Wednesday February 8th - Improvers' Seminar

Our next seminar will be on Wednesday February 8th: Victor Ridding's topic will be

"Play your cards right: how to play common card combinations"

Members and visitors all welcome: 7.30pm start.

Congratulations to Julia Bannister and Gilbert Lee - winners of the centre's Mixed Pairs Competition - January 25th

February 8^th Improvers’ Seminar – Victor

February 22nd Pivot Teams Competition

March 8^th Improvers’ Seminar – Paul

March 22^nd IMPed Pairs Competition

April 5th Seminar -Alec

B&CHBC is starting a course of beginners' classes on Tuesday January 17th. Details are available from Ann at  a.thornton143@live.com  or 07855-069417  The centre looks forward to welcoming newcomers

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all our players for your support of B&CHBC during 2022, and to thank our committee for their endeavours to make the centre the success that it is. 

In addition to our main duplicates, our improvers’ sessions on Thursdays are proving to be popular and instructive, our Wednesday night specials are well under way, and, in the new year, we will be starting classes for beginners.

We hope that you will join us at Bramhall for bridge and a festive drink and mince pie in the coming week - Monday afternoon, Tuesday evening and Friday evening.

With all good wishes for an enjoyable Christmas and for good health and excellent bridge in 2023.

Alec and Steve

The Xmas Individual was a great success! It was great fun and an enjoyable evening where Ann Thornton at the end pulled the longest straw. The club individual xmas champ! A HUGE thanks to Alec who organised this event! 

Congratulations to our memberes who received promotion in November

Howard Rosemarine  Premier Master
Gillian Butterworth  1 Star Master
Espen Gisvold  Advanced Master
Ric Swindell  Area Master
Fly Leung  Club Master
Gilbert Lee  Club Master

The MCBA Ben Franks was held yesterday. The top 4 pairs -who qualify for the national Corwen competition in 2023 are all B&CHBC members

The NICKO (national inter-club knock out) season kicked off to a good start with a win by Neil Thomas (Gillian McMullan, Irene Davies and Roger Hopton) over a strong team from Deva bridge club

B&CHBC's AGM was held 15th November and all reports can be found under the 'Documents' tab in the menu to the left. 

Congratulations to our members who gained a promotion in October

4 Star Master: Keith Boulton

Local Master: David Cash & David Grimshaw

Congratulations to the Manchester team who played on Nov 12th and 13th and qualified for the final of the Tollemache inter-county teams event.

The team was (B&CHBC members in bold):

Alec Smalley  - Michael Byrne

Alan Mould - Rodney Lighton

John Holland - John Hasset

Catherine Draper - Andrew Woodcock 

Results can be viewed HERE 

The final will be held 18th & 19th February Face to Face.

Following our SIM Pairs on Nov 7th and 8th, members and the Club have donated £530.50p to the ECATS Children in Need Appeal

Bramhall & Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre 

The Annual General Meeting

will be held on Tuesday November 15^th 2022 at 6.30pm  in the Rhodes Room at Bramhall Village Club

Agenda

1      Chair’s Report (Click to read report)

2      Treasurer’s Report

3      Election of Officers: Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, Membership Secretary and Tournament Director. Nominations should be proposed and seconded and sent to the secretary (at chair@cheadlehulmebridgeclub.org) no later than Tuesday November 8th

4      Election of other Committee Members

5      Moving forward - plans for the coming months

6      Change of dates for financial year and AGM

7      Any other business

The Centre has entered 4 teams in the National Inter-Club KnockOut competition. The closing date for entries has been extended until October 17th.

The teams are as follows:

Rodney Lighton, Tom Slater, Michael Byrne, John Holland, Gary Hyett & Alec Smalley
Peter Foster, John Roberts, John Currie & Royce Alexander
Neil Foster, Gillian McMullan, Irene Davies & Roger Hopton
Steve Mattinson, Rob Harris, Joyce White, Mike Parr, Ann Thornton & Julia Bannister

Teams of 4 Competition evening

We had a good evening yesterday with 10 teams! 

