The county's AGM is being held at Bramhall on Thursday June 29th at 7pm. All welcome. You can also join this meeting by zoom link  (HERE)

AGM

Tuesday June 20th at 6.30

B&CHBC has changed it's financial year to run April 1st to March 31st. Consequently, there will be an AGM on Tuesday June 20th at 6.30 in the Rhodes room to review the year to March 31st 2023. Chair and treasurer reports will be presented followed by a proposal to make minor amendments to the constitution regarding payment of membership subscriptions.  To be followed by the usual Tuesday night duplicate.

1 Chair's report-here

2 Treasurer's report

3 Accounts for BVC

4 Bridge Centre detailed accounts

5 Membership (for change to constitution)

6 Membership form

Our next Wednesday evening special event is another improvers' seminar on Wednesday March 8th. Paul Beckwith will focus on "Responding to 1NT with a long minor", followed by prepared hands to play and discuss. Members and visitors all welcome. 7.30pm start

We had two successful evenings for Children in Need, raising so far almost £500. It is not too late to send your donations  to

ECATS

or

via B&CHBC

Account: 'Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bri', Sort Code: 01-01-14, Account no: 15236943

After tonights game - if you want to have an expert comment on the boards - click this LINK and follow the instructions

We are running 2 duplicates to raise money for Children in Need. Monday evening November 7th on RealBridge and Tuesday evening 8th November at Bramhall.

Table money will be the usual £2.50 which will be donated to Children in Need.

Additional donations to C.I.N can be made directly to ECATS via THIS LINK

or

BACS: Account: 'Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bri', Sort Code: 01-01-14, Account no: 15236943

or

At the table on Tuesday  evening 8th November

The Centre will be holding it's normal bridge activities on Bank Holiday Monday 19th September. There will be F2F duplicate bridge in the Rhodes Room starting at 1.30pm. The online session on RealBridge will start as usual at 7.30pm.

End of Season

We are now turning over the leaf for the new season. Our “Competitions” will be reset and we have new stakes and new prizes!

Individual (Average Score)

Pairs (Average Score)

Master Points (Total)

Monday Pairs (Average Score)

Tuesday Pairs (Average Score)

Average Master Points

Congratulation to all the winners and good luck to all players in the coming season!

Why Face to Face Bridge is unbeatable - or not?

There will not be any bridge at the Centre on Friday 24th June.

We will be back again next week, Friday July 1st and throughout the summer, and look forward to seeing our regular players and welcoming new Friday players.

GREEN POINTED SWISS PAIRS PLACE

Due to cancelations there is one place (pair) available for the Swiss Pairs on Saturday 5th March - 11am - 6.30pm (approx) - please phone 07768318661 for more details or to reserve it.

What you want to have on the site 

Seminar

Michaels Byrne's seminar on Tuesday October 5th at 10.30am at Bramhall will be on 'Breaking the Rules on Opening Leads'...with Michael's home made refreshments. For details contact Michael on abbot_hugo@hotmail.com

Click Video for tips about playing online

♠ ♥ Center's Mixed Teams♦ ♣

The centre's Mixed Teams event was contested by 10 teams with exciting final rounds involving Steve Mattinson's, Mary Green's & Joy Blakeys teams.  The eventual winners were team Blakey - Joy and Irving Blakey, Irene Davies and Bob Cooke:  congratulations to them. 

Thanks to all those who played, to Ken Johnston the TD and Victor Ridding the Scorer.

Results can be found by clicking the Diamond below.

♦  

Christmas and New Year Bridge  

We will not be running duplicates on December 25^th and January 1^st but will have our usual games on Monday 28^th and Tuesday 29^th.

On January 2^nd and 3^rd MCBA is running the annual, very successful, Manchester Congress on RealBridge: pairs on Saturday, teams on Sunday and Non-Expert events on both days. We hope that many of our members will be playing, if you have not been before, then we’re sure you will enjoy this weekend Congress. Details are on: Manchester Events

Our next Wednesday night 'special' will be an Improvers' seminar on

Wednesday November 1st at Bramhall

Victor Ridding will re-visit his

Introduction to Endplays

followed by a number of prepared hands to play.

Members and visitors all welcome. 7.00 pm tea/coffee for 7.30 start.

Wednesday May 3rd   Point-a-Board Teams' Competition

Our Wednesday Specials are going to kick off again on Wednesday 3^rd May with a Point – a- Board Teams competition (Point a Match if you are American). This is the most basic form of bridge scoring:you just have to beat your opponents score for 1 point, draw for half a point and nothing for a loss. Simple you may think, but judgement of the trick target can be tricky.If you are a pair looking for team-mates, then please let us know.

Start time 7.30pm

Members and visitors all welcome!

No, this is not a political proposition!!! - but....

A discussion led by Alec on TNT – the Law of Total Tricks.

Seminar - Wednesday April 5th

You will have heard about the “LAW” or the mantra “bid to the level of the fit”, but how does this work in a practical sense when playing match point pairs? If you want to find out, and learn some of the techniques (mainly bidding) to use to maximise your knowledge, then come along.

This is aimed at experienced pairs players who we are sure will learn some new strategies, although everyone is welcome and will learn something.

There will be a number of prepared hands to bid/play and discuss.

Come with a partner or on your own. Members and visitors welcome, tea and coffee from 7pm for a 7.30 start.

