A Junior Bridge Camp will be held at the Kings Park Centre in Northampton from 28th - 30th August.  This item links to the booking and information page.  See our Facebook feed for the poster!

Earlier this year Stamford’s team Chadwick (Bill, Don McFarlane, Trevor Thrower and Tim Durdin) won the Broke Cup.  The winners of this competition earn the right to represent Northamptonshire Contract Bridge Association (NCBA) in the EBU’s Pachabo Cup.

The Pachabo Cup was held this past weekend on the RealBridge online platform.  The NCBA team was augmented by Rob Miller to make a team of 5, playing against 25 other teams.  The match was played over 104 boards - 52 per day, which is pretty challenging in anyone’s book.  Bill messaged on Sunday night to advise that the team had finished 8th=, a tremendous result against some very strong opposition.  (He also noted that he was pretty whacked!)

Congratulation to our famous five - all Stamford Bridge Club members, of course.
The full results can be viewed here

Photo - Mark Hodgson and Paul Collins - winners by quite a margin

Northamptonshire Contract Bridge Association Green Pointed Swiss Pairs

Stuart and I played in this event on Saturday 16th May.  ‘Green Point’ events tend to attract good players and for us playing against better players is something we enjoy - there is always something to learn.  Green points are a step up from the ‘Black’ points awarded by the club - see link in the comments for a Masterpoints tutorial page.  (Or ask Trevor….)   There were a good few Stamford pairs in attendance, and others who visit our club on occasion.  The ‘Swiss’ format means that there is a random draw for the first round with subsequent round draws being based on whether you have won or lost the previous round.  It ends up being a sort of ‘squash ladder’ format, and means that you end up playing against more pairs close to your standard, rather than being beaten up by the better players in every round.  And so it turned out…

We were drawn against Alastair and Tony from Cheltenham BC for the 7 boards of round one.  We were soundly beaten and when I checked later discovered they were AC and Q respectively on the NGS scale.  Much higher than us!  The 2nd round paired us against David and Francesca, who again proved too strong for us.  I recognised them, and discovered that they are occasional visitors to SBC, although they play mainly in and around London.

The 3rd round of 7 boards paired us against Judy and Steve.  Judy is a SBC member, playing with Bill on a Wednesday afternoon.  Similar story - outgunned.  By this time we felt we weren’t getting many breaks and so it wasn’t a surprise when Catherine and Frances pinned us firmly to the foot of the table at the session break.  28 boards down, with 21 (or so we thought) to play.

The gremlins in the computer system made themselves known at this point and there was a lengthy delay while our valiant EBU Director, Daniel, attempted to produce round 5 pairings.  We ended up having to re-enter all the scores into the tablets and this meant that play would be over 42 boards (6 rounds of 7) rather than 49.

Having taken sustenance on board we played Melvene and Patrick only to get some points and record a comprehensive victory.  Off the bottom of the table!  The final act took place as we won well again against Roger and David to finish with 2 wins out of 6, and unbeaten in the second half!  We also picked up half of a green point, which is something new for us both, and is welcome - I think.

Elsewhere in the room Stamford’s Bill C and his partner Chris finished mid-table, just behind Graham F and Gerry.  Nick and Ruby finished just behind Mick C and Gill W, who were 10th with Dan B and Rob M further up the top 10.  Ufuk and Chris W were 3rd, but Mark Hodgson and Paul Collins finished a long way ahead of our first round opponents, Alastair and Tony.  Congratulations to Mark and Paul - a stunning performance and well deserved victory.

It was a pity about the tech issues, but I really enjoyed my first green point event, and would encourage others to give it a go.  Everyone was very welcoming and we didn’t feel out of place in any way.   

David Ogg

Congratulations to the Stamford team which represented Northamptonshire at the regional final of the EBU Garden Cities competition.  Our team of Doreen Simpson and David Banks, Jane Reeve and Paul Collins, Angela Abbott and James Spencer and Gill Webb and Martin Brayshaw finished 5th out of 8 strong teams.  Well done, team!  Full results are here - Midlands at Leicester.

SBC has two different entities on Facebook.  The Stamford Bridge Club page is outward facing and we use it to communicate with the general public.  We advertise such events as Open Days and beginners lessons, with details of how to attend.  We do not generally feature club activities on this page, although we may reflect a media story such as Cafe Bridge which is already in the public domain.

We also have a members only private FB group, 90 strong at the time of writing (heading pictured at top of this item).  This is where you can join in discussions, start posts, view photos and keep in touch with other members.  We use it as addition to our website and email communications suite.  We also use this medium to showcase events such as quizzes, barbecue, Christmas parties and the like.  We will use photos on the page unless you have advised David, our comms man and newsletter editor, that you don’t wish to feature on social media.  We hope you will choose to join this SBC FB community - it’s great fun.  Please contact David if you want to join - reply to any newsletter email, see him at the club, or have a look at the Committee mugshots in the small bridge room where you will find his contact details.