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Release 2.19q
Midlands CC
9-High on
RealBridge
2 p.m.
25th Mar
Swiss Pairs
Entries to Paul Cutler
Link to game on the day

Webmaster made a typo in the information emailed to members on January 30th 2023, click here for the correct link to Tettenhall or here to see the corrected content of the email.

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Recent Updates
Home Page
20th Mar 2023 19:53 GMT
News Page
15th Mar 2023 08:58 GMT
MCOL Dawes 2022/23
14th Mar 2023 08:35 GMT
Newsletter 30-01-23
30th Jan 2023 17:53 GMT
Welcome to Staffs & Shrops Contract Bridge Association

The game is hosted on RealBridge so that you get to see and talk to your partner and the opposition – it is as close to face-to-face as we can get. Inter-County bridge events have always been for the most experienced players, but this event, run by the Midlands Counties, is to widen the opportunities to players of all standards to represent Staffs & Shrops. If you haven’t played on RealBridge yet, you can log on to RealBridge and play some practice games.

All events will be for NGS grade 9 or below. A player with one point higher can play with a player with 1 or more points lower. To find out if you are eligible, go to https://www.ebu.co.uk/ngs/STA.

Please persuade your partner to play with you in this Pairs event. The County with the highest THREE pairs will be declared the winner: so we need a good turn-out for the competition. 

Around 25 boards will be played, starting at 2 p.m., and S&SCBA offers free entry for its members to this event..  Click here for more details.


Three Staffs and Shrops pairs took part in the event on the 28th January, best placed were Ken Davies and Steve Lister coming 4th.  Click here for the results  Overall county winners were Oxfordshire with pairs coming 1st, 5th and 7th.. The session was followed by Q & A on some of the hands led by Ben Norton, a leading young international.  The next one of these No Fears events is likely to be played at the end of March. The No Fears have been aimed at pairs with an average NGS grade of 9 or lower.  

Thee competitions are hosted on RealBridge so that you get to see and talk to your partner and the opposition – it is as close to face-to-face as we can get. If you haven’t played on RealBridge yet, you can log on to RealBridge and play some practice games.  Free taster RealBridge sessions are held once a week, mainly on Sunday evenings (these have to be booked at least 2 hours in advance).  Click here to test your camera on RealBridge.

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP PAIRS - Played 5th March

The championship pairs, a green-pointed event, was played on Sunday 5th March 2023 at Newcastle Bridge Club.  Two Howell sessions were played with 22 boards in each. The result was so tight it was not until the final board that was scored that the winners, Michael McCartney & Martin Church, were decided coming just ahead of Warren Perks & Michael Goodall. Third and fourth places also very close, Tony Togneri & Kevin Goode were third just ahead of John Hartley & Kath Adams.  The top pairs are eligible to play in the Corwen Tropy event on 3rd - 4th June.  Well done all. 

So many thank you's, first to the pair who stood in at the very last minute, to Neil Morley aided by John Whitelock for directing, to Pam for the picture, to Rita for looking after everyone, to Martin and Tracy for providing the great refreshments at the interval and to Judy for all the organisation beforehand to ensure the event ran so smoothly on the day.   

Final match MCOL win for all three divisions

We played our final Midland Counties Online League (Dawes) match of the 2022-23 season on Sunday, 12th March, against Leicestershire. All three teams won, the division 1 team by 13-7 VPs, division 2 by 20-0 VPs, division 3 by 19-1 VPs. Those results should see the Staffshrops teams finish around mid-table in the second and third divisions, and the first team should at least not finish bottom. Thanks and well done for all who played. The final scoring tables are yet to be updated, but can be found at EBU Results | Midland Counties League 2022-23 Division 1. The full results of the day's matches with player lists and travellers can be found at Midland Counties Congress, Warwickshire CBA (bridgewebs.com)

  • Regional Finals: 26th March 2023 (BBO and RealBridge);
  • Final: 15th – 16th April 2023, Online (RealBridge)

In 2023 any pair that scored over 55% in a club game between 5th Feb and 18th Feb will be entitled to play in the Regional Finals on 26th March (must enter though). The top 50 from the 5 regions progress to National final over a weekend in April.  Club members who have qualified to enter should have been notified by now and will be able to enter through myEBU.

If you have qualified to enter and are not yet an online bridge player there is time to get up and running provided you have a reliable internet connection.