Some issues to be discussed:

Protective Doubles, and follow up sequences  X – P -  ? a.) single suit b.) 2 suits c.) 3 suits – 2nt as Lebensohl or scramble?
Pre protective X vs transfers 1NT – P – 2H – P – 2S – X
Punishing protects – XX/X of X/2NT/3Bids – forcing passes?
High level protect – X vs 4NT
Good raises/jump fits in competition
Good/bad (bad/good) 2NT in competition
Hope to see you!!

Please note that there will not be a bridge game on Friday February 17th: the club will be closed. We will be back as usual from February 24th. We are continuing with a host player on Fridays so that you can come on your own or with a partner - for a social but competitive evening. 

The centre will be open for bridge as follows:

Wednesday December 14th - Individual competition

Thursday December 15th -Improvers' duplicate

Friday Decmber 16th - open

Monday December 19th  F2F and RB -open

Tuesday December 20th -open

Thursday December 22nd - CLOSED

Friday December 23rd- open

Monday December 26th  F2F - CLOSED

Monday  December 26th  RB - open

Tuesday December 27th - open

Thursday December 29th- CLOSED

Friday December 30th -open

Monday January 2nd  F2F and RB - open..back to normal

Xmas Individual

Wednesday 14th Dec

(7.00pm for 7.30 start at BVC)

We need to know the numbers so please register

Ben Franks Trophy

Sunday December 4th@11am At

"The Manchester Bridge Club"

Al details  HERE

 Friday July 29th  12.15 Rowan Chapel Stockport Crematorium and afterwards at 42 Woodfield Road  Cheadle Hulme SK8 7JS  Please no flowers and do not wear black.

We are very sorry to tell you that Dave Hammonds passed away on Monday July 11th after a courageous fight with his ill health.  He was a keen bridge player, participating in local clubs and in the league and other teams' events. We have seen him at Bramhall nearly every week during this last year, enjoying his company and sense of fun. We will miss him, and send our condolences to his wife and family.

Lance passed away today, May 28th, after a long illness. Lance was a regular player at Manchester Bridge Club from the 1970s and was a long standing member at Cheadle Hulme. More recently, he has been a stalwart at Friday night bridge at Bramhall - playing nearly every week: he will be missed. 

Lance's funeral will take place at Manchester Crematorium, Barlow Moor Road M21 7GZ on Monday 13th June at 4.00pm

Junior Squad Sim Pairs 2022

Tuesday, Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre, 8th February 2022 @ 7:30pm

Fee: £5.00 per player 

For more info visit EBU

MCBA are holding the Gazette Cup, the inter-club teams of 8 competition, on Sunday February 6th. The winners will represent the county in the Garden Cities trophy.

The event will take place on-line on RealBridge: time will be approx 11.00am to 6.00pm. B&CHBC are planning to enter 3 teams. If you would like to be considered for one of our teams please e-mail Alec at chair@cheadlehulmebridgeclub.org

A bridgetastic Christmas and a duplicitous New Year to everyone.

Bridge over the festive period will be just about as usual with only the Friday evening duplicates of 24th and 31st falling foul.

Friday 17th - 7.30pm - Light refreshments and drinks at the Centre

Monday 20th - 1.30pm - Mince Pies & Drinks with the duplicate in the Centre

                      - 7.30pm - RealBridge - BYO drinks

Tuesday 21st - 7.30pm - Mince Pies & Drinks with the duplicate in the Centre

Monday 27th - 1.30pm - Bring your leftover nibbles to the duplicate

                       - 7.30pm - RealBridge

Tuesday 28th - 7.30pm - Bring your leftover nibbles to the duplicate

Monday 3rd January - Schedule as per usual on the centre's website 

Regards Alec, Steve, David, Barbara, Mary, Victor, Paul, Espen and the team

The time has come for an overdue AGM for the merged club. It will take place at BVC on Tuesday 2nd November at 6.30pm prior to the evening's duplicate. Below are the Agenda - reports - and nominations form for the meeting.

Agenda

1 Chair’s Report - AGM Nov 2nd 2021 Chairs Report.pdf

2 Treasurer’s Report - Treasurers Report

3 Election of Officers:  Chairman, Vice Chairman, Treasurer, Secretary, Membership Secretary and Tournament Director. Form for Nominations click HERE . Nominations should be proposed and seconded no later than Tuesday October 26^th.

4 Election of other Committee Members

5 Moving forward - plans for the coming months

6 Any other business

Regards Alec

It is now a year since the bridge clubs’ merger’: Bramhall & Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre was launched on August 4^th 2020 with our first on-line duplicate.  During the last year, we have provided games on BBO and RealBridge and since July 19^th face-to-face at Bramhall.

We have been running a 6 week trial schedule of BBO, RB and F2F since July 19^th and plan to continue this.  On-line bridge is here to stay but we hope that players will return to F2F duplicates when they feel is it right for them. We are charging all players £10 ‘table money’ for all games in the next 9 week period to the end of October: Monday afternoon F2F, Monday evening RB, Tuesday evening F2F, Thursday evening BBO and Friday evening F2F.

Former members from Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme paid no membership subscription for the year September 2020 to August 2021 and new members paid a small on-line subscription to run to August 31^st 2021.  It is now time to ask all players, on-line and face-to-face, for your membership subscription of £24, due September 1^st for the year to August 31^st 2022.

We will be pleased to receive £24 for membership. If you are planning to play in September and October you can pay £34 for the table fees for this period.

