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. and playing between 24 and 28 boards.

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

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.

Chepstow Bridge Club marked the Easter season with a great array of treats provided by Caroline (with many thanks from all!), and eggs to the winning pair for that evening (by a healthy margin), Greg and Richard.

Greg and Richard, alongside the Cardiff pair Simon and Debbie Richards, played for East Wales on Saturday 5 April against Somerset in the Western League, B division. Their comprehensive victory in the last round of the 2024/25 season, a 19-1 win, ensured that East Wales won this league by a considerable margin.

League 11 - Summer 2025

The Summer League is underway. Please let Stewart know dates/times of forthcoming matches, which will be added below. 

League 10 - Winter 2024/25

After a hard-fought 'swingy' final match in the Winter League between Team 1 and Team 3, the final results are shown below.

Congratulations to Sheila, Ray, Lee and Jon on winning the league by a convincing margin.  

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.

Sheila and Ray win the Claret Cup

Congratulations to Sheila Montgomery and Ray Mardon on winning the Claret Cup compeition, held on Monday 25th November 2024. 

12 pairs enjoyed playing in the ECats Children in Need Simultaneous Pairs on Monday.

The results from the evening are available on the ECats web site:   here.

And commentary on each of he boards is available:   here.

We were pleased to raise £200 to pass on to ECats for the Children in Need charity.

Thank you to the ECats team for organising the event.

Caroline and Richard win the mixed pairs

Congratulations to Caroline Gawler and Richard Stevenson, winners of the Mixed Pairs, held on Monday 7 October. Scored using cross-imps, this pair picked up their most significant scores by bidding a thin vulnerable game when holding the minority of the points, and doubling one partscore. While not a regular playing partnership, Caroline and Richard have honed their bidding – playing 2-over-1 – with the application Cuebids (https://cuebids.com/). Not that far behind were John Mayo and Hugh Green.

Congratulations to Graham and Richard, and their team members (Graham Eele, Pete Taylor, Dave Smith and partner and Richard Stevenson, Greg Howell, Mike Wyatt and Steve Satterthwaite) for being joint winners of the CABC 2024 Summer League.

On 11 June, Chepstow Bridge Club had the pleasure of hosting Monmouth Bridge Club. During the evening, 16 representatives from both clubs participated in four teams matches over 24 boards, with a break half way through to sample the results of Chepstow’s master baker, Caroline. The players from Chepstow benefitted from more experience in the intricacies of team scoring, gained through the running of intra-club teams’ competitions over the last few years. Consequently, despite some excellent card play from the visitors, Chepstow emerged victorious, although all matches were close. Let’s hoped that this match is the first of many between Chepstow and other local bridge clubs.   The boards from the match are available on the Results page. 

On Monday 24 June, Ray Mardon and Shelia Montgomery defended their cross-IMPs crown, winning this 28-board competition with a very healthy 46.2 IMPs. In this form of scoring, which favours replicating the approach taken in team matches, this winning pair put in a very solid performance, with a win that’s not attributed to simply substantial success on a handful of boards. They bid no slam (no slams were bid and made that night), but were involved in four doubled contracts that produced noteworthy swings and netted them a total of 15.1 IMPs.

Congratulations all.