On Monday July 22nd Summertown Bridge club is holding a Summer Sim Pairs in aid of charity. The chosen charity is FLEXICARE (more information available at http://www.flexicare.org/.  Further details can be found on the SBC website.

This is the second in an occasional series where I will look at certain Laws based on incidents at the OBC, sometimes observed by me or otherwise reported to me.   The series is intended to help players improve their understanding of the Laws.

You are sitting East, declarer is South and has just won a trick in his hand. Declarer calls for a card to be played from Dummy, Dummy says “you are in your hand”, so Declarer leads a card from his hand and everyone plays on.  What has just happened? 

Perhaps not a lot but perhaps quite a lot.  Under the Laws of Bridge, there have been three infractions and you have given up potentially valuable rights.  Declarer has led from the wrong hand (Law 55), Dummy has drawn attention to an infraction (Law 43) and the Director has not been called immediately upon an infraction being identified (Law 9). In reality, none of these infractions are too serious by themselves provided everyone at the table understands what is going on.  The key issue, however, is that either defender can accept the lead from the wrong hand (Laws 53 and 55) and if the defenders choose differently, the defender who is next to play after the incorrect lead (i.e. you in this case) chooses what happens. Often it makes no difference but there are occasions where it can have a material impact on the final result.

Martin Illingworth, Chief TD
June 2019

Oxford Bridge Club, jointly with Summertown Bridge Club, ran a very successful blue-pointed Swiss Pairs event on Sunday afternoon, with 17 tables playing. Very many congratulations to Isabel Pack & Judy Wesselbaum (pictured) who were the winners, with Alastair Gidman & Lorna Swadling coming second.

Holly Kilpatrick, playing with Freddie Beneat (a junior) won the second half ascender's prize, so well done to them too.

Full results are here. 

A total of £640 was raised towards our two charities: Pancreatic Cancer UK and Safeline. 

Update: corrections have been made to two scores on hands 35 and 36. The corrected results have been uploaded to the websites for both clubs and to the EBU. This hasn't affected the positions of the top 6 pairs, but has caused some changes to those lower down. 

The missing Bridgemate has now been found. 

Oxfordshire fields three teams-of-eight in the Midland Counties League, and several OBC members represent the County in these teams.

This year Oxfordshire's B team won their Division. The team then went on to play in the National Finals of the Inter-County Leagues on Sunday 16th June against all the other counties that had won in their various regional leagues. Oxfordshire retained the trophy that they also won last year.

Very well done to Matthew Covill, Emily Middleton, Mary-Ann Sheehy and Christopher Whitehouse who were part of the winning team. Further details and photos are available here. 

A large number of OBC members took part in the annual Oxfordshire Bridge Association Congress held over the weekend of 8th - 9th June.

Very many congratulations to Zane and Zahir Soonawalla (pictured) who won the Friendly Pairs competition held on the Sunday. 

Congratulations also go to Christopher Whitehouse, Mary-Ann Sheehy, Matthew Covill & Amr El-Kashef who came third in the Swiss Teams competition. 

Full results are available on the OBA website. 

While visiting Chicago in early June member Denis Talbot met up with Aleks Lishkov who moved to the city earlier this year. Aleks sends his best wishes to the members of the OBC and misses playing at the club. Denis and Aleks managed to fit in two enjoyable sessions of bridge (point a board teams and MP pairs) at the Chicago Bridge Centre. The members were all very welcoming and friendly. He is looking forward to his next trip there.

Aleks, we miss you too!   . . . and your contributions to the psyche book!

Congratulations to Sandra Nicholson and her partner Krys Kazmierczak who came 11th in the final round of the Corwen Trophy – an EBU national event.   To reach the final round players need be one of the top four pairs in their County Pairs Competition.   Nationally, 95 pairs go through to the final so achieving 11th place in the final is a fantastic achievement for Sandra and Krys and they earn Gold points for this success.   Well done!

The club’s competition for the Morrie Marsh Trophy took place on Monday 20th May.   Congratulations to the winners, Mena Remedios and Clive Gillam who came first with the impressive score of 68.97%.   The runners up were Paulette Eeley and Pam Parsons with Mary Chait and John Foord in third place.