We also need to collect member details for Bramhall Village Club (and ourselves as the merged membership database is outdated), of which the bridge centre is a part, and please note that your membership may be Gift Aided. Please click HERE to fill in your details

Please pay £24 by BACs transfer – preferred, or by cheque - £34 if you wish to include unlimited play table money until October 31st

The BACs details are

Business Name: Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre (truncated to ‘Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bri’)

Sort code:    01-01-14

Account no:   15236943

Please reference with:   Your Name

If you wish to pay by cheque, please make it payable to Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre and send to David McNeillie, 3 Bowness Avenue, Cheadle Hume SK8 7HS.

We look forward to your continued support of B&CHBC 

Regards Alec and Steve

The link to the AGM is AGM

Meeting ID: 827 8592 8447
Passcode: 783618

Saturday April 24^th at 1.15pm  MCBA Intermediate Swiss Pairs for players with NGS Jack or below and less than Regional Master. 

Details at

Wednesday April 28th 10.30 am  MCBA charity duplicate in memory of Lesley Johnson: raising money for Motor Neurone Disease Association.

 Details at
 

B&CHBC Mixed Pairs duplicate Competition is on Wednesday 8th at Bramhall.  Members and visitors all welcome. 7pm for 7.30 start. We look forward to you playing in this Wednesday night 'special' - that promises to be both competitive and enjoyable .  If you need a partner please contact Barbara (babsandalec@hotmail.com)

Good Friday April 7th: the club will be CLOSED

Easter Monday April 10th: the club will be OPEN as usual at Bramhall in the afternoon and for RealBridge on-line in the evening.

Workshop on Trick Targets

Wednesday November 30th @at 7.30pm

Final standings

A tough championship for the home countries as none managed to get into the top eight and qualify for the World Chapionships. There will be other opertunities to come and new problems to solve! 

Congratulations to Poland with two titles and to Netherland and France with one title each.

Schedule for September and October

The board had a meeting this week and have decided to continue the current schedule for another 9 weeks. The board will write to all members in the coming days

Face to Face Bridge

The first session of Face to Face bridge, not only in our new club in our new venue, but the first Face to Face bridge session organised by any club in the county was successfully arranged today by Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre. The winners of the session were Steve Mattinson & Howard Stubbings. The full results can be seen HERE

NICKO & NICKO PLATE

Congratulations to the team of Royce Alexander, John Currie, Peter Foster and John Roberts on their 5th round win in the National Inter-Club Knock Out Competition to reach the last eight. A splendid result. We wish them all the best for the quarter finals.

Congratulations also to Ann Thornton, Pauline Lang, Gil Fletcher and Richard Acaster on their 4th round win in the National Inter-Club Knock Out Plate Competition to reach the last eight. They are in the quarter finals and we wish them well!

Congratulations to our member, Joyce White who, with Babs Matthews from Cumbria, won the Jersey Seniors’ Pairs on Saturday 30th April. Results can be seen HERE

What Would You Bid?

Solutions for Octobers problems are now available here: October 2020 Solutions

Don't forget to send your answers to Novembers set of problems: November 2020 Problems

The county inter club Teams of 8 Competition, the Gazette Cup, is being held on Sunday February 5th, Face-to-Face at Bramhall. This is a 2 session qualifying event for the national Garden Cities Trophy. If you would like to be considered for a B&CHBC team then please contact Alec at  babsandalec@hotmail.com   All members are welcome to apply.

28th European Youth Team Championships - Veldhoven, Netherlands • 19 - 26 July 2022

The future stars of our game is in action in the European Youth Team Championships. They play in 5 groups and can be watched on BBO. Results can be found HERE. Michael Byrne is captain for the U21 team! We wish them good luck! 

Congratulations!

The pre covid CHBC team has reached the final of the NICKO winning last night. The team is: David Barton, Michael Byrne, John Holland and Gary Hyett.

 

Together, we can … that’s the message from Children in Need once again this year

Together we can … help raise funds to change young lives. 
 
And last year we all came together, playing online, and raised an incredible £59,045 which given the circumstances was way beyond anything we dared hope for.

And now – maybe some of us will be back playing face to face, others won’t. But we really hope that you will be playing in some fashion and will join us once again to raise funds for this wonderful Charity.

Monday 8th November on RealBridge @ 7:30pm and Tuesday 9th of November Face to Face at the Bridge Centre @ 7:30pm, we will play in support of Children in Need. 

To read up on what they do, follow this link: https://www.bbcchildreninneed.co.uk/about-us/what-we-do/

We ask for a minimum donation of £5 ALL of which will go to  Children in Need.

To make your donation follow the instructions HERE. Please use the reference: B&CHBC.

The events will be both MP'ed and NGS'ed and B&CHBC will pay RealBridge charges and the ECATS entry fees. 

We hope to see many of you at either or both events!

Please see new weekly schedule on the right and arrangements for face to face bridge in the menu to the left.

June Solutions

We have now completed the penultimate round of this ten-month competition, and it is heating up for the last round. In this month - a set that both panelists and competitors found difficult - Victor Ridding came out on top with 35 points, followed by Joyce Jones on 32 and Mary Green on 31.

For the overall title of “Bidder of The Club” it is now getting closer than ever. Peter Foster and Victor Ridding are head-to-head in first place, each with 243 points, and they can’t be overtaken by any other competitor. Peter has a 30 point set that he can improve on and Victor a 33 pointer. The final scores will be very close!

Michael Byrne was the only panelist to achieve a perfect 40, followed by David Barton, Espen Lindqvist and Tom Slater with 34.

