Welcome to Bracknell Forest Bridge Club!

We are a medium sized club located at Brownlow Hall in Newell Green, Bracknell with a membership of c50 people and 8-11 tables at each session. We organise a variety of duplicate bridge events and also participate in organised Sim pair events - our aim is to provide a different style of event each month! We run a number of member only club events and have a number of teams who compete in the Bracknell League, the Pivot Cup and the Greens Cup. Our club night is Monday and we typically play 24 hands at each session. We are EBU affiliated and award master points at the majority of events.

We are a super friendly bunch! We have playing scorers and directors at each event who manage to maintain the right balance between a well managed evening and a relaxed atmosphere. Visitors and new members most welcome. Please see the information panel for further details or contact secretary@bfbridge.org.uk

Monday 21st October will be a teams-of-four evening.  This will be the annual competition for the Francis Cup.  Pairs wishing to enter are asked to book in on the table at this link, which can also been found on the menu bar on the Club web site.  Teams will be formed by putting the pair with the highest handicap together with the pair with the lowest handicap, and so on, in order to try and form teams that have a similar overall handicap rating.  As it is a teams evening, we will need an even number of pairs taking part.  Bookings will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.  In the event of there being an odd number of pairs, the last pair to register will be asked to withdraw.

Current holders of the Francis Cup are James Graham, Keith Greig, Simon Kearon and Dave Lee. 

Please note that, as Brownlow Hall is not available on Monday 28^th October, we will be playing in St Martin's Church Hall, Church Road, Chavey Down (Ascot Bridge Club's normal venue) instead.  Please aim to arrive by 7:20 pm as usual for a 7:30 pm start.  We will be back at Brownlow as normal on Monday 4^th November. 

Congratulations to Dave Lee and Simon Kearon  who came 10^th overall out of the 175 pairs (in 9 clubs) who took part in the Monday session of the Berks and Bucks Simultaneous Pairs on Monday 17^th September.  The full results can be viewed on the EBU Sim Pairs web page (www.ebu.co.uk/sim-pairs).

In 2017, the World Bridge Federation completed its ten yearly review of the Laws of Duplicate Bridge and the EBU has issued an updated book of Laws applicable to the game in England. The trend with the new laws is to try and reduce the number of occasions where boards are cancelled and artificial adjusted scores are awarded.  Whilst most of the laws relating to the common situations we are likely to encounter in the Club remain principally the same as in the 2007 Laws, there are some subtle changes of wording and members are asked to be patient with Directors if they are called to give a ruling whilst they find their way around the new laws. The EBU has produced a poster (link here) that summarises two key changes that all players should know about:  the procedure governing a claim; and the use of comparable calls to replace insufficient bids and calls out of rotation. 

• The procedure governing a claim has effectively been changed to follow practice at the table where, after a claim has been made, the non-claiming side has said ‘play on’.  The old laws actually required play to stop and the TD to be called in the event of a disputed claim – generally honoured more in the breach than the observance.  The new laws allow play to continue, provided all agree.  However, if the TD is called and declarer’s stated line does not adequately account for all the tricks he is claiming (perhaps because he hasn’t drawn all the opponents' trumps and has not stated that he is drawing trumps when he claims), the TD can rule that the declarer takes a line of play that is less advantageous to him.  If the defence insist on ‘playing on’ and declarer wakes up to the fact that there is an outstanding trump and draws it, the defence cannot then claim that they might have made a trump trick and then call the TD.  The advice remains to call the Director if you are not happy with a Claim that has been made.
• Comparable Calls will allow the bidding to continue in circumstances where, after an insufficient bid or a call out of rotation, offender’s partner would have been silenced for the rest of the auction. The poster at the above link covers this in more detail.