We are introducing a new monthly online teams session on the 3rd Friday of the month, with the first session taking place on Friday 15th October. This will be played on RealBridge. 

This session is open to players of all abilities. If you would like some help finding team mates, please email us and we'll do our best to help. 

Here's a link to the bookings page for the first session. 

Many congratulations to Susan Fletcher and Carol Hall who have won the EBED (English Bridge Education & Development) Autumn Simultaneous Pairs competition at Oxford Bridge Club.

Susan Fletcher	Carol Hall

Thanks to all who played in the competition. Money raised goes to promote the development of Bridge nationally. To see how you've done compared to others across the country who played the same boards, visit the EBU website here. 

Click here to download the commentary for the hands played.  

We are playing a heat of the EBED Autumn Simultaneous Pairs during the Gentle Duplicate session on Wednesday 8th September at 2pm. This is to raise money for English Bridge Education and Development (EBED), the national charity for the promotion and development of bridge.

Entry fee = £6.00 per player. For more information please click here.  

We have now reopened the clubhouse with face-to-face (F2F) bridge sessions taking place on Fridays at 10am. These are hybrid sessions with two sections playing the same set of hands - one section playing at the club, and the other online, on RealBridge.

We will introduce additional F2F sessions as and when we can, depending on the level of support and availability of directors and scorers. 

For information on playing at the club, and the precautions that we are taking against Covid please click here. 

To play in a face-to-face bridge session you must book and pay for your place in advance, using Bookwhen. It's to your advantage to do this in good time, as the session will only run if at least 3 full tables have booked by 9pm the previous evening. If we don't get enough advance bookings the F2F session will be cancelled. The online session will be run regardless, so you can transfer your booking to that one (or another session of your choice) if the F2F one is cancelled. 

Bookings for F2F bridge are now open. Click here to book your place. 

We played our first face-to-face bridge session for nearly one and a half years on Friday 27th August. There were 5 full tables, with another 10½ tables playing online. 

Monday morning and Wednesday evening sessions will be moving from BBO to RealBridge in late September.  We are giving you plenty of notice of the switch so that you can avoid being left with an unused surplus of BB$. If you still have some left over, they can be spent on BBO sessions run by other clubs, or by the EBU, or they can be transferred to another player.  

Now that we have all got used to playing online we are going to increase the number of boards played to 20 (from 18) on Monday and Friday mornings and Wednesday evenings, with effect from the week beginning 30th August. 

These changes will help to facilitate the gradual introduction of face-to-face sessions over the next weeks and months. 

We have been offered an opportunity to run a free seminar given by Simon Cochemé in conjunction with RealBridge. Simon is the captain of the England Seniors team, and writes articles for bridge magazines around the world. 

We will be running this seminar twice - on Tuesday 10 August at 2pm and Thursday 19th August at 11am. Both sessions are identical. 

Do you know anyone who wants to learn to play Bridge? If so, then please encourage them to try one of our free Taster sessions which we’re running at the end of August (two online and one face-to-face at the club). Click here for details.

These will be followed at the end of September by a brand new year of ‘Bridge for All’ courses. These have been developed by the EBU and are based on the Acol bidding system. There will be two online and two face-to-face options (one of each for year 1 and year 2 courses). 

Most of our students come to us through the website or through personal recommendation so your spreading the word and encouragement means a lot. Please do mention the Taster sessions and classes to your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues. They can find more information on this website by clicking on the ‘Learn to Play Bridge’ box in the top right hand corner. 

With the progressive easing of Covid-19 restrictions, members may be wondering when and how we may return to play bridge face-to-face at the clubhouse.

Please Click here for more information on the current plans, and details of a member survey.

Many congratulations to John Foord who has won the Roger Hughes trophy for the most improved player. John's NGS increased by an impressive 4.8% in the year ending March 2021. 

An honorable mention goes to Phil Chaundy, whose NGS increased by 3.9% over the same period. 

The Oxford Bridge Club AGM will be held at 6pm on 21st July 2021

Click for more details

Bridge session after the AGM:

The Wednesday evening duplicate pairs session after the AGM will start later than normal, at 7.30pm (or possibly later if the AGM takes longer than expected). This will be a free session, open to all, and will be run on RealBridge. There will be a host so that you can come along without a partner. To ensure that you receive the RealBridge link for the session please book your place in advance. Click here for the booking page. 