I will as usual give my more or less intelligent comments in italics. Click HERE for the solutions.

MCBA are holding a Council meeting on Wednesday 26th April, at 1:30pm, at Manchester Bridge Club and online via zoom (hybrid meeting). All members are welcome.  Further details are on the MCBA website (http://www.manchesterbridge.org.uk/)

The following members were promoted in November:

National Master:  Roger Hopton

Master:  Espen Gisvold

Area Master:  Carol Straffon

Congratulations!

We started our return to face-to-face bridge on July 19^th with a 6 week ‘trial’ schedule.  We are now half-way through this period, and all is going well. We have had more than 50 members at the F2F sessions, including several who had not played bridge for 16 months! Players have been pleased to meet up and see friends. For the Friday session we have been running teams but will return to duplicates when a few more players venture out – this is always a very sociable evening with a glass of wine as well.

We have also continued on-line games with RealBridge on Monday evenings and BBO on Thursday evenings.  RB remains very popular, but we are disappointed with drop off in attendance at BBO – no doubt affected by holidays, golf, visiting family and other activities: if you play on-line on Thursday evening then please support the centre.

Seminars. Michael Byrne has run 3 very successful Intermediate Seminars F2F, in the centre, and he will return in the autumn: Michael is now in Eastbourne for the EBU Summer Congress and will then play in the European Championships.  The centre plans to be running seminars and special events later in the year – to follow up on activities that we started in the run up to the merger - before Covid.

MCBA ran a successful F2F Teams competition at Bramhall on August 1^st: the majority of the players were B&CHBC members and they dominated in the prizes. A most enjoyable, competitive and social event.

On-line success in the NICKO:  Ann Thornton’s team (Pauline Lang, Gil Fletcher and Richard Acaster) have reached the last 8 of the NICKO Plate; joining Pete Foster (John Roberts, John Currie and Royce Alexander) who are in the last 8 of the main NICKO.  Our best wishes are with them for the next round.

What Would you Bid Competition. Huge, huge thanks to Espen for running this every month for 10 months; to the expert panel for their analyses; to all the competitors; and to the winners – Pete Foster followed by Victor Ridding.  This has been very successful and will start again in October – 5 or 6 sets of problems over a year…if you didn’t join in this year then please do so…it’s fun and ‘educational’ for those wishing to improve their bidding.

EBU Summer Meeting – Eastbourne. A few of our members are in Eastbourne for the summer congress and others plan to play in the events on-line, including in some hybrid sessions. All the details may be found on https://www.ebu.co.uk/summer-meeting-hub-2021 

Friday August 20^th: please note there is no F2F bridge in the evening as the BBC are filming a drama at BVC - using all the rooms and facilities.

Regards

Alec and Steve

Congratulations to our club members Rhona Goldenfield, Raymond Semp, Irving & Joy Blakey - Winners of the counties Green Pointed Swiss Teams - the first Face to Face competition arranged by the County since the start of the pandemic 16 months ago! All the results can be found HERE

The competition was held at Bramhall Village Club on August 1st

1) Congratulations

Well done to Steve Mattinson and Pauline Lang who were in the winning (Swiss) team at the on-line Yorkshire Congress on June 13th

2)   News Update

Unfortunately, we have had the news that we can not re-open the Bridge Centre on Monday 21st June. It is not quite clear when we will be allowed to open but 19th July seems most likely now. This is a big disappointment to us as we are all missing social F2F bridge.
We will therefore be continuing to run on-line bridge as per the usual schedule

Mondays – 7.30pm – RealBridge

Tuesdays – 7.30pm – BBO

Fridays – 7.30pm – RealBridge

As there is no Manchester League after June 24th  we will announce a 'Thursday Special'  for early July, probably Teams/Imped based.

Regards Alec and Steve

MCBA AGM

The annual general meeting of the MCBA will be held on Thursday 26th May at 19.00 online on zoom.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89662701674?pwd=VUg5Sm1VZkR3eXFGaWFSK0pCMkFldz09

All welcome. 

<------- Documents for the AGM can be found on the Documents Tab at the left.

There are several vacancies most notably tournament secretary, but also schools liaison and vice chair.  There will also be elections for match secretary and selection committee.

OVER TO YOU!

Thanks for all the subscriptions. We have now managed to update our membership database. If you want to check the information or at any point need to change it or your preferences, this can be done under the “Membership” tab on the menu to the left on our website.

It is your data and we hope we have managed to get all your preferences right. And as we live in different times, we excpect woman to do their duty too! If you need a helping hand regarding how to get access to the Membership Area this Video might be of help: HERE

Espen Gisvold

The next couple of weeks promises to be busy:

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣  Monday July 19th at 1.30pm: launch of face-to-face bridge at B&CHBC at Bramhall Village Club - our long awaited opening following the merger of Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bridge Clubs. Details will be sent this week in an extended e-mail newsletter. ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

Sunday August 1st: MCBA's Swiss Teams is being held face-to-face at Bramhall Village Club.  Details and entry form may be found at GREEN TEAMS  This is limited to 16 tables and is filling up: so please consider supporting this event - if you are a pair looking for team-mates then please let me know.

Thursday July 15th at 7pm on ZOOM: AGM of MCBA.The Zoom link is AGM Please come along to see what your county bridge association does for you and how you might contribute. If you wish to read the reports before the meeting ask me and I will forward them.

Regards

Alec

We hope that everyone is keeping well and that you are now getting out and about and enjoying time with family and friends.

