The  East Grinstead Basic Bridge Pairs was held on BBO on Saturday 27th November.  It was very successful with a good mix of novice players and the more experienced.

The prize winners were :-

first place East/West - Christine and Philip Nash (pictured) who were also the highest-placed 'under 7' NGS players in the “novice” section.  As Christine and Philip took the prize for E/W, the novice prize went to the next-highest pair in that section who were Trish Robson and June Carr.  These 4 players are all members of Crawley Bridge Club.

Congratulations go to all the winners. The future of bridge in Sussex is looking very hopeful!

My thanks go to Peter Clinch for his very capable directing, to Mervyn Wotton for collating the entries and mainly to all those who supported the event.  It will run again in November next year either on BBO or F2F.

Helen Kent

After the Sussex Green-Pointed Swiss Pairs on November 21st and the East Grinstead Basic Bridge Pairs on November 27th, here are two further one-day online events to help you through more winter weekends :-

• The Sussex Mixed Pairs Championship on BBO on Sunday December 5th will start at 11 a.m. and will only cost £5 per player.  This event will be limited to a maximum of 38 pairs so please enter early.
• The Sussex Green-Pointed Swiss Teams will be played on BBO for the first time this year on Sunday December 12th.  This event will start at 11 a.m. and will cost £12 per player.

You can register for both events here.

The Green-Pointed Swiss Pairs event on Sunday November 21st was won convincingly by John Dagnall and Andrew Bannock of Surrey who finished 9 VPs clear of Martin Stephens and Michael Byrne of Scotland / Manchester.  The highest-placed Sussex pair were James and Alan Hobden and the highest-placed Sussex player was Alan Setchell, playing with Graham E. Osborne of Surrey.

Many thanks to Julian Mitchell who directed and to John Hardy and Mervyn Wotton who managed the entry and prize-giving.  We hope you'll join us for our next Green-pointed event on BBO, a Swiss Teams on Sunday 12th December.

Peter Clinch (Organiser)

Over two days last weekend, our team played all the other county teams in the Tollemache & finished fifth with only four in our section to qualify for the final.  After playing what we thought were the stronger teams in our group on Saturday, we held first position with a healthy lead. Unfortunately, on Sunday we performed less well & the opposition excelled themselves.  We missed out by the smallest of margins.  All players should be congratulated on some solid performances & look forward to next year when we will try again.

Martin Pool
(non-playing captain)

Please look out for your local heat of the Sussex Championship Pairs, which builds to a live final in March next year.  Heats are a mixture of live and on-line. There is no heat fee over and above normal club table money and any County member may enter (but only once!).

If you are less-experienced, please consider entering the David Pavey Pairs, run along similar lines to the Sussex Pairs (club heats leading to a final), but for players who are newer to the game.  Watch out for a heat at your club in the coming months, followed by a final towards the start of next year.

We are planning for 2022 and expect to see returns of the Sussex Championship Teams, the Sussex League, the Charity Simultaneous Pairs and, hopefully, a live Spring Congress.  I’ll return soon with more details of these events. Until then, please enjoy your bridge for the remainder of the year!

Peter Clinch
SCCBA Chairman and Tournament Manager

Several Sussex clubs have returned to face-to-face bridge and others are planning to do so.  The  attached list gives the latest known position for each club.  If any club wishes to make changes to their entry in this list, they should contact the SCCBA WebMaster.

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