Welcome to the website of Bridge on the Edge, based in St. John's, NL, Canada.  In 2016 we became a player owned bridge club.  We support a respectful culture, both at the bridge table and in all BOTE communications, for the enjoyment and growth of all members.  

Please check with any Board member if you need additional information.

Members who want to use the member's functions (ie bookings etc), please ensure you've accessed the site using the bridgeweb link bridgewebs.com/onedge/.

Next week is ACBL Stardust week, you can win gold at your very own club!  Yes at BOTE!  Monday 22nd and Thursday 25th there will be a smattering of gold included in any points that you earn.  Too good to be true?  Not at all.   Further more and also, on Wednesday 24th it is an ACBL Charity game where we compete against everyone in the ACBL in the same game and therefore there will be more points than usual awarded to any skillful/lucky winners  . .  of course there have to be at least five tables to qualify for points but we can do that, let’s play Wednesday!!  Sign up for all or some of these special games with your best, most skillful partner.

And a final reminder for the Volunteer week luncheon.  The Board wants to thank all our helpers who make our club work.  Please sign up by Wednesday so we can get the right number of sandwiches and cookies.

See you at the club!

Welcome to our New Members 
Many new members have chosen to join our ranks this year, too many to welcome individually, but we want you all to know that we are happy to have you with us. We hope you will find the club to be welcoming and fulfill your expectations.  If you have any suggestions, comments or ‘things you would like to see happening’ we are always happy to hear from you.  We are player owned, so run by the members, if you would like to help in any way let us know. Welcome to all. 

Volunteer Week, April 14th to 25th
In Canada volunteers are a critical part of every community.  It is easy to take them for granted and forget how many volunteer hours are spent, in the background, making things happen. As a player owned club we are dependant on volunteers to keep the club running smoothly.  That’s why Volunteer week is important to us. Not just to give ourselves a pat on the back, but to recognize that without a lot of people making a big or small contributions our club would not be the welcoming, bustling place that we all enjoy so much. 

Volunteer week this year is April 14th to 24th, on Thursday 18th April at noon, we are going to hold an appreciation luncheon, between the end of Improver’s class and the Open Game at 1:00pm.  Everyone who has helped in anyway is welcome, the wonderful web ladies, the dealers and set-up people, the fill-ins at Supervised Play, the Executive, our teachers  . .  we have a lot of volunteers for sure.  Please sign up on our website so we know how many sandwiches to order.

99ers game
This duplicate game, so called as it is intended to be for people with less than 99 ACBL masterpoints, is aimed at newer players who want to try duplicate without competing against players with years of experience and rafts of masterpoints.  Several of our regular members would really like to get this game off the ground and we would like to encourage anyone in Supervised play and C players in our Open Game to give it a try. It runs 1:00pm on Thursday, the same time as our Open Game. Alice English and Melvie Miller from Super Play recently gave it a try and handily beat out the competition. We would also like to rename the game to not include any references to masterpoints, any suggestions? 

Ongoing Education
Tom Dale will be teaching a class on Defence, Thursday, 11th April  and our popular Improvers classes will continue on Thursday morning through April.  All classes start at 10:00am.  

Bridge Score Books 
At a member’s suggestion, we have ordered and received some of the popular multi game bridge score books. These are available at any game from the Director-of-the-day at a subsidized cost of $10. 

Name Tags

The BOTE name tags for all new members have arrived!  Pick them up next time you come to the club from the Director or the Instructor of you class.  

And finally, our next Executive meeting is Monday 15th April after the afternoon game. Let us know if you have anything you’d like us to discuss. 

See you at the club! 

A few weeks ago we posted an article that cited Malcolm Gladwell with reference to his controversial and widely disputed 10,000 hours rule. Gladwell’s main argument was that for one to attain success in any cognitive task, they needed something more than skill, luck, and natural ability.  Using examples in sports, music, computers, and other cases Gladwell’s premise suggested that to become really good at some challenging task or to master a complex skill, an individual needed to work & practice at that pursuit for about 10,000 hours.

Those of us who have laboured long & hard to figure out Duplicate Bridge might certainly appreciate Malcolm’s reasoning with respect to complex ventures.

But if we continue our exploration into connections of bridge with pop psychology we may run into a few speed bumps trying to understand another Gordian Knot, the Dunning-Kruger Effect. In 1999 David Dunning and Justin Kruger published a study that basically said ‘people tend to overestimate their own level of skills, often have exaggerated views of their actual performances in field accomplishment & also fail to recognize their personal limitations.’ The study also made another even stranger observation: ‘most people, regardless of their competence or ability at anything, perceive themselves to be slightly above average, hovering around the 60th percentile.’  This will probably not be particularly pellucid to many Bridge Teachers & Club Managers who often experience just the opposite with most of their up & coming bridge players. These Teachers & Managers will tell you that in fact, their students and casual bridge players often tend to underestimate their own level of skills & express diminished views of their own competencies. Result - they have a fixed fear of trying Duplicate and sadly some never will.

IMPROVERS ARE IMPROVING

Recently, however, two players cast fear to the winds, showed up at our Wednesday Game and gave it a very good go. We told you of Gary Follett’s first place success in the earlier ‘10,000 hours article’ in March; this month we are proud to see Judy Osmond follow in Gary’s footsteps and repeat his accomplishment. Last Wednesday Judy was fortunate to be paired with Janet Parsons, one of the best players in our Club, undeniably an excellent mentor for any new player wishing to try Duplicate and very giving of her skills and time. A new unpracticed partnership as far as we know?  But, yes they won! Not just in C or B, but they placed first in A, winning the overall! Certainly a remarkable achievement for a new partnership and first time duplicate player!

GAME ON

Last Fall the Education Committee put one of its goals as promotion of Beginner's Bridge. We put together an experimental 8-Lesson Fall Session. Judy, one of those Beginner students, was a little disappointed when the session was over in October, she helped arrange Beginning Bridge 2.0, another full Session. Then, when that finished up late in 2023, Judy talked us into just one more Go in 2024. The original Fall Session had declined from 12 students to just 8, for the Winter classes, but when we launched the Improvers Sessions in mid-January, another 12-13 players had joined us so over 20 students were enrolled. 

GAME ON & ON

I guess you can guess what happened when Improvers I finished up. Yes Judy was instrumental in organizing Improvers II, doing all the coordinating, liaison with students, collecting the fees & assisting with the registration. A great help. Just recently, Judy sent us a note with an organizing effort to continue the Improver classes into Spring 2024.

So, if you know of any casual bridge player who would like some bridge tips and lots of practise hands, our classes run from 10 am to noon, on Thursday mornings through April & May.

Incidentally, almost all our Beginner students joined BOTE as 2024-25 members.

The Ed Committee is very grateful to Judy for her contributions to BOTE’s educational efforts and congratulations on your win last Wednesday afternoon.