of the pairs event - Bob Holder and David Owen. 60 pairs competed on  Saturday at Windsor in the annual Green Pointed Congress.  The trophy was presented by Eva Wallen.

Winners of the Student League 2024: their team name is Beaconsfield Ladies and the picture shows (from left to right) Jo Barrett, Ingrid Hamilton (Captain) Sue Morgan and Debbie Raven. Deborah Holmes also played but is not in the picture as she was not at the end-of-season pairs event.

The other trophy visible on the table is the Bridge Plus trophy for the end-of-season pairs (open to everyone who played in either the Graduate or Student League) and this year it resulted in a triple tie! with three pairs all finishing on 60%. So the trophy is being shared between Sharon Christie & Jane Davis, Ingrid Hamilton & Debbie Raven, and Jane Barker & Karen Kelly (who won it the previous year - does being in a triple tie count as retaining your trophy?!).