Oxford Bridge Club is holding a heat of the Masters Pairs 2020 competition on Sunday 1 March.  This is a national two-session one-day green-pointed event held simultaneously at several different centres. 

It is open to all players below the rank of Regional Master. This includes: Local Masters, Club Masters, Area Masters, District Masters, County Masters, Masters, Advanced Masters, Star Masters, Tournament Masters or Premier Masters.

This event gives players an unusual chance to earn green points in their local area, and in the absence of higher ranked players. Further details can be found on the EBU website. 

Play starts at 11am, and is expected to finish at about 6.00 to 6.30pm. Entry fee £12.00 per player (£7.00 for juniors aged under 26 years). 

Further details about the Oxford heat and online booking are available via this link. 

The club's Mixed Pairs Competition will take place on Wednesday 29 January, at 7.15pm.

The winners will receive the Winnie Ling Trophy. 

Members of all abilities are very welcome to take part. Non-members are also welcome to play, but are not eligible to win the trophy. We would like to extend a particular welcome to those who normally play in Thursday evening Gentle Duplicate sessions, many of whom have played in the Winnie Ling competition in previous years.  

Please note that this event is not hosted, so you will need to find yourself a partner in advance. However, entry in advance is not required - just turn up on the night.  Standard table money. 

Many congratulations to Sandra Nicholson who has won this year's Individual Competition, and is the club's Individual Champion for 2019-2020.  

Sandy Millikin came second and Dorothy Myers was third, so very well done to them too. 

Following requests from some members, we’re starting a new regular cross-IMP pairs session on the fourth Friday of the month, starting on Friday 24th January at 7.15pm. 

Cross-IMPing is a bit like teams.  If you’re not familiar with teams play, see this document on teams tactics.  Your score is IMPed using the scores of opponents at all other tables, and this total is then averaged (i.e. divided by the number of results).  The result is your IMP score for the board.  So it’s really like playing teams, with all other pairs playing the other direction as your team-mates.  Or you can think of it as teams without team-mates.  Your successes are yours and your mistakes cannot be put down to team-mates!

Many congratulations to Diana Nettleton, who, playing with Marusa Gold, came top in the first stage of the European Women's trials, held over the weekend of 3-5th January. The top five pairs play in the second stage, due to take place later in the month. 

And double congratulations to Sandra Nicholson & Krys Kazmierczak who came 3rd out of 32 players in the Swiss Pairs event at the Year End Congress in Blackpool, and also 4th out of 52 teams in the Swiss Teams event at the Midland Counties Congress on 5th January.