Congratulations to Jonathan Kay & Makiko Rogers (both pictured below) who won the Online Knockout Plate Competition. They beat Chris Bone & Juliette Riehl in a closely fought final match. 

Click here to see the full draw.

Many congratulations to Mary-Ann and Tim Sheehy who have won the 2020-2021 Online Knockout Competition, in a closely fought final that was decided on the last hand. They will receive the Meltzer Trophy. Very well done also to the runners-up, Andy King & Sandra Nicholson. 

Click here to view the full draw. 

Congratulations to Oxford Bridge Club members who enjoyed success in the OBA Congress held over the weekend of 12/13 June.

In the Swiss Pairs event, Ewa Wieczorek and Charlie Bucknell came 6=. In the Swiss Teams event, Kathy & Denis Talbot's team came 2nd; Diana Nettleton's team came 3rd; and Peter Litchfield's team came 4=.

Many congratulations to Thelma Spratt and Gillian Fox who have won the Morrie Marsh Trophy in this year's Morrie Marsh Novice Pairs Competition. The runners up were Derek Knowlden and Jacqueline Davies. Very well done to everyone who played in the competition.

Thelma Spratt	Gillian Fox

Congratulations to the Oxford A team, who won division 1 of the Wessex League. That victory qualified them to represent Oxfordshire in the Garden Cities competition. In the regional finals, held on 8 May, they came a splendid 3rd out of 14 teams, thereby qualifying for the finals - for the first time in the Club's history - when they will be up against top names in the bridge world, such as Michael Byrne, Sally Brock and Gunnar Halberg.

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.

Many congratulations to Kathy Garrard and Pam Parsons who have won the EBED (English Bridge Education & Development) Spring Simultaneous Pairs competition at Oxford Bridge Club.

Kathy Garrard	Pam Parsons

Thanks to all who played in the competition. Money raised goes to promote the development of Bridge nationally. To see how you have done compared to others across the country who played the same boards, visit the EBU website here. 

Click here for the hand commentary.

We are playing a heat of the EBED Simultaneous Pairs during the Gentle Duplicate session on Wednesday 12th May at 2pm. This is to raise money for English Bridge Education and Development (EBED), the national charity for the promotion and development of bridge.

Entry fee = £5.00 per player. For more information please click 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)

The sixth series of the league, which will run over the summer, starts in May.

Further details can be found here. 

With effect from Tuesday 4th May. Tuesday mornings will be hosted, so you can come along without a partner. 

Click here for the RealBridge bookings page. 

Oxford Junior Bridge Club resumes face-to-face sessions at Oxford Bridge Club from Sunday 2nd May 2021. See here for more information.

Many congratulations to Amr El-Kashef & Annabel Barnett who have won the club pairs competition. They receive the Beck Salver.
	Winners: Amr E-Kashef & Annabel Barnett

Kathy & Denis Talbot were a very close second, with Peter Litchfield & John Briggs third.
	Runners Up: Kathy & Denis Talbot

Click here for the full results. 

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. 

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

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.

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. 

Congratulations to Mary-Ann & Tim Sheehy who have won the club's Mixed Pairs Competition, held on Thursday 4th March. They receive the Winnie Ling Trophy.  Sarah & Alan Conway were second, and Annabel Barnett & Malcolm Orr-Ewing third, so very well done to them too. 

This event is held on a date that is as close as possible to the the date of Winnie's birthday, which was on 22 February.

We're pleased to announce that we're introducing a hosting system for Friday mornings, with the first hosted session being on Friday 5th February. This means that you can play even though you don't have a partner. If you would like to use the host system please book and pay for your place in advance as usual, and join the RealBridge session by at least 9.45am. When you reach the lobby, send a chat message to the director to say that you're looking for a partner.  

Thank you to those who have volunteered to host.

For those that were unable to attend the AGM on 2nd December, here are:

• Minutes of last year's AGM (September 2019)
• The Chair's report
• Draft minutes of this year's AGM