These are our members who have gained an EBU master point promotion in the past six months. Congratulations to all of you!

Well done to Jude and Mark (2nd,  64.42%) and to Dennis and Neil (5th, 58.49%) on their strong showing in the LCBA Hyman Crammer competition which attracted a strong field of 28 pairs.

Entries for the 2026 Pairs League are now open via the LCBA site.  The competition will be held over five Wednesday evenings: 4 February, 4 March, 1 April, 6 May and 3 June.  Should a pair or half a pair not be available for one or more evenings they just organise replacements as needed.

Ben Norton is to facilitate another development session for those interested in representing Leicestershire.  This will be on RealBridge at 7pm on Tuesday 24 February.

The next Green Pointed Swiss Pairs event starts at 12:00 on Saturday 28 February.

Midland Counties League matches against seven other counties are held on Sunday afternoons. Those against neighbouring counties are usually face to face whilst those further away are played on RealBridge.  Members are invited to put their name forward for selection - just talk to Tim Glover. 

LCBA in-person events are held at the County Bridge Club, St Oswald Road, Leicester.  Full details of events and entry forms are on the LCBA site.

The club committee met on 13 October and the minutes are visible from the appropriate menu item on the left.

Thursday 13th June 2024- Linda and Steve scored 71.03%.

Well done to you!

Brian Stockdale writes

No doubt many of you will have been getting your bridge fix by playing on-line. As on-line bridge is the only game in town, I have dipped in and out over these lock-down weeks and whilst the social element is undoubtedly missing, on-line bridge does present some interesting facets of playing bridge. Perhaps the most obvious one is that although you are deprived of that intangible factor ‘table presence’, it is more than compensated for by not being ‘influenced’ by partner’s, how shall I put it, table mannerisms! What this allows you to do is to concentrate solely on bidding and playing your cards. Pauses between bids and plays are more likely to be the vagaries of the internet than pontifications by partner. It is in fact more like international bridge played with screens. I have tended to treat the sessions more as ‘practice’ rather than meaningful competition as I find it difficult to take it too seriously playing against ‘Moon Pig’ and ‘Little Miss Muffet’.

Sad though it may be, I have looked back at a few bidding sequences to see ‘where it all went wrong’ and hands where ‘one might have done better’ in the card play. I have collected together a few hands from the latter category that demonstrate an interesting aspect of card play and I have presented them as a bridge play quiz. See how you get on and then have a look at the commentary.

Stay safe, Brian

The problems and the answers will open in new windows when you click them.  You could save them for future reference if you chose.

Play problems 1               Answers to Play Problems 1

To help the directors keep our evenings to time you do not necessarily have to think any quicker;  there are several tips that will speed up the evening.  Try to bear these in mind:

• Lead first and write it down later.
• When the move is called get to the next table swiftly.
• The Bridgemate user must score swiftly: enter most details before the end of the hand, then enter the result and offer the Bridgemate to your opponent. Saying something like ‘We got 45%’ is usually enough; going through how many bid which particular game can use a lot of time.
• Opponents - you must be ready to check and then press the accept button.
• Catch up: if you are late starting then you have an obligation to try to catch up.
• Time yourself: you should be aware if you only have 4 minutes to deal with the last board of the set.
• Limit your post-mortem until you have finished all the boards for the round.
• Don’t ask for the meaning every time there is an alert.
• Claim: consider claiming if you have a reasonably easy end position.
• Use your opponent’s thinking time: you may be able to plan your own play better.
• If your opponent is going to cash a long suit in dummy, decide on your discards. I bet you’ve watched someone agonise over their first discard and then when another winner is played do exactly the same again. It can hardly be a surprise.
• Put your played boards somewhere easy for the TD or the next table to pick up. Please don’t hide them on the most obscure bit of the floor and then keep us waiting for them.

The Club Committee has written a privacy policy governing our use of your personal data.  You will find it listed in the menu (left hand side of this page) under the general heading of "All About Our Club".  Just click on that and you will find our policy document.

Both sides are urged to be very careful in entering and agreeing the contract and the tricks.  On occasion we see impossible scores.  The Director who is trying to play bridge cannot do much to check on what you enter.  After the bridge is over the Director has no power to change these impossible scores unless the pairs concerned can help.  Otherwise, the scores entered must stand.