The B&CHBC Committee met again last week to discuss our plans for return to face-to-face bridge.  We believe that real bridge is face-to-face bridge and, also taking on board feedback from members, we plan to run 3 or 4 duplicates each week at Bramhall Village Club together with one on-line duplicate each week.

Start date? We are still hoping for June 21^st but of course will delay if there is change to the road map for complete unlocking. We will write with further details after June 14^th. 

Regards

Alec and Steve

IAN PENDLEBURY

We are shocked and saddened to hear that Ian Pendlebury has died at the age of 72. Ian was a very active bridge player when he was younger, reaching the rank of Grand Master and winning a couple of national competitions. He played for Staffordshire in county events and in the Manchester league.

Ian was a stalwart at Bramhall Village Bridge Club for many years and was a very supportive co-founder, host and tournament director of the Monday afternoon duplicate initiative. During Covid lockdowns, he declined to play bridge on-line and was pleased to return to F2F at Bramhall last July: he played every Tuesday evening, often winning.  Ian was always very interested to discuss the activities of B&CHBC and its plans for the future: we will miss him.

Decembers’ Solution

This month we received only 11 sets of bids from our members.  After a long and deep think we have decided it is time to wind up this competition and say:

THANK YOU!

To all the participants who have taken part and sent in their bids, and to all the panelists -who we thank for their time spent and willingness to share their expertise.

When we, some 18 months ago, started What Would You Bid, we had four objectives:-

We wanted to create an activity in the midst of a pandemic that could help us mould two established bridge clubs together into the new club with a common community.

We wanted to provide our members with an activity that could help ease some of the burden and boredom inflicted upon us by the pandemic

We wanted to offer our members ‘food for thought’ that could help in improving their bidding.

We wanted to have some light hearted fun!

I can only hope that What Would You Bid has managed to achieve some of these objectives!

The winner of the last set of our competition is Barbara Lewis with a score of 53 followed by Gavin Callow on 51 and Joyce Jones on 49. None of the panelists managed a perfect 60, but Victor Ridding came close with a score of 59!

The full solutions can be found HERE

Thank you everyone who has paid their membership subscription (161 of you). We appreciate your support of B&CHBC and look forward to seeing you at Bramhall and on-line throughout the year. You can still register HERE

July Solutions

We have now completed our 10 Month “What Would You Bid” competition. I hope that you as competitors have enjoyed taking part, and as a reader have enjoyed the panelists’ reasoning, and that everyone might have picked up a trick or two!

I would like to give a huge thank you to all the panelists for taking time to answer and share their expertise with us.

Also, special thanks to Alec Smalley and Michael Byrne - without them this would have been a horribly bad effort - they have kept me on the straight and narrow - a feat not achieved by many!

Also, a special thanks to Barbara Lewis - without her sub editing, it would have been hard work for you to get anything sensible out of what I put to paper.

The biggest thanks go to you, the competitors. Most of you have not only sent in answers, but also your reasoning. In the course of the competition, more than 70 members of the club have sent in answers.

This month’s problems, at least for the panelists, offered up few options, and all but one of the problems had a great majority bid in the panel. The competitors had much more imagination and on problem 4 managed to come up with no fewer than 10 different bids.

This month’s competition was won by Victor Ridding with a perfect 40, with a 3-way tie for 2nd place between Dhun Daji, Peter Foster and Mary Green on 39.

The winner of our overall competition is Peter Foster with 252 points from his 7 best results, followed in second place by Victor Ridding on 250. In third place we have Dhun Daji (241) and in fourth Mary Green (238). A small comfort for Victor might be that over the 10 results he managed to gather 348 points against Peter Foster’s 338. Congratulations to all of them.

Amongst the Panelists in July, we had a four-way tie on 40 - Rodney Lighton, Alan Jones, Raymond Semp and Alec Smalley.

The solutions can be found in the menu to the left or by clicking HERE. Enjoy a good summer!

Espen Gisvold

As you will know, we are planning for the return of face-to-face bridge at B&CHBC, as soon as it is legal and safe to do so – hopefully on June 21^st.   We have quite a lot of members who have not played on-line, some keeping in touch to say how much they have missed bridge, and we look forward to seeing all our members again soon. Our committee is meeting next weekend: if you have any comments for them, please let me have them.

Our on-line members have participated and enjoyed success in many local and national competitions from the MCBA and EBU leagues and competitions, Garden Cities, NICKO, events organised by other counties – no travelling involved: both on BBO and RealBridge.

Several of you participated in the MCBA charity duplicates including April 28^th, raising £900 for Motor Neurone Disease Association in memory of Lesley Johnson.

What Would You Bid Competition. This 10-month bidding challenge is nearing completion. Thanks are due to our expert panel for their bids and discussion – we are fortunate to have them as members, our competitors and especially to Espen for his tireless running of the competition.

Not wishing to be EBU members, Tuesday morning Easy Bridge at Bramhall Village Club is no longer part of B&CHBC.  This very successful session for non-experts and improvers is now being run independently by Julia and Steve (J.U.S.T. Bridge), who also have an exciting bridge holiday planned for October in Llangollen. All the details may be found on www.bridgewebs.com/justbridge/

Our activities are made possible thanks to the contributions of our committee, all our TDs – especially Victor who organises all the on-line developments, and webmaster.  But more help will be appreciated when we return to F2F:  for example, for dealing boards, scoring, teaching and supervised play, and other ‘jobs’ in the club.  Please let me know if you would like to be involved in the running of the centre.