There is to be an EBED Spring Junior Bridge Camp at the Pioneer Centre at Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire DY14 8JG on 15th-16th April 2023. Come and enjoy a packed weekend of bridge tuition and play for young people 8 - 21 years.  (Parents or grandparents are also welcome).  All levels welcome from beginners to junior experts.  See flyer and watch bridge4schools "2023 Spring Junior Camp" for details. See also fund raising event for juniors organised by Oxfordshire Bridge Association played on 19th March where some SSCBA members took part.

EBED event

Results
Pairs Staffs & Shrops
Scorer: Oliver Cowan
Pairs Staffs & Shrops
Scorer: Eddie
County Champions Pairs (Bearn)
Calendar
22nd March 2023
Pairs Staffs & Shrops
BBO
6:45 for 7p.m.
25th March 2023
MCC Nine-High Online Swiss Pairs
RealBridge 2 p.m
26th March 2023
EBU National Pairs Regional Final
Site maintenance 8:00 GMT on Wednesday 22nd March 2023.

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Welcome
Welcome

Welcome to Staffordshire and Shropshire Contract Bridge Association (S&SCBA). The area covered by the Association ranges from the Welsh border in the West to Burton on Trent in the East, Newcastle under Lyme in the North to Ludlow in the South. Our objectives are to promote duplicate bridge in the counties, to encourage inter-club, etc., competitions and to employ the funds in the best interests of the game.

The County has teams of eight entered in the Midland League (Dawes, Porter and Markham) and annually enters a team in the EBU Tollemache competition. The Midlands league covers Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire in addition to ourselves. The County also participates in the Edgar Foster Cups and Midland Teams Challenge Bowl, events for the six counties of Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and ourselves.

During the winter months teams of four league matches for County members are held on the second Wednesday of the month, and there is also a team of four knock-out competition.  Inter Club Sim Pairs are run regularly, and, various pairs competition events are held annually.

County clubs affiliated to the EBU are Border, Eccleshall, Nantwich, Newcastle, Newport, Oswestry, StaffordTettenhallWolverhampton and Wrekin.  Wolverhampton Bridge Club became the playing headquarters of S&SCBA in December 2013.

Staffs & Shrops Online Bridge

AN INVITATION TO ALL MEMBERS of S&SCBA TO PLAY BRIDGE IN A FRIENDLY CLUB ATMOSPHERE ON LINE

Wednesday Evenings 7 p.m.

Regular SSCBA Virtual Bridge Club

SSCBA  set up a virtual “Club” with the help of the EBU and Bridge Base Online (BBO), holding sessions on Wednesday evenings (a traditional County night). The first SSCBA Club on line session was on  Wednesday, 10th June 2020, at 7 p.m. There are still regularly around 7 or 8 tables each week even though some clubs have opened up. Click here for information on how to join the group.

From Online Membership Secretary's Newsletter of 29th November 2021

Robots:  We believe that when we set up the online club on Wednesdays we stipulated that robots would only be used in an emergency:  loss of partner or to complete a full table (BBO can’t cope with half-tables). No one likes to meet a robot at the table so we have asked our current TD to tweak the rules of our game to exclude starting to play with a robot. The county has to pay the BBO fees and the P2P fees for stand-in players and robots. 
“Partnership Desk”:    If you are without a partner for the evening, I understand that this site is a place you could try to find one. Such a partner has to be a member of our club though: so that means other members have to use that system too. Alternatively, if you are prepared to play with another person or a robot, the TD might invite you to be part of that standby pair.
Alerts & Explanations:   These are much improved, but don’t forget to add an explanation if you click on Alert.
System cards:   You can complete any number of convention cards, one for each partner, and your opponent can look at yours by clicking on one of the white lines in the blue box at top left. A shorter version can be completed under Account to the right of the page, and opponents can look at that by clicking your user name.
Names:   How nice and friendly it would be if we had a name for each player rather than a blank. Someone might greet you by name! You can presumably delete it if you are playing elsewhere and you want to remain anonymous.

Shropshire Congress 2023 Cancelled
Shropshire Congress 2023 Cancelled

With regret the Committee of S&SCBA has decided to cancel the next Shropshire Congress and will not be organising it in the future. We are no longer allowed to run it on-line;  we believe that there would be insufficient numbers to support it as a face to face event.