This is where we will keep you posted with club related events and information   New posts will be marked New for a week or two.
All games will be held on Real Bridge BUT SEE BELOW

New - Outstanding debts are listed in Members' Only area

UPDATED - Face to Face Bridge 

Due to the continued use of the Track and Trace system in some quarters, including the Maidstone Civil Service Club, is does not seem appropriate to restart F2F Bridge at the present time. Should someone in the Club come into contact with a Covid19 carrier it would certainly not be helpful if all Club members who attended were "pinged".

With the easing of the Track and Trace system from 19 August and the changed requirements for isolating and, subject to compliance with any other Government restrictions at the time, we will restart Face to Face Bridge on Wednesday 1st of September starting at 7.15pm at the Civil Service Club. There will be no need to prebook, just find a partner and turn up. Some "local rules" will apply to help maintain good practise, payment by Cards only (existing table money amounts will continue to apply), sole use of a bidding box for the evening, new sets of cards each week and no tea or coffee (bring your own flask if you like) but water and other drinks will be available from the bar. Continued Face to Face bridge will then be dependent on numbers attending.

The possibility of combining F2F bridge and RealBridge is being investigated and further information will be available from the EBU shortly.

We intend to continue with on line Real Bridge for the time being at least.

Tuesday bridge has been postponed until September when we will start Tuesday bridge again if there is sufficient demand.   We will ask members for their views on this nearer the time.  (Wednesday and Friday on-line bridge will continue for the moment - please continue watching this website for further information)

Payments for games play in May are listed in the Members' Area and include any amounts owed/overpaid from previous months
 

Future plans for our club
Face to face bridge - The Civil Service Club has been provisionally booked for Wednesday evenings but we will not be playing F2F bridge on Tuesdays or Thursdays.   We anticipate continuing with Real Bridge for online games even after we can start again at the Civil Service Club and will notify members of days at the appropriate time.

 

Slow play - we have had instances of slow play due to disconnection and slow equipment problems.  Players should be aware that they are responsible for maintaining their own connection and in future such slow play will have a board stopped or removed with an adjusted score of 60/40 awarded to the opposition.  This is in line with EBU guidance and Directors will follow this rule in order to be fair to all players and keep the game moving at a reasonable speed.
Directors can now obtain a Board Report which shows time taken by each player on the board and this will be used to ensure fairness.


Some items from Real Bridge:

Further improvements have been made in connectivity which will mainly benefit people with poor bandwith.

Important note about iPads
On an iPad, RealBridge works with both Chrome and Safari. However, the latest changes made by Apple mean that with Chrome there may be some strange visual effects.
We want players and directors to get the most out of playing on RealBridge. Please ask iPad users to use Safari.
This advice only applies to iPads. Users of other Apple devices can continue to use Chrome.

Alerted calls with yellow border (optional)
By default, a call that has been alerted is shown with a red tint. A player can choose to have a yellow border around the alerted call, as well as the red tint.
Players can find the option in the Settings screen (the cog wheel). This setting is remembered for future sessions in the same browser.

If people are choosing to treat themselves to a new device, we think, from the feedback we get from players, that Chromebooks are better than very inexpensive/low specification tablets.

There will be plenty of other high-level bridge to watch on our kibitz server, click here. Please do let people know.  Some of the tables will have live video commentators, but the gameplay itself is often deferred by, typically, 30 minutes. If you want to know more about how that works, look here.


Games on Real Bridge will cost £1.50 per player per game;  payment will be due retrospectively at the end of each month and amounts due with payment advice will be posted in the Members' Only Notices at the end of each month.

Visitors -  Members may invite a friend as a guest for one complementary session;  to action this please email learnbridge@btinternet.com with the name and email address of the guest, and state which date you wish to play.    Thereafter visitors may play for a maximum of 3 events as a guest as a cost of £2 per player per game;  the member inviting the guest will be responsible for this payment and the cost will added to their invoice at the end of the month.   Any visitors wishing to join the club may apply to become a member at a cost of £5 membership fee for 2021.   Contact as above.

Links to Real Bridge games are in the Members' Area - Notices.   You can still play without a webcam and audio on your system.  Links will not be sent by email so it is up to members to make sure they can log into the Members' Area and access the links.  Late arrivals can be accommodated - login, go to the lobby and notify the Director to allocate you a seat.   For players new to Real Bridge, go to the Real Bridge website where there is a great deal of information and a webcam/audio test, plus 8 board free trial sessions offered by Real Bridge. 

Members can also view again scores and hands played on Real Bridge sessions.   Links for the past few weeks are in the Members' Notices section so you should save the link on your own system if you want to keep it longer.  Click on the link which will take you to the score table, click on the board number and then the contract results - this will bring up an option to scroll through card by card.
   

Rules of bridge for online competitions

• Players are reminded that all bridge rules must be followed in on-line competitions.   Bids must be alerted or announced as in face-to-face bridge.   This includes ethical considerations such as not indicating to your partner which card to play.    Background noises should be kept to a minimum and your microphone is best muted during play unless you need to announce a bid or explain further at the request of opponents.
   
• Opponents can only request further information at their own turn to bid or before the initial lead is made
   
• Use of UNDO is allowed but only under standard bridge rules.  Undo is intended to be used for a misclick, not a change of mind.   Regardless, a card played must remain and cannot be undone unless it is a genuine and obvious misclick.   Use of the double click option is recommended for those who have problems with selecting the correct card.  Any queries should be referred to the Director for adjudication.

• Claims - declarer must state his/her line of play at the same time as the claim.   Once a claim is requested, both defenders are prompted to accept or reject the claim. If they both accept, the result is recorded and the deal ends.  If either defender rejects the claim, you should call the Director to adjudicate the claim, or if everyone agrees you can also play on.  A defender is allowed under Law 68B2 to object to his partner's claim.   If play continues after a claim, the non-claiming side can see all four hands.