Congratulations to the winners:

Rob Harris & Steve Mattinson and Julia Bannister & Ross Worthington

Our next Wednesday special is November 9th : Improvers' Seminar, Victor Ridding on transfers

National Master: Karen Jones

Club Master: Jon & Sally Middleton

Local Master:  Gavin Callow

Congratulaions! 

Congratulations to our chairman, Alec Smalley, and to member, Michael Byrne, on their triumph in the Great Northern Swiss Pairs competition held in Yorkshire over the weekend of the 1st and 2nd of October. They amassed 155 Victory Points losing only 4 matches out of 12, to win by 2VPs in a strong field of 36 pairs.

The Manchester A  team came first in their Division and the B team won their division in the Northern Bridge League today (8.10.2022)

Manchester A included B & CH BC members, Tom Dessain & Rodney Lighton with Joy & Irving Blakey. 

All the Manchester B team were B & CH BC members Janet Tolan & Peter Grauer, Steve Mattinson & Joyce White, Roger Hopton & Irene Davies with Peter Foster & John Roberts. The team finished 1st on the day.

Results are here: https://www.bridgewebs.com/cgi-bin/bwoq/bw.cgi?club=adamwiseberg&pid=display_home

Final standings are here: http://www.manchesterbridge.org.uk/NBL/r2022.html

Bramhall & Cheadle Hulme

Bridge Centre

Wednesday October 12th: 7.30pm

PRO-AM

This is an opportunity for improvers/ intermediate players to play with experienced/expert players.

Come on your own and spend a fun evening with a new partner.

Tea/coffee or a glass of wine will be available from 7pm, to be followed by a duplicate.

(nb results will be uploaded to the centre and EBU, with master points but no NGS)

Bramhall & Cheadle Hulme

Bridge Centre

 Wednesday September 28^th: 7.30pm

Improvers’ Seminar:

Strong Opening bids

Paul Beckwith will be giving a short talk on how to bid big hands.

This will be followed by play of 10-12 prepared hands that focus on the topic.

Supervision will be available during the play

Members and visitors all welcome.

£2.50 table money: tea and coffee provided

We look forward to seeing you on the 28^th.

Our New Autumn Schedule.  We are starting in a couple of weeks’ time with special events and competitions on Wednesday evenings – see schedule for the rest of 2022. These will cater for all our members to include Thursday afternoon improvers, intermediates and experts. Starting with a seminar from Paul Beckwith on "Strong Opening Hands" for intermediates/improvers.

Thursday Afternoon is proving popular with improving players: a short duplicate followed by discussion and review.  This is open to members and visitors – all welcome.

Teams The league/cup and other match season is upon us. The club facilities are available most evenings – please contact us for more information if you would like to play your F2F matches at Bramhall. £2.50 for each home team member, £5 per home team visitor - away team are guests (free).

Friday Pairs is growing in popularity (5 tables last Friday) and we are running it as match pointed pairs – rather than teams’ scoring - as numbers increase. We have a host each week, so you may come on your own and be assured of a game, and we look forward to welcoming new players – especially improvers.  It’s always an enjoyable and sociable evening.

New EBU Announcing/Alerting Directives –  - link is ALERT

Membership.  Almost all our members have now renewed, and we look forward to seeing you at Bramhall/on RealBridge during the year.

Thank You - Once again, thanks are due to our committee, volunteers and Thursday afternoon team all of whom contribute their time for the benefit of players and in making the centre a success.

Regards

Alec and Steve

A new document - Conditions of Contest - was agreed at the committee meeting 16th August 2022. The document can be found under the 'Document' Tab to the left or by following this LINK   

EBU's "BEST BEHAVIOUR AT BRIDGE" has also been uploaded to our 'Documents' section and can be found following this LINK

EBU has revised the announcing and alerting rules. They can be found HERE or by looking them up under the 'Documents' tab on the left

Congatulations!

