Michael Byrne's next Seminar will be on Friday 25th April at 1.30 and the topic will be  " Coping with Bad Breaks " 

"When you are declarer you will often find yourself in a sensible and realistic contract that will make unless anything goes drastically wrong. Sometimes things happen that are beyond your control and you are doomed to failure, but more often than not better planning will help you overcome any obstacles that are placed in your way."

Michael will be bringing along something tasty  along with his expertise and GSOH ! 

Please add your name if you are going to attend - £10 for members and £12 for non members  

 With the demise of Swiss Pairs on Into Bridge  The Committee would like to try and bring back into the Club what was once our most popular  Face to Face session of the week. Ray Ashleigh has kindly said he can create the appropriate movement but the ideal number is a minimum of 20 players. If we can get 20 people signed up we will put on Swiss Pairs on Thursday 24^th April at 7.15 – FOR FREE !  It’s a complicated process to play so this will be a trial of not only our ability to make it work but also the strength of support in the membership to bring it back into our face to face Calendar of Events

If you are interested in taking part in our Swiss Pairs revival please sign your name in the box below – I have !.”  

Nicholas' next seminar is on The Defender's Role in a No Trump Contract on Friday 9th May at 10.30

The start time for each seminar is 10.30am and will finish at approximately 12.30pm.  As usual there will be notes of the seminar and copies of the 8 example hands.  This topic is suitable for both improvers and intermediates and for more experienced players who want to improver their declarer play.  You do not need a partner to attend this seminar.  The cost if £8 for members and £10 for non-members.

If you will be attending this seminar please either add your name to the list below or email me via grasan30@gmail.com.

Below is a list of all the seminars we have arranged with Nicholas for the winter/spring 2025 period.  We have tried to provide topics which reflect the feedback we have received so these next seminars are mainly on defence and declarer play.  

Any further ideas for topics please email me.  Finally - thanks to Anne Jerrold for all her work on helping to arrange these seminars.

There will be a further seminar on Friday 13th June - please email grasan30@gmail.com with any suggestions for topics

Andy Brocklehurst and Dave Sarabowski finished 2nd by one point in the consolation final of the Fuengirola Internatioal Bridge Tournament. The consolation final was between 30 pairs that remained after the top 14 pairs in the original field of 44pairs played an all play all final at the same time. Stuart Shalom and Barbara Easterbrook finished 6th and David Debbage and John Sansom finished 7th.

For Information the  2025 AGM of MCBA ( note this is not Manchester Bridge Club it is  the Manchester County AGM ) will be a hybrid meeting (ie both F2F and on Zoom) to be held on:

Date: Wednesday 11th June 2025

Time: 7:00pm

Venue: Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Bridge Centre and online via Zoom

The papers will be circulated closer to the date.

Any agenda items to Alan Mould online@manchesterbridge.org.uk  by  Wednesday 21st May please.

Any motions, duly proposed and seconded to Alan Mould also by Wednesday 21st May please.

Last year, the Executive received some criticism for making decisions which it had to do given that the AGM was inquorate at certain points. If you feel strongly about an item (for example the format of the league) then I would urge you to propose a motion before the AGM, turn up and speak to it and vote for it. Any motions carried at the AGM will be binding for that season. 

Nominations for officers, duly proposed and seconded to Alan Mould at any point please (nominations will also be accepted on the day).

A quorum for the AGM is 25 members present.

Posted on behalf of Manchester County Bridge Association 

Beginners Bridge Taster Courses.

If you are interested in joining one of our future courses please fill in the form below and we will keep you updated about our plans for our next courses.

Our next beginners' courses will start towards the end of September 2025

Please be careful when you enter your email address. You will always receive a personal response in 24 hours. 

Each course will last 10 weeks and covers the basics of play and bidding. We teach the 5 card major, strong No Trump and short club system.  We will also cover basic defensive tactics.

Most importantly, the classes will be friendly and sociable. Bridge can be a complicated game and will stretch your mind, but we aim to make bridge fun to learn and hope you will quickly come to love the game as much as we do.  Once your course is finished we have a wide range of supported, follow on sessions for you to join to continue to learn this wonderful game.

The course will cost £80 payable in advance which will include membership of our club until the end of December 25

Interested?  Find out more by emailing Jan on jelancaster021@gmail.com or completing the online form below

We currently have two IntoBridge sessions each week.  These are on a Monday and Friday afternoon at 2pm.  All these sessions are well supported and will continue. We are no longer running the online Swiss Pairs on a Thursday evening.

We now have supervised sessions for beginners, learners & improvers at the club:

Monday afternoon at 1pm for Improvers with Paul Murray.

 Monday evening at 7:15pm for beginners with Frank/Chris

Tuesday evening at 7pm all levels with Nicholas

Wednesday morning at 10:30 for beginners with Susan Triggs

Thursday morning at 10:30 for beginners with Susan Triggs.

Members £6 & Visitors £8

Everyone is welcome

Please be aware that the BridgeWebs attendance Module is not a real time system. It reflects entry fees spent on online and face-to-face games but does not reflect money paid into your online account until it is manually updated from the Club's bank statement. Our 'WebMaster', Dave Fernley performs these updates periodically- usually weekly. If you need to know your balance between updates, call Paul or Dave.

The new Bridgewebs Attendance Module for tracking payment money for online games is now live.

It provides you with a real-time view of the games you have played, the current balance of your account and payments made and received by your account. 

To see this information you will need to log on to the Members Only area of the website and then select thePayments Account tab.
Detailed instructions logging onto this area are available here

A detailed description of the Online Account, how it works, etc, is also available here within the Members Only Area (log-on needed).

Account statements will also be sent out periodically by email. This ensures that people who choose not to actively monitor their account balance are still aware of it. The statement provides a regular update to non-members who play in our online games who do not have access the member's area and therefore the real time benefits of this system.

See Calendar on the right of this home page for our Weekly Schedule

Face to Face table fees for Duplicates at the Club are £4 for fully paid-up MBC members & £6 for Guests

Supervised Face to Face table fees at the Club are £6 for fully paid-up MBC members & £8 for Guests

(includes free tea/coffee & biscuits and occasional treats! However, sandwiches/supper will not be served)

Online bridge entry is £3.75 for members & £4.50 for non-members

For Online games a pre-arranged partner is preferable. However, if possible, partners can be found after you log on to our tournaments. Just wait on Partnership Desk on IntoBridge. 

Please transfer entry fee (or more for convenience / multiple games) into the MBC bank account (see below).

MBC will reduce your balance after each session played and email you with a regular statement to help you stay in credit.

The Manchester Bridge Club Bank details are –

Natwest Sort Code 01-02-02   Account Number  21867577

Please put your First Name and Surname as the payment reference

Thank you for supporting The Manchester Bridge Club