We are pleased to announce a new weekly 'Bridge for Beginners' course starting in mid-October this year.

The course will be before our club sessions, starting at 4:15pm on Wednesdays from 14th October. For those who may find the day/time/venue inconvenient we will run a second session at a time/venue to suit everyone.

Anyone who would like to learn to play our fascinating game of bridge would be most welcome to come along and join us.

We will follow the English Bridge Union's course books (a copy will be provided for everyone) with a new topic each week and practical examples for bidding and playing.

Next year we will run a second year course continuing lessons on bidding, play, defence and slams.

After the course session you are welcome to stay to watch us play. Watching over someone's shoulder is an interesting way to follow the game (though any questions do have to wait until the last card has been played to avoid giving information away to the other three players).

For more details, and to express an interest, please contact Peter Rice.

First year topics will cover:

• Basic card play (a short introduction through MiniBridge)
• Introduction to bidding: Bidding 1 no trump and responses by partner.
• Bidding a suit: Choosing a suit, supporting partner’s suit, no trump and new suit responses, continuing bidding, responder’s second bid, showing a strong and/or balanced hand.
• Declarer play: developing a good suit, finessing, entries and communication between declarer and dummy.
• Defence: choosing an opening lead, leading against suit and no trump contracts, standard leads, leading fourth best, play by defenders
• Competitive bidding – when both sides are bidding: overcalls, doubling, replying to a ‘takeout double’, 1 no trump overcall, overcalls with long suits, competing over a suit opening.
• Stayman – finding a heart/spade fit after 1 no trump.
• Higher level opening bids: 2 no trumps, two clubs (the strongest opening bid), strong unbalanced hands, weak two-level opening bids
• Slams: Ways to bid slams (12 tricks, or a grand slam of all 13 tricks).

Bridge Topics for Intermediate / Improving Players

We have reserved a slot on Wednesday afternoons from 4:30 before the club duplicate session starts. From October this will be for the new beginners course. Up to them, we can offer any of the following topics for club member and anyone else who is interested.

Please contact Peter Rice if you would like to learn more about any of these topics. Each topic will take from 1 to 3 weeks to cover.