Regards

Alec and Steve

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

Congratulations!

The World Team Championships have now concluded and Europe won all competitions! Congratulations to our local Bronze Medalist Catherine Draper as a member of the English Woman team!

The English team in the Open played well, but suffered a defeat in the Quarter finals. 

The winners of the different classes were:

Bermuda Bowl (Open): Switzerland
Venice Cup (Woman): Sweden
d'Orsi Trophy (Senior): Poland
Wuhan Cup (Mixed Teams): France
 

See  (WBF ) for all the results and Bulletins 

I hope you have all enjoyed the holiday season and have kept safe and well.

You will have been receiving e-mails about the MCBA Congress next weekend, January 8th and 9th : 2 session pairs and teams - also one session non-expert events on Saturday and Sunday, being run by Victor and myself. If you have not entered already then please do so.

Bridge at Bramhall. We are continuing with our current schedule:  RealBridge on Monday evening and face to face on Monday afternoon, and Tuesday and Friday evenings. Please note that we will have a host player ONLY on Fridays - feel free to come on your own. Otherwise if you need a partner, for F2F or on-line, then please use Partner Finder -via the website. 

The committee have decided that all sessions now will be 'pay as you play'. ie.£2.50 'table money.  For RealBridge we ask you to pay £2.50 for each duplictae that you play in: appropriate records wil be kept and we will be asking you to pay every 2-3 months - in arrears.

We  look forward to seeing you F2F and on-line

Regards

Alec

B&CHBC has now been running on-line bridge since August 2020 for the benefit of our members to include some new on-line members who we have been pleased to welcome to the centre.

We have not been charging players but have been paying UMS to the EBU each time we play and since November fees to RealBridge. Now, following recent experience on BBO, we are changing to a vEBU BBO arrangement for Tuesdays whereby the centre – not the players - will be paying $BBO each time we play: this is managed via the EBU.

So, the time has come after 5 months of free bridge that we will begin charging players.  We will be contacting all of you who play in our on-line duplicates to ask you for £10 which will cover all your games throughout February, March and April (39 duplicates).

Visitors are always welcome .and after one visit they will be invited to join the centre for on-line membership - £10 to end of August 2021 plus £10 for all games Feb-April. 

Our teams in the NICKO continue to do well.  The teams of Neil Thomas and Pete Foster are through to the 4th round of the main competition and the teams of  Ken Hall, Ann Thornton and Espen Gisvold are progressing well in the Plate. Well done to all of them, as we follow their progress

Congratulations to our members who had a promotion in August

Premier National Master:  Peter Grauer

National Master: Stephen Ward

7 Star Regional Master: Sylvia Massey

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 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.

Host: Bramhall & Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre

Venue: Bramhall Village Club – 2 Melbourne Road (Lumb Lane) – SK7 1LR

When: Every Thursday at 2.00pm from June 9^th 2022

Contact: Barbara Lewis – babsandalec@hotmail.com – 07711926462

The MCBA Congress was held January 8th and 9th, on-line. The Pairs and Teams competitions attracted local, national and international players with a number of B&CHBC members doing well in the Pairs, notably Royce Alexander and Raymond Semp who were third, and Janet Tolan - who with Ros Hunt won the Ladies' Pairs. Graham Fletcher and Heather Saunders were leading the non-experts until the last board and finished a creditable 2nd.  An enjoyable weekend for all our members who participated.

To be able to play in our BBO on-line club events you have to register once here. 

There is no need to register here for our Monday Evening RealBridge Events

Visitors are welcome both nights, but after 2 visits will be expected to pay a £20 on-line membership fee.

Julia Bannister and Steve Mattinson will be co-hosting this holiday

A BRIDGE BREAK IN THE BEAUTIFUL 
WELSH TOWN OF LLANGOLLEN

AFTER THE RESOUNDING SUCCESS OF OUR PREVIOUS BRIDGE BREAK IN GRANGE-OVER-SANDS, WE ARE DELIGHTED TO OFFER OUR GREAT VALUE, THREE NIGHTS BRIDGE HOLIDAY IN THE PICTURESQUE WELSH TOWN OF LLANGOLLEN

The venue is The Wild Pheasant Hotel – set in spectacularly beautiful countryside near to the River Dee, this traditional hotel has recently undergone a major refurbishment. 

It has a modern wing with a state-of-the-art spa.

Let’s blow away the lockdown blues and have some fun together!

The full program and prises can be found HERE 

March Solutions

This month’s problems were honestly stolen from the book “Bid Against The Masters - The Best of Bidding Forum” by Terence Reese and Keith McNeil.

They seemed to create huge problems for many of the competitors, and it is clear that bidding theory has moved on in the 25-45 years since the problems were first set.

None of our competitors managed a perfect 40. Three managed to score 36 points - Geoff Ashcroft, Mary Green and Steven Mattinson.

Peter Foster is still in pole position with 212, followed by Victor Ridding on 207 and Dhun Daji on 191.

Of the Panelists, only Espen Lindqvist achieved the perfect 40, followed by Rodney Lighton and Alec Smalley with 39. 

As usual, I will give my more or less intelligent comments on the panelists’ explanations in italics.

In addition to my comments, some of the comments from the original editor and commentator might be added in to provide some historic spice.

If you have a hand that you think merits the experts’ judgment and thoughts, please drop me a line on Espen.

