The final of the Waller Bowl competition was held yesterday, 11^th December, on RealBridge.

There were 36 pairs entered from qualifying rounds held in clubs.

The winners were David Owen & Bob Holder with an excellent score of 64%.

Second were David Calcutt & David Green with 59%

and third were Colin Bailey & John England with 58%.

Congrats to them and thanks to all 36 pairs for taking part. We hope you enjoyed the day.

This weekend saw the Metropolitan Cup being played on Realbridge. This competition is for teams of 8 representing each of the eight home counties. Each county puts in three teams ( A, B and C ).

The Berks & Bucks results in the three sections were :- 

The A team came 6^th out of 8, the B team came 1^st and the C team came 3^rd.

Congratulations to the B team who will go forward to the National finals representing the B section of the Home Counties.

The team were : Mike Ribbins & Pat Dowdeswell, Hanna Tuus & Daisy Dillon, Paul Dolphin & Steve Lynch, Stuart Townsend & Simon Roberts.

Berks & Bucks CBA played in the EBU Tollemache qualifying round over the weekend of 12-13 November.

The event was played on the Realbridge platform once again as last year.

Drawn in the stronger of the two sections, the team held their own against the eventual four qualifiers for the final achieving 41 VPs out of 80, but failed to capitalise against the weaker teams finishing with exactly average VPs in 9^th position out of 14.

Our team was :-

Mike Perkins (C) & Ian Reissmann,

Gary Jones & Ed Scerri,

Bob Holder & David Owen,

Dick Davey & Nigel Wolfendale,

Dee & Peter Lindon

One hand from the event showed how difficult it can be to reach the optimum contract.

AK842                  Q3

     A                           98732

AKJ109                 Q8

    92                          AJ54

Played 28 times, 26 were safely in a game contract of spades or no trumps.

Two pairs reached slam. One in 6S which failed when the spades proved to be 4-2.  

The other in 6D which made as a third round of spades can be ruffed before drawing trumps.

The successful slam was reached by the weaker hand employing a 5NT bid used as ‘pick a slam partner’, a method which is becoming increasingly popular.

We are very sad to learn of the death of Chris Burley. After a lengthy illness, he passed away peacefully at home on Saturday 17th December. 

Chris started playing serious bridge in Middlesex in the 1950s, where he had considerable success for about twenty years. He then gave up bridge for some time, before being lured back to the table in 1992. He joined Berks and Bucks and from then until 2014 (when he retired from competition bridge) was hugely successful in all our county events, winning every event at least once. His wins included the County Pairs Championship on no fewer than four occasions. He also had notable success at national level which included the unusual ‘double’ of being the winning captain in the National Swiss Teams as well as the National Seniors Swiss Teams.  Chris served on the B & B main committee for several years including a stint as Chairman and was also a member of the selection and disciplinary sub-committees. 

Although he was a fiercely determined competitor, Chris was always the perfect gentleman at the bridge table and was liked and respected by all who knew him well. He will be greatly missed. 

The funeral will be at 2.00pm on Friday 6th January at St. Mary’s Church in Beaconsfield. We send our sincere condolences to his wife Delia and family.