Congratulations to Graham Davison and Gabriel Hearst, who won our first ever online duplicate pairs evening, in fine fashion.  Thanks too to all those who showed kindness and due defference to our President and Treasurer on the evening.

Thanks also to Tony Philpott for advice and clear instructions on how to run the evening, to Douglas Wright and Manda for being reserve pair and then participating to ensure we had an even number of pairs, and to Jenny for posting the results. (These are available in all the usual detail on this web page and also on https://www.bridgewebs.com/bridgeclublive/)

We had 6 full tables of experienced BCL players, started play promptly at 7:30, playing 18 boards and finishing at circa 9:45pm, so pretty much the same pace of play as a normal face-to-face club evening.   Thanks to all participants for making the evening a success.   Feedback so far has been positive;  any further feedback or suggestions would be most welcome.

Looking ahead, we have another evening on Wednesday 23rd Sept  limited to experienced BCL players, so we can really get the feel of how to run the evening most smoothly.   It looks as if we will have 7 tables for this. Gabriel and Mike will be jointly hosting thes second evening.

September 30th onwards, we would like to encourage all FBC members, whether BCL experienced or not, to consider joining us.   Guests will also be most welcome.  There are just two provisos.   First, new players really must have experience of playing on BCL before they join us.   Second, new players should be partnered by an experienced player for their first evening. Playing on a BCL club evening is very simple, as all movements are automated, but the way it works is not always intuitive and it is all too easy for new players to get lost.  To find an experienced partner for your first evening, look at the "club results" for Sept 16th and see if there is anyone you have played with in the past and contact them;  failing that contact Gabriel (hearstg@gmail.com) or Mike (Mike@lizandmike.co.uk) and we will find a partner for your first evening.me and we will find a partner for your first evening.

All feedback from many clubs is that slow play and prolonged evenings really puts people off.   We have made an excellent start and avoided this.  Lets keep this up and have regular, and enjoyable Farnham Bridge club Wednesday evenings, with growing participation.

For more information click on A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DUPLICATE EVENING.pdf.  For how to use BCL Duplicate Bridge click on  BCL CLUB DUPLICATE STEPS.

Congratulations to the team of Gabriel Hearst, Graham Davison, Margaret Blewett & John Fairhurst, who have won the first ever Farnham Bridge club online teams  league.

FBC SUMMER LEAGUE 2020 FINAL RESULTS.pdf  We are aware that there have been some difficulties including slow play, causing some matches to take much longer than they should have done.  We will look to
address the underlying issues before running another team competition later in the year.

Congratulations to the team of Varda Derwig, Tim Rees, Jack Goody, Lorne Anderson and Simon Foale, who have again won the overall Sylvia Rose competion.

Congratulations too to the team of Peter Langford, Tony Haley, Andy Mathew, Charlie Palmer and David Stallan, winners of the Plate competition.

It seems an age ago that, in mid-March, Farnham Bridge club and all other UK bridge organisations were forced to suspend all face-to-face bridge.  There was just one round to go in the Sylvia Rose at that time.   Peter Langford and team were far enough ahead in the Plate competition to be pronounced winners with no further need to play plate matches.

In the main trophy competition, Varda Derwig and team were just one VP ahead of Nick Browne & team, making it essential that their final round matches were played to get a definitive winner.  Farnham bridge club owes a special vote of thanks to Joyce Baldock & team and Mike Kinsey & team for agreeing to play their final matches on-line aganst Varda's and Nick's team, as without this there would have been no definitive winner of the competition.    The drama then continued with Nick Browne & team losing 6-14 to Mike Kinsey's team, followed by Varda & team losing by the narrowest of margins (9-11) to Joyce Baldock's team, with this proving enough for Varda and team to win the overall trophy.

Well done and thank you to all teams and their captains, and to the various reserves who stepped in to help.   As always it proved to be a close fought, competetive and enjoyable competition.   A spreadsheet of the full results is attached.

At this stage it is clear that we will not be running a face-to-face Sylvia Rose competition in 2020/21.  We will however be looking to run a smaller online competition, hopefully starting later this year.  

Notice from Mike O'Donnell - Watch this space

We will revisit the best way to run the Erica Currie and Richard Currie charity pairs, jointly with the Bourne club, by discussion in early October, once both clubs have experience of the new BCL clubs facility.