An enjoyable match was played over 18 boards on- line resulted in a convincing 70 IMP victory for RAC. I played with Isabelle, and our partners were Terry & Marina. We won our bit by 3 IMP's so we can conclude the damage was done by our 8 team mates!

I was assigned to East and the bridge gods kept dealing me weak distributional hands. A 5/6 a 6/5 then in the next set a 5/7 (encountering a 9 card club suit by opponents) and finally a 5/5 and a 6/6! I decided to wait and see with these and this proved to be a good policy. As always one remembers one’s errors rather than triumphs. I made a beginners (instructive) error on the penultimate board. We were well up and I was careless that is my story.

Gosh August already. We are no nearer having face to face Bridge and hence are continuing with Bridge online. 

Nicole, our one in a million Director, has been brilliant and we currently have seven Bridge sessions going throughout the week which is one every day except Friday with two on Saturdays. There are full details on bridgewebsof how to join BridgeBase Online (BBO) and a link to our calendar. The link to pay is here.

The payments for August will remain at £5.00 per day time session or £35.00 per month for all day sessions. Wednesday evenings are the only exception with payment being 5BBO dollars.

We are delighted that our intermediate group, led by their superb teacher Anne Catchpole, have now gained enough confidence to play in the main Sunday 11.00am duplicate session and will be very welcome at all the sessions.

I would again just like to highlight the newest sessions which are Wednesday evenings and start at 6.45pm so please be registered with your partner by 6.35pm. 

There are also two individual events on Saturdays. You register as an individual and play with different partners throughout the 12 board session. There is an Early Bird individual on Saturdays at 9.05am and a Saturday evening Night Owl event at 9.05pm. Come and join them! I have played them and they are fun and do not take much more than one hour.

We have held two Zoom sessions after playing which I really enjoyed. These were on Sunday, in place of the cancelled Summer Social, and Wednesday evening after the Ernest Lawson trophy. It was great to actually be able to see participants. 

Finally just a quick update on diary dates.

The Ross Cope Swiss Teams event is being postponed from this September to Thursday 18 March 2021.

The Ros and Bob Bowman Championship Pairs and Centenary Cup are both being cancelled from November 2020 and will be held in the Autumn 2021. 

The St James' Club Bridge Drive will also sadly not be held in 2020 but The Carlton Club, who are this years organisers, plan to hold it in Autumn 2021. 

Keep well and safe everyone enjoy the nice weather and hope to see you online very soon.

Best wishes

Sally

Bridge Activity Committee, Pall Mall
bridge-pmcommittee@royalautomobileclub.co.uk

On 24^th June,   the  RAC played its yearly social match against the Cumberland and, par to form, lost.

Nicole organized and directed the match, divided in 4 sessions of 6 boards each, with her customary  professionality and patience.  

We all enjoyed the event and the pair who gave away 1400 shall remain charitably nameless.

You will all be pleased to see this is a brief update although it is sadly because there is not much to report. I struggle to believe that it is now over eight months since face to face bridge ceased, we continue to play online and this is likely to continue at least for the next few months. Obviously news of a vaccine is looking very promising so hopefully there will soon be an end in sight to current severe restrictions. 

The Ros and Bob Bowman Championship Pairs was held on November 15. It was a great success. Forty pairs played forty boards over the day. The worthy overall winners were Malcolm Bricknell and Peter Hardyment from the Roehampton Club. They were in the lead for much of the time. The winners of the First Half were Jack Goss and Jake Maughan. The pair who finished in tenth place were John Kemball and Chris Morris. There are liquid prizes for all these pairs and that is currently being arranged. Congratulations to all of these and to Pascale Hakim and John Craggs who were second overall. We are very grateful to Karolina, Nicole and Howard Salter for all their hard work in successfully organising this event. 

Bridge continues in December and all sessions will run if there are enough pairs playing. Hence get your preparations done early and join us on some or all of Christmas Eve at 1.00pm, Sunday December 27 at 11.00am and New Years Eve at 1.00pm. Please don’t forget to pay Nicole £5/session or £35/ month by clicking here. 

Please click here for all details about bridge sessions and times and other news. You will also find there Tony Scouller’s weekly “hand of the week article” which is really educational and well worth reading. 

Date for your diary
Thursday 21 January 2021 at 5.30pm will be the Bridge Circle AGM which will be held via Zoom and the link will be sent to members after Christmas. 

Finally, I would like to wish everyone a very happy and healthy Christmas and New Year and do hope 2021 will be a much better year for all of us. 

Best wishes

Sally
Bridge Activity Committee, Pall Mall
bridge-pmcommittee@royalautomobileclub.co.uk