To see the solutions follow this link: March 2021

Espen Gisvold

Competition Editor

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

Frank Wetton passed away on March 9th. He was a regular player at Cheadle Hulme BC, played only a couple of times on-line during Covid and was looking forward to returning to F2F bridge. Condolences to Brenda, and Frank's family

On behalf of the committee at the B&CHBC I would like to thank all our members for your support during the year. We were excited about opening up our new venue at Bramhall Village Club in the summer and have held 3 weekly face-to-face duplicates since July 19th and have welcomed more than half of our 180 members to these sessions. We have kept on-line bridge each week: RealBridge continues to attract a steady 8-10 tables on Mondays, but we discontinued BBO when the numbers dwindled.

We plan to keep our present schedule, including F2F on Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th December - into the New Year, if the government permits it. Face to Face will continue to run within the allowed practices and guidelines.  However, if the club venue at Bramhall is shut down in the New Year by government regulation then we will plan to put on at least one further on-line duplicate each week or a series of specials.

With best wishes for a Happy Christmas and good health into the New Year and throughout 2022.

Regards Alec ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 

28th European Youth Team Championships - Veldhoven, Netherlands • 19 - 26 July 2022

Englands U21 team with Michael Byrne as non playing captain qualified for the Worls Championship - We wish the the best of luck!

October’s Solution - Decembers Problems

Mama Mia, here we go again. As ABBA has re-emerged, I thought this could be a good way to kick off this season of What Would You Bid. You must know about the music scene in Scandinavia to realise how difficult it is for me to put ABBA’s name to paper! As a Hoola Bandoola Band fan, this is as hard as it is for a Man U fan to pour praise on Man C or vice versa!

This season, we post 6 problems every second month and we have a prize for the competitor achieving the highest score for each set.

We have lost two panelists, and Peter Foster who won last season’s competition and was invited to sit on the panel but declined, whilst Victor Ridding - the runner up - has taken his just seat on the Panel.

We have had solutions from all but two of our panelists. I’m sure we will all learn from their wisdom.

I define a good bidding problem as one that divides the panel into at least 3 groups of reasoning. That will provide us with a lot of food for thought. Only one problem came short this time around, as expected: opening bids will not often split more than two ways, but it was still a problem from which we can learn from the panelists’ reasoning.

No competitor, and only one panelist (Alan Mould), managed the perfect score of 60. This month’s winner, and the first winner of the equivalent of £10 worth of bridge, is Neil Thomas with 56 points, followed by Mel Pelham on 53 and Dhun Daji on 50. As the use of the scale from 10 to 0 is harsher than previously these are great scores.

The full answers can be seen HERE

To send your answers go HERE

Congratulations to Michael Byrne who, with Sarah Bell, has qualified   - after 3 weekends and 144 boards - to play for England in the European Mixed Team Championships.

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

Apple users only on RealBridge - There have been some recent audio problems with Apple products due to changes made by Apple in iOS 15. Below are the patches to fix the problem and a help line to RealBridge if you have problems. 

Players who have iPads, and who may have upgraded to iOS 15,  please follow the instructions here:

     https://realbridge.online/media-support-ios-15.html

Note: If they are still on iOS 14 or earlier, they do not need to do anything. We suggest that they should not upgrade to iOS 15 now – it is sensible to wait for a few weeks to see if there are any other issues.

Players who have Macs, and who may have upgraded to macOS Monterey,  to follow the instructions here:

     https://realbridge.online/media-support-macos-monterey.html
Note: If they are not on macOS Monterey, they do not need to do anything. We suggest that they should not upgrade to Monterey now – it is sensible to wait for a few weeks to see if there are any other issues.

For these issues, if you have any difficulties or are unsure about the procedure, please contact support@realbridge.onlinefor assistance. We are here to help, so please do get in touch.

Contacting RealBridge

If you have a problem during a session, please call us on the number below. We are happy to take your call, and we want people to contact us for help. Normal hours are 7am to 11pm UK, but for emergencies you can call outside these times.

For less urgent questions, please email us.

Our email address is: support@realbridge.online

Main number for contacting RealBridge (including immediate support issues):
+44 (0) 794 232 2209

Alternative number: +44 (0) 747 555 7651

Regards Alec

The B&CHBC team that won the county's Gazette Trophy in February, won the Northern heat of the EBU's inter-club teams of eight competition on 8th May. Congratulations to all the team: they now play in the Garden Cities National final in June. Detailed results are on the EBU website: HERE

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

We have 2 more Wednesday night 'specials' coming up before Easter

Congratulations to our members who gained a promotion in October

4 Star Master: Keith Boulton

Local Master: David Cash & David Grimshaw

Sept 28^th           Improvers’ Seminar – Paul Beckwith - "Bidding Big Hands"

Oct 12^th           Pro-Am: for Improvers/Intermediates to play with Experienced/Expert players

Oct 26th          Play with an Expert

Nov 9th           Improvers’ Seminar – Victor Ridding

Nov 23rd         Teams of 4 Competition

Dec 7^th              Intermediate /Advanced Seminar – Alec Smalley

Dec 14^th         Individual Competition – Xmas Party

Full details of each event nearer the time

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.

AGM

Minutes of the AGM can be found HERE

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

News From The Committee

The B&CHBC committee met this week to discuss our plans for moving forward. We are continuing with our 3 face-to-face duplicates and RealBridge on Mondays, but have discontinued BBO due to lack of participation.  After the AGM, we will also be focusing on special events and teaching/supervised play.  New blood on the committee and for help in running the centre is always welcome - please contact Alec or Steve if you would like to be involved

We are moving to 'pay as you go'.  With effect from Monday November 1st, table money of £2.50 will be collected from players in the club - please try to have the exact money.

