Good morning

Introducing our new "Suite of Seminars"

In addition to weekly lessons at the Lindum on Monday evenings, our Bridge School offers two stand-alone courses. Both are delivered (off-site) to small groups of three or four people and require a total of 16 hours of tuition. The first one, "Learn Bridge in Two Days", is for those new to Bridge or those returning after a long break. The second one, "Improve Your Bridge in Four Afternoons", is for those who have done the first one or those who play at the club regularly and want to take their Bridge to the next level.

We are now introducing a new "Suite of Seminars" for experienced players wishing to work with their partners to refresh a particular aspect of their game. There are seven seminars altogether and they cover the following topics.

1. Balanced hands; 2. Distributional hands; 3. Overcalling; 4. Big Hands; 5. Declaring; 6. Defending; 7. Analysing your game

Each seminar is stand-alone and requires about four hours of study. There is no need to do all of them; the idea is that you and your partner pick the one(s) that you feel you need to work on at this moment in time.

Three very experienced members of our club (who were co-incidentally awarded trophies at our recent presentation evening!) have kindly helped us to test drive and further develop most of these seminars. They have given us extremely positive feedback about them, including commenting that they found them useful in improving their own game.

If you think you might be interested in taking part in one or more of our new seminars, please talk to Tina.

Hand of the Week

At our recent committee meeting, Bill offered to revive "Hand of the Week" on our website. This was an offer we were only too glad to accept. Bill's first offering, "The Part-Score Battleground", is an analysis of Wednesday's Board 4. How did your pair do? To see Bill's analysis and suggested lines of play, why not visit Hand of the Week on the club's website.

Dispelling a Myth!

We would like to dispel a myth that seems to be doing the rounds at the moment. This is the myth that you cannot sign up to play on a Monday night if it means there will be half a table. Apart from being somewhat illogical (if you were the first pair to want to sign up, you wouldn't be able to), this is absolutely not the case.

We think this myth probably dates back to the old days - before "Bridge at the Lindum on a Monday night" was relaunched in 2024 - when there were often only two-and-a-half or three-and-a half tables playing. Since the relaunch, though, we have never had fewer than four full tables and often we get a lot more.

And now, of course, we have the new kitchen in the Studio - as well as Bridge School taking place in the same room as the duplicate session. So, if you do have a sit-out, you can always grab yourself a cuppa and a biccy and help out at the Beginners' or Improvers' table - or even pay a visit to the Bar next door!

Team rota for October

At the the table: the Directors' Cut

To finish off our short series on announcing and alerting, here is a summary of the main points and some more examples.

Announcements are made in the first round of bidding to provide your opponents with clarification or additional information about your partner's bids. Overcalls are not announced.

Examples of announcements that should be made include:

• the "point range" of a 1NT opener
• "Stayman" and "transfer to clubs/diamonds/hearts/spades"
• "could be short" if a 1C opener might not be natural
• "weak" if it's a weak two.

You use the Alert card (and say nothing) if your partner's bid Bid means something different to what the bidding card says, i.e. the bid is artificial and not natural. Bids do not usually need to be alerted if they are above the three level.

Examples of bids that should be alerted include:

• double of a 1NT opener that is for take-out and not for penalty
• a 2C opener that shows a strong hand in an unspecified (as yet) denomination, and a 2D response if it is a relay
• two-suited overcalls if your partnership is using Michael's, Unusual 2NT, CRO or Gestem.

For chapter and verse on announcing and alerting, please see the EBU summary which you can find on our club website.

Last week at the club

There were a gargantuan seven full tables at the Lindum on Monday night. Well done to Roger & Margaret who came top with 64.9%, and to Mike & Cos who came second with 61.5%.

At Bridge School on Monday we revised all the different ways in which you can respond when your partner has opened 1NT.

There were eight full tables at the Lindum on Wednesday afternoon. Well done to Alison & Andrew who came top with 71.7%, and to Phillip H & Sue B who came second with 63.1%.

This week‘s calendar

Monday 19th October: normal Duplicate Session at the Lindum; please be seated by 6.20 pm, ready to start proceedings at 6.30 pm.

Monday 19th October: Bridge School at the Lindum from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm; this week we will be continuing to revise all the different ways in which you can respond when your partner has opened 1NT.

Wednesday 21st October normal Duplicate Session at the Lindum; please be seated by 1.05 pm, ready to start play at 1.15 pm.

Thursday 22nd October: Bridge Practice online at 6.30 pm (please let Tina know by at least the day before if you will be able to join us).

Results of county event: Random Seeded Pairs

Six City of Lincoln Bridge Club pairs took part in the Random Seeded Pairs at the Lincolnshire Contract Bridge Association yesterday. (This included a guest appearance by David Minnis of Welton Bridge Club!) It was a teams event although entry was by pairs. Pairs were seeded by NGS grade, with a each pair from the upper half of the field being paired at random with a pair from the lower half of the field. Well done to Bill, Cos, John H & David M who came second out of nine teams and clocked up an impressive score of 92.7 Victory Points.

Next county event at Dunholme Village Hall

Sunday 15th November at 11.00 am: Charles Heward Trophy (for club teams of four)

Please see the Lincolnshire Contract Bridge Association website for more details.