Congratulations to the Cheadle Hulme A team who won the much delayed final of the 2020 NICKO at Coventry against a Young Chelsea team on 1st August.

The team was Michael Byrne, David Barton, Gary Hyett and John Holland with Raymond Semp and the late Michael Newman in earlier rounds.  They won five of the six sets to win by over 40 IMPs and were never behind in the match.  They had previously beaten teams from Chester, Basingstoke and Cheltenham and a strong Cambridge team in the semi-finals.  This was the first win in this competition for David, a second for Michael and Gary and a third for John.

Tom Slater and Alec Smalley played in the Oliver Cowan Summer Congress - July 9th and 10th - in Leeds - their first ever pairs competition! (pre-Covid they only played together in teams' events). They came 5th in the MP Pairs and won the Swiss Pairs  - the field included a number of expert players from out of town. Congratulations! 

Steve Tearle, Ross Worthington, Steve Mattinson, Julia Bannister (C), Rob Harris, Joyce White, Mike Parr

Congratulations to The Sandbaggers, a team of Bramhall & Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre members, who recently won the Higson Cup. The final was held at Altrincham Bridge Club on Sunday 19th June. In the early rounds, the Sandbaggers defeated The Four Dummies and Agamemnon to reach the seven teams' final and triumphed by a mere 3.08 Victory Points. The team is captained by Julia Bannister who partnered Ross Worthington with Steve Mattinson & Rob Harris. Steve Tearle, Mike Parr and Joyce White were in the team for earlier rounds but were unable to play in the final.

Our first session on June 9th was attended by 25 players, both members and visitors, and included a short session of hand review after play.  We have had positive feedback and plan to run this every week with organisation and supervision provided by a group of the centre's experienced players

Supervised Duplicate for Improving Players

 

We are pleased to announce our new Thursday afternoon bridge sessions: Supervised Duplicate for Improving Players.

The afternoon will include a short duplicate (about 2 hours), with duplimated boards, with advice available for bidding and play, from experienced players, followed by a review and discussion of some of the hands.

We have a team of experienced players who are contributing to the sessions and they look forward to running the afternoons, and providing advice and discussion.

We are starting on Thursday June 9th: 2.00-4.30pm. Table money £2.50 to include tea/coffee.

We hope that a number of our members will take advantage of these afternoons: please come with a partner or on your own. The sessions will be open to both members and visitors – if you have friends who might be interested.

Regards

Alec & Steve

Congratulations to Alec Smalley who won both the Swiss Pairs, with Barbara Lewis; and the teams with Tom Slater, Jeff Smith and Rhona Goldenfield

Michael "Houdini"  Byrne

England was knocked out in the quarter finals of Bermuda Bowls. Even so, they produced a lot of great bridge, and the first set of 16 boards is a list they, as David Bird said, should frame. The most spectacular hand was this one:

EBU has just released their report of Club Champions (based on Master Points won) and our club champion was Howard Stubbings with 1344 Master Points in 2021. Congratulations! Full report HERE

Online Bridge - We plan to continuing with online bridge for members, with the club paying UMS to the EBU, and the hosting fees. Visitors are welcome to play, and if they plan to visit again they will be asked to pay a one-off fee of £20 for on-line membership of the club.

RealBridge - Monday evenings at 7.30pm. You do not need to register, just click on the appropriate link in the "Login RealBridge" on the right of our home page.

Results - The results are all on this website together with the ‘leader boards’ to be found under Competitions in the Menu.

TD's - Our TDs are all volunteers: Espen, Victor, Mary, Alec, Paul & Steve

All private information we hold on our members are gathered, stored used and safeguarded in acordance with GDPR rules as outlined in our Privacy Policy Document: Privacy Policy