We plan to set up a micro-payment system for RealBridge to be operational in the New Year.

If you presently play on Realbridge we are charging  £10 for all your games during November and December. If you want to play once in this period and are a member it will be overlooked.

Please pay £10 for Realbridge  by BACs transfer – preferred, or by cheque.

The BACs details are

Business Name. Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre (truncated to ‘Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bri’)

Sort code    01-01-14  Account no   15236943

Please reference with   Your Name

If you wish to pay by cheque, please make it payable to Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre and send to David McNeillie, 3 Bowness Avenue, Cheadle Hume SK8 7HS.

Regards

Alec

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 been busy in recent months with both F2F bridge and on-line, and members playing in county, national and international events.  

Members are doing well in the MCBA leagues and the NICKO and were well represented in the recent Green Pointed Pairs. There are still places available in the Ben Franks that is being held at Bramhall on April 10^th and promises to be an excellent day’s bridge.

We are presently watching with great interest and excitement the World Bridge Championships in Italy with club and Manchester based players in the England teams.  Congratulations to Michael Byrne on reaching the quarter finals  - but commiserations on narrowly losing the 96 board match against one of the pre-tournament favourites.  We are now supporting the English Ladies and Norway Open teams in the semi-finals.

Easter Opening

There will be no bridge on Good Friday April 15^th but we will be running duplicates as usual on Easter Monday April 18th – F2F at Bramhall in the afternoon and RealBridge on Monday evening, and F2F at Bramhall on Tuesday April 19^th.

Moving Forward

The centre’s committee met on March 29^th to review recent months and to plan for the future.

We are continuing with 3 F2F duplicates in the club and Monday evening RealBridge. Table money for all sessions is £2.50 for members: for RealBridge we will collect in June for the weeks in April, May and June.

We are planning some new activities to take place at Bramhall, primarily on Thursdays - afternoon and evening. 

Before Covid, we ran some special events on Thursday evening such as teams and club competitions and plan to re-start these events after the league season has ended. We will also start a regular F2F session of supervised play that will include an introductory talk and/or review of hands after play, this is aimed at improvers and will be on Thursday afternoon.

Further, we are looking to introduce some teaching for beginners as soon as it can be arranged.

We are pleased to see so many of you who have returned to F2F bridge and hope that more of you will venture into the centre during the spring and summer.

Thanks as always to our hard-working committee and members who contribute to the successful running of the Centre.

Regards

Alec and Steve

F2F and On-Line    Those members who have returned to face-to-face bridge have enjoyed seeing friends for bridge, chat and coffee.…we look forward to welcoming others when you feel comfortable to do so.  Our numbers for RealBridge on Monday are continuing to be good, but not so many for BBO - if you haven’t played on Thursday BBO then please consider doing so. 

Membership   Nearly 150 of you have paid membership subscriptions, due September 1st for the year to August 2022 and filled in their membership form. A few more are still to do so. We have lost a few long- time members and will miss them, but already have attracted some new players to the centre.

Manchester League  This will be starting soon, running as ‘normal’ with one set of matches during October to April- with the default platform being on-line BBO. Matches may be played F2F if both teams agree. Quite a number of our members are entered - not too late yet to enter – if you are a pair or a team then contact Adam Wseberg at  league@manchester.org.uk

NICKO   The National Inter-Club Knock Out Competition is due to start again soon for 2021-2022. The first 2 rounds may be played on-line, but it is planned for later rounds to be face-to-face. If you wish to enter a team then please contact Steve at smattinson@btinternet.com

Diary Dates

Bramhall Village Club AGM will be held in the Rhodes Room on Thursday September 30^th pm: all welcome.   

MCBA Intermediate Pairs is scheduled to be held in the Rhodes Room on Sunday 7^th November; further details to follow.

Children in Need Simultaneous Pairs. Again, we will be holding 2 sessions: Monday 8^th November on RealBridge and Tuesday 9^th November F2F. Last year we raised nearly £2,000 – can we match this? The centre will pay the entry fees so 100% of your donations will go to C.I.N.

B&CHBC Annual General Meeting    Our first AGM will be held on Tuesday November 2nd in the Rhodes Room at 6.30pm – prior to the duplicate. An agenda will be sent in due course: discussion topics welcome – please let us know.

What Would You Bid Competition 2021-2022   We are planning to start this in October with 5 bidding challenges over 10 months- with a prize for each challenge.

Marie and Ron Appleby   The Applebys joined us for RealBridge during the last year: they welcomed the opportunity and enjoyed meeting members of the centre and send their best wishes to all. 

Regards 

Alec and Steve

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

Congrats to the teams of Michael Byrne & Neil Thomas which are through to the 4th round of the 2021-2022 NICKO competition

The next B&CHBC Wednesday night special event is our Pivot Teams

Wednesday February 22nd

7pm tea and coffee for 7.30 start

This is a teams' of 4 competition: each player will partner 2 or possibly all 3 of your team-mates (depending on the number of teams) during the evening.  We look forward to a social but competitive event, with some new partnerships emerging. 

Members and visitors all welcome.

National Master: Karen Jones

Club Master: Jon & Sally Middleton

Local Master:  Gavin Callow

Congratulaions!