The Championship Pairs final was held on Wednesday 19 March and the winners were Simon Anderson and Alan Sharples who will now have their names added to the championship board in the club. Runners up were Bob Pitts and Peter Kaufmann (who were just 3 match points behind) with Alastair Crawford and Frank White in 3rd place (another 3 match points lower). Congratulations to Simon and Alan - they are in the centre of the photo below holding the Shield. The runners up and 3rd place are to the left and right.

President's Day took place last Sunday (16 March) and was a charity event in aid of the local charity Chester Aid to the Homeless (CATH). We arrived to be presented with two colourful bridge quizzes (identifying UK bridges and bridge themed dingbats) and a raffle, and followed that with 24 hands of bridge and a meal. We raised £475 for CATH which is a tremendous result. Winners N/S were Philip Waring & Mark Weeks and E/W were Colin Bate & Barbara Davies - they can be seen in the 1st 2 photos below being presented their prizes by the Club President. The next 2 photos are the runners up each way. The last photo shows the club room with the contest underway and, in the foreground, the food collection box for CATH. The collection box, which remains in the club until Monday 24 March, has been filled several times over - many thanks for contributions.

Hi everyone, monthly prizes for February go to:

• Monday              Jane Campion
• Wednesday        Alan Wilks
• Friday                 Sheila Banham and Bob Mitchell

          Well done all of you.

The Fearn Cup Ladder ran for the 5 months October to February and ended with last Friday's afternoon pairs. And so now, with some "fanfare", we can announce the winners and master point awards. The top position was won by Jerry Hopkins with Haydn Roberts coming 2nd - congratulations to them both. The top eight places gain master points and are shown in the table below:

The full ladder can be seen by clicking here. The ladder determines who plays in the Fearn Cup Final on Sunday April 6th. We will soon be contacting qualifiers by email to confirm their place.

It is good to see that more than 50 Deva members have qualified for the National Pairs Regional Heats on Sunday 23 March. Qualification depended on playing in at least one of our regular sessions between 2nd and 15th February and scoring more than 55%. EBU have emailed those of us who achieved that with details on the regional heats (which are online). We hope a good number of qualifiers decide to play in the heats (it should be a good experience) and that some will make it to the final which is the weekednd 12&13 April (also online). Good luck to those who try!

The final of the Championship Teams competition was held on Wednesday and saw 4 teams battle it out for our 1st major competition of the year. There was a carry forward score from the qualification stage but in the event the winners on the night scored sufficiently well that they were champions with or without the carry forward. Congratulations to the winners (for the 2nd year in a row) Bob Pitts, Peter Broster, Stuart Matthews and Alan Stephenson (and to Peter Kaufmann who played for the team in the qualification stage). Runners up (again for the 2nd year in a row) were Keith Shuttleworth, Seb Jones, Paul Roberts, Julian Merrill (who played in the final) with Joan Marray and Peter Hall playing for the team in the qualification stage. Here is a photo of the champions and runners-up.

The carry forward calculation and application can be seen here. 

The Championship Pairs Ladder ran for the 5 months September to January and ended with last Friday's afternoon pairs. And so now, with some "fanfare", we can announce the winners and master point awards. The overall winners were Jerry Hopkins & Philip Waring - congratulations to them. The top four places gain master points and are shown in the table below:

The full ladder can be seen by clicking here. The ladder determines who plays in the Championship Pairs semi-finals on Wednesday March 5th. We will soon be contacting qualifiers by email to confirm their place.