A long-term and active member of Stafford Bridge Club, Derek Skinner will be moving to Cheshire in mid-August.   Derek has been a stalwart of the mid-week evening sessions of the Club since joining in 1966.    He formed a lasting partnership with John Eaves, who had joined a year later, and has also partnered many others, serving regularly as a very welcome standby.   He embodies much of the Club’s history, having experienced the many migrations of the Club before it settled in its present premises at the Showground.    An experienced and able bridge player, Derek is a model of modest and courteous behaviour at the bridge table.    He will be greatly missed at the Club.     We wish Derek and his wife Rita well for the future, and trust he will find good opportunities for more bridge in his new home.

Message from your webmaster:  (updated most days with the latest news sent by members etc) For the Bridge Club Live basic information.for new converts to on line bridge click here.  See also news 12/7/2020 from BridgeClubLive (you can now put "towels" on the oppo chairs, see here, to reserve a table in the social room) and work is progressing to have club "members only" rooms, trials are presently going on and the first genuine club sessions will start 10th August.  Should SBC book a virtual club session slot?  Have your say.  The EBU is also coming up with other options, more on this later!  If you are on the list to receive an EBU diary it should arrive early September.

SBC Teams League:

Matches started week of 18th May - 23rd May (Wk1).  The results so far:

WK9* Match played in WK 11

WK8* 15 boards match so handicap and VP scale adjusted accordingly. Handicap difference for 16 boards is 13, which equates to .8 per board. Therefore handicap difference for 15 boards is 12.2 VP Scale win by 24 is 15.74VP & by 23 is 15.56VP. Difference .18 & .2 of this is .04, so 15.56 is increased to 15.60    

WK5* 15 boards match so handicap and VP scale adjusted accordingly. Handicap difference for 16 boards is 19, which equates to 1.1875 per board Therefore handicap difference for 15 boards is 17.8125 After handicap Carols team won by 17.8125 - 9 = 8.8125    VP Scale win by 9 is 12.55VP & by 8 is VP12.29    Difference .26 & .8125 of this is .21125, so 12.29 is increased to 12.50    

Wk4* 15 boards match so handicap and VP scale adjusted accordingly. Handicap difference for 16 boards is 37, which equates to 2.3 per board. Therefore handicap difference for 15 boards is 34.7 VP Scale win by 1 is 10.31VP & by 0 is 10.0VP  Difference .31 & .7 of this is .22, so 10.31 is reduced to 10.22

Wk3* 15 boards match so handicap and VP scale adjusted accordingly. Handicap difference for 16 boards is 12, which equates to .75 per board. Therefore handicap difference for 15 boards is 11.25. VP Scale win by 6 is 11.76VP & by 5 is 11.48VP Difference .28 & .25 of this is .07, so 11.76 is reduced to 11.69

** Match abandonned

The timetable spreadsheet as sent  by Terry 10/05/20 (with team member change and available times as amended 14/05/20) has been copied to this site, any more recent info direct from Terry is the information to take as gospel. 

10/8/20 With summer holidays and relaxation of lock down Terry is compiling a list of standby players to facilitate matches being completed.

Robin's Quiz

New quiz out soon - watch this space. Click the links for earlier quizzes, 13/7/20 2♥ response, 15/6/20 Opening Leads, 3/4/20 Bidding Quiz.

Friday night

Real world friendly group meeting on-line but all are welcome here including old friends who have moved away from the Stafford area. 16 boards, 4 boards against each of 4 other pairs, starting at 7 p.m. on a Friday night.  Please let Ann know if you are interested in coming by the Wednesday so that she has time to organise the numbers to be a multiple of 8 by Friday.

Success for Stafford players.

The BCL pairs competition that completed on August 3rd has a Stafford player in 5th place.  The next BCLSwiss Pairs League starts Tuesday 1st September and is taking entries until 25th August.  BCL runs many competitions, watch their home page.  Some, like the individual tournament, run daily and are shown on the BCL home page right hand side, others have set dates.

General Information

Warnings:

• Membership of BCL:  Check on the BCL home page now and then to see when your renewal date comes up . Hover over the members tab and click on "Membership Summary".  Don't wait until your league match day to find out that your BCL membership has run out! 
• Has your EBU membership been validated on BCL?  Are you getting a message Please phone the EBU and ask for your Membership to be validated on the BCL home page under your alias?  If you are please phone Karen who will sort it for you immediately to ensure your master points etc etc etc. are recorded.

If you lose your connection to BCL mid game for any reason (could be an internet connection your end, their end or somewhere between) click on “Enter” when the system lets you.  Please report any cases where you find play not in the same place as you left it to the club Captain.

Reminder about mis-clicked calls:  can be corrected provided that your partner has not yet called see rule 9 in league rules. BCL procedure states that to rectify immediately “Leave table” and straight away return to your seat and explain that you Mis-clicked your call. The players need to click “Ready” again and the auction should re-start as per the original auction up to the point of the mis-clicked call.  If partner has already called not only can you not correct your call but also mustn’t give unauthorised information by revealing that you had made an error.

SSCBA launched virtual BBO county club on Wednesdays,  at  7 p.m. (started 10th June)
These events offer a different way of playing, a normal movement with an EBU director working from home. Regularly about 10 tables take part with several SBC members playing 

For members who log in to the SBC site there should be an extra column on the membership tab for BCLalias where you can add your BCL alias for all members to see.  To add it to your details you have to scroll quite far down the list but to see the alias for others it appears to the left of their EBU number (webmaster had a headache trying to achieve this change!).

Other sources of information are:  bridge base on line (BBO has a number of existing members from SBC) the County has up a virtual SSCBA group.  Watch over the shoulder of the experts, youtube videos, pick and possibly question, your expert in real time with Zoom.  EBU, EBU Webinar 16/5/2020, Andrew Robson BridgeCast and Bernard Magee.   All ideas/messages for members etc to webmaster@staffordbridgeclub.co.uk. In the real world please look out for one another, check your regular partners on the phone for example.

Captain Terry with help from Secretary Carol and others has set up an on line league on Bridge Club Live (BCL) with 9 teams that started on 18th May.  Each team plays one "home"  and one "away" match against each of the other 8 teams over an 18 week  period.  If you would like to give Bridge Club Live a try click here for the basic instructions, some 42 SBC members have already joined.  The SSCBA is setting up a County wide BBO session on June 10th, see here for advice on how to get started with BBO.  Please don't see these as either/or options but rather as two different ways of enjoying online bridge which add variety to your game.