We are pleased to see that after Richard's 2025/26 Introduction to Bridge Course (and associated training sessions), that the attendees are now playing duplicate bridge on a Monday evening.  Despite quite a number of regular players being away on holday we had 7 tables on 17th August - the highest level of attendance for a number of years. We hope that this will become the new norm. We have an evening of free bridge on 7th September, perhaps an 8-table movement in sight?

CABC meets at The Chepstow Club, 10 Moor St, Chepstow, NP16 5DD

We are a friendly, enthusiastic club, offering a warm welcome to new members of any standard.

We meet every Monday, starting promptly at 6:45 p.m.

Further to the discussion at the March 2026 AGM, we will be aiming to play 24 boards on our club nights.

There is some free on-site parking available, but drivers MUST register their cars at reception.

Please make a note of the following dates:

7th September - Free Bridge Evening 

14^th Sept - Cross Imps Competition

5^th October - Claret Cup (Match Points)

Sunday 11^th October - CABC 50th Anniversary Celebration - see above

9^th November - Simultaneous Pairs:  Children in Need 

30th November -  Free Bridge Evening 

14^th December - Christmas Party

Click on the Lesson to see Richard's notes:

Lesson 1 - Unassuming Cue Bid  - Accurate and obstructive bidding: The unassuming cue bid and trump raises

Lesson 2 - DONT_Multi-Landy - Two popular tools for bidding over opponents 1NT: DONT and multi-Landy

Lesson 3 - Cue Bidding - Getting to good slams with minimal HCPs

Lesson 4 - Exclusion Blackwood and Poor Mans Keycard - Improving your slam bidding with poor man’s keycard and exclusion Blackwood

If you are hoping to play on a particular evening, but lacking a partner, the easiest way to try and secure a game is to send a message to the club’s WhatsApp group.

If you are not on this group, but wish to join, send a request to Stewart Anderton  (s.anderton@btinternet.com)

If for any reason you prefer to not take this approach, please contact Richard Stevenson (rs240uk@yahoo.co.uk), and he will try and find you a partner.

League 13 - Summer 2026

The Summer 2026 League is now underway.  Please let Stewart know when match dates/times have been set so that they can be added to the matrix below. 

The results from this SIMS event, in aid of Kidney Research UK and the British Heart Foundation, are available here:   The tabs at the top of the page allow you to access CABC results, individual standings, etc.  Thank you all for taking part and thank you Anna and Mark Newton of ECats for organising the event. 

Congratulations to all of the above - very enjoyable competitions.

A tool for self-imrovement

Getting better at bridge takes time and effort – there are no shortcuts. In years gone by, many players would read books to improve. That's still an option, but thanks to the Internet, there is also the opportunity to play many hands and review the line you have taken, for better or worse. If you play club-bridge once a week, you might have just six hands as declarer, with no access to card-by-card replays. Supplement this with some on-line play, and it’s easy to declare and review 50 or more boards per week.

One downside of growing up in the UK is that you begin by learning Acol, while most of the rest of the world plays a form of 5 card majors, which dominate on-line bridge. However, now it’s possible to practice by yourself for free playing Acol (or 2-over-1, Precision, etc.). To do so, join IntoBridge (https://IntoBridge.com/).

As well as playing plenty of boards against random opposition on IntoBridge, each day you’ll have the opportunity to play 5 boards against an expert. Often these international players release videos, recording their thoughts while they are playing. Thanks to this, afterwards, you can learn where you – and possibly they – went wrong. You can find out more about the daily challenge here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVkkq2hZQHk

The unassuming cue bid

When partner opens the bidding and you have strong trump support, you want to keep the opposition out of the bidding and immediately jump to game. So, what should you do when you have opening points and trump support? Maybe you will also jump to game? But that can put partner in a quandary. Bidding is a communication between you and your partner, describing your hand so partner knows whether to consider a slam, a pass, or a double. 

Distinguishing between simply trump support and a strong raise is possible by adding to your armoury the unassuming cue bid, which is a bid of opponent’s suit. Offering an explanation of when to use the unassuming cue bid is professional bridge teacher Rob Barrington, playing against the robots in the Wednesday Morning Tournament. Head to board 4, starting at 18:50, to enjoy his insights.  See:  The Unassuming Cue Bid. 

What to open?

Hands with a 6-5 distribution are incredibly powerful, hence the phrase ‘6-5, come alive’. So, if you have enough points, you’ll open. But what do you do if you have a 6 card minor and a 5 card major. Do you bid the major first, given that you need less high-card points to make major game than a minor game? Or do you fear if you open a major, you’ll never described your shape to partner? Offering clear advice on what to do is recently crowned World Grand Master Gavin Wolpert, playing in The Wednesday Morning Tournament. The hand in question is board 3, starting at 16:46. See:  What to Open?

Aces and spaces?

Bridge has a number of well-known phrases. You may be familiar with ‘six-five, come alive’, ‘the five level is for the opponents’, and ‘aces and spaces’. But what are your thoughts on the latter?

According to leading bridge theorists Aces are undervalued by the Milton point count (Ace =4 points, King=3 points, etc.) - a value of 4.5 is a better representation of an ace's true value. But what about all those spaces? If you want the view of an Australian bridge pro, take a look at board 3 from his efforts in the BBO weekly free tournament (his play on board 3 starts just over 9 minutes in to this 28 minute video and the Aces and Spaces comments follow after he has played the board.  See: Aces and Spaces.

Congratulations all.