Welcome to Oxford Bridge Club

April 19, 2021 : The Lady Milne Trophy - the annual women's home international series - took place this weekend, hosted by Northern Ireland, via RealBridge.

Due to the event being held online, delayed kibitzing was available with commentary for all matches.

The English team of Diana Nettleton, Nevena Senior, Helen Erichsen, Fiona Brown, Nathalie Shashou & Sally Brock with NPC David Burn and Coach Oliver Burgess, won the trophy. They finished the event with a score of 79.77 VPs. Scotland finished close behind in second place with a total of 73.58 VPs. In third place was Ireland with 49.29 VPs. Diana is a member of Oxford Bridge Club, and captains the OBC A team in the Wessex League.

April 19, 2021: The Portland Bowl Semifinals and Final took place on RealBridge this weekend.

In the semifinals, Oxford A beat Imperial and Cambridge B beat Southampton B. In the third place playoff, Imperial beat Southampton B by 75-43. In the final, after a very close match where there was not much between the two evenly matched teams, Oxford A beat Cambridge B by 128-115.

This is Oxford’s first win since 2011; Cambridge had won 6 out of the previous 7 tournaments before this year.

The victorious Oxford University team was Yining Yang (captain), Lawrence Wang, Sam Anoyrkatis & Ewa Wieczorek, and they were virtually presented with the trophy on Zoom by Christopher Kemp, Chairman of the Portland Club, whose continued support of the event is very much appreciated. All the Oxford University players except Sam are members of Oxford Bridge Club.

See full results here

Many congratulations to Linda Allen & Dave Dobson, who won the County Pairs final, held on Sunday 18th April. Second were Henry Rose & Aleks Lishkov, and third Mary-Ann Sheehy & Christopher Whitehouse, so well done to them too. The top three pairs in this event qualify to represent Oxfordshire in the Corwen Trophy, due to be held in June. Click here for the full results. 

The club's Novice Pairs competition for the Morrie Marsh Trophy will take place on Thursday 13th May on RealBridge replacing the Learn & Play session for that evening. Table money is £3 and there will be 14-16 boards played (depending on the number of tables) at 9 minutes per board.

Masterpoints will be awarded and the winners will claim the Morrie Marsh Trophy. Full rules of the competition are here. To book a place click here.

With effect from Tuesday 4th May. 

Click here for the RealBridge bookings page. 

Oxfordshire Bridge Association is running its next two Junior Online Bridge Competitions on Sunday 25th April and Sunday 30th May - both on RealBridge. 

All levels of junior bidders are welcome, from anywhere on the Globe. For more information please see this page. 

The club's Pairs Championship Competition for the Beck Salver will take place on Sunday 25 April, starting at 2pm. 

Members of all abilities are very welcome to take part. Non-members may play but are not eligible to win the trophy. 

It will be played as two sessions of 18 boards, on RealBridge, with a 30 minute break after the first session. 

Entry fee: £6.00 per player.  Click here for the bookings page. 

Our Saturday Seminar series continues with six new seminars starting in May with Kathy Talbot’s ‘The Art of Discarding’. Other seminars will cover two-suited overcalls, transfers, playing with the odds, and improving defence. 

For more details click here or go straight to the booking page here. 

Congratulations to the winner's of the fifth series of OBC's Online Teams League, which has just finished. They are:

Division 1: Cocamos (Diana Cannon, Gaynor Cooper, John Cooper & Susie Moser)

Division 2: Jamgee (Joanna Donkin, Alasdair MacDonald, Marion Sheppard & Graham Walcroft)

Entries are now open for the sixth series of the league which will run over the summer, starting in May.

The deadline for entries is 10am on Monday 26th April. Further details and the entry form can be found here. 

Many congratulations to Pat Lewis & Ursula Bowler (with a very impressive score of 71.53%!), and Lorna Swadling & Liza Furnival, who are joint winners of this year's Ladies' Pairs competition*. They will receive the Doreen Simpson trophy. 

And many congratulations also to John Briggs & Peter Litchfield, and Amr El-Kashef & Martin Illingworth, who are joint winners of the Men's Pairs competition^. They will receive the John Simpson trophy. 

*The Ladies' pairs competition was scored as a two-winner event by mistake, which means that there's a pair of N/S winners, and a pair of E/W winners. It isn't possible to distinguish between them as there wasn't an arrow switch.

^The Men's event was scored as a one-winner event, the winners on the night were Jonathan Davis & David Barker, with an outstanding score of 71.67% - so an honorable mention goes to them too. As David is not a club member, the trophy is awarded to the pair who came second. As it happens two pairs were joint second on identical percentage scores. 

The end of March marks the end of year for the ladders for all of our bridge sessions, all of which were run online. Congratulations go to this year's ladder winners (second and third places in brackets): 

Monday morning pairs: Amr El-Kashef (Andy King; Steven Bliss)

Tuesday morning pairs (a pairs ladder): Chris Bone & Juliette Riehl (Diana Cannon & Richard Sills; Gaynor Cooper & John Cooper)

Wednesday Gentle Duplicate: joint winners Ann Lee and John Foord (Stevie Rudd)

Wednesday evening pairs: Denis Talbot (Kathy Talbot; Liza Furnival)

Thursday Gentle Duplicate: Sheila Parry (Rosemary Fraser; joint third Chris Bone & Juliette Riehl) 

Friday morning pairs: Bridget Watson (Howard Arnes; joint third Steph Bliss and Steven Bliss)

Friday evening pairs:  there were too few eligible sessions for this to be judged properly, so the trophy won't be awarded, but Zahir Soonawalla emerged with the highest percentage

The Wednesday and Friday evening teams ladders were not run this year. 

Note that only members are eligible to win - names of non-members and robots are omitted.