A Personal View of the Future

Nobody is able to forecast what will happen in the bridge world during the next few months or years.
We would all like to be able to meet and play in our lovely barn again.  My view is that, sadly, there is no chance of this happening this year or for the first few months of next year.  
Even when restrictions are lifted I feel that members will be very cautious about returning to the realities of being in close proximity to many others for several hours at a time, and there is no way in which Club Bridge can be run without this close proximity.  After all, many of our members are in a Vulnerable group and would more than Double the likelihood of Going Down with the virus and being heavily Penalised.

Online bridge has been a wonderful way of enjoying the game during the lockdown and the continuing period of restrictions.  The interest in it and the success of the Club's online games has far exceeded my expectations and we will of course, continue to provide this as long as necessary.  We will also be keeping an eye on developments in online bridge and intend to offer our members the best of what is available.

See Hand of the Week - a new feature below

David

Members or anyone making enquiries about any aspect of the Club's online bridge
are welome to contact any of the four SBBC Company Directors.
The details below show their special interests.

It is unlikely that we will be playing bridge in the barn again before the New Year
We thank all those members who volunteer as standbys, avoiding the need for robots.
We are now seeking standby pairs until the end of the year
Please contact Evelyn Crossley (details above) if you can help.

I am hoping that others will join in and send in hands of interest from SBBC, with comments for what I hope will be a weekly Hand of the Week feature.
Today's hand from Wednesday morning does not have brilliant bidding or play, but was unuual in that there was a different auction and result at every table.

My interest is that it brings into question the best way of dealing with overcalls when partner has opened 1NT.  I have always played that all doubles are for penalty, but am starting to wonder if it might be better to have doubles of natural bids to be for take-out, when playing match-pointed pairs, where it is the frequency of good scores rather than their size which is important.

I was North on this hand.  My partner opened 1NT in fourth position, which I agree is by far the best bid, if slightly off-centre.  When the next hand bid 2D I was stuck for a good bid, having passed with a maximum and good holding in the majors.  Eventually I bid 3D, which shows no stop by agrreement, and must show a maximum point count with cards in the majors.   Partner crossed his fingers and tried 3NT, and West had no difficulty in cashing the first six tricks.  Partner should really bid 4C which hapens to work quite well.

But if we had been playing a double of 2D for take-out, my hand is very suitable and we would play either in 3C, or 3G doubled if the opposition bid again.

David Beever

New classes started in September for all levels of players:
Please contact Chrys Poole 01628 440600 or poolefamily@ntlworld.com 
for further details