Wiltshire Green Point

Saturday 6th March and Sunday 7th March

For full details and entry form: click here

Please note - there wil be no usual Wiltshire Saturday Pairs on 6th March

Master Pairs 2021

Have you ever wanted to test your skills against players of a similar level of experience across the country? You will have your chance on Sunday 28th February. Bath are hosting a heat of the Masters Pairs, which is open to all EBU members belowe the rank of Regional Master. If you are not sure of your rank, you can find out by logging in to My EBU and clicking on Masterpoints, or by clicking here. Further information about the event may be found here.

The Bath heat will be played on Realbridge. There will be two sessions. The first will be 24 boards starting at 10.45am, and the escond will be between 20 and 24 boards (depending on numbers) starting at 2.45pm. This will allow for at least 1hours break, before finishing around 6pm. It will cost £8 per player, payable in advance - for more information and to enter and pay, please click here.

Notification of Wiltshire Contract Bridge Association AGM 2021

This year's Annual General Meeting will be a virtual one, held on Zoom at 2pm Sunday 11th April 2021. The agenda and Zoom invitation will be sent out at least 3 weeks before the meeting, with a repeat Zoom invitation sent a couple of days before the meeting just in case. As the meeting will be a virtual one, we are asking for questions to be sent to me, Sue Phillips, at suephillips222@gmail.com by 28th March 2021.

The constitution requires WCBA to have 3 officers and up to 10 other committee members. Below is a list of current committe members who are willing to stand for nomination and the nominations I alreayd hold. The closing date for new nominiations is 8th March 2021.

Current committee willing to stand:

Treasurer - Chaz Cross

Secretary - Sue Phillips

Committee members - Gayle Webb, Richard Samter, Richard Gwyer, Stuart Bridge, Andrew Parkes

Nominations:

Chairperson - Lucy Cross

Committee - Dave Latchem, Ian Roach, Trevor Day, Martyn Tranter

Sue Phillips, WCBA Honarary Secretary

Congratulations to the winners of the Championship Pairs, who will go forward to represent Wiltshire:

1st Tina Cottee and Sriram Chari

2nd Brian Johnson and Sue Hands

3rd Stuart Bridge and Roger Karn

Congratulations also to the winners of the Plate competition:

Susie Gall and Trevor Purches

For full results, click here

Garden Cities Qualifier

As in previous years, Wiltshire will be holding a heat of the Garden Cities Trophy. It will be played on the Realbridge platform, on Sunday 28th March, starting at 2pm. Depending on the number of entries, we are intending to have a complete round robin of 36-42 boards. There will be a break roughly halfway, so the expected finish time is 8pm. The winners will go forward to the regional final to be held on 8th May 2021, and the national final will be held on 19th June. In light of the prevailing Covid-19 situation, the EBU may scrap the regional finals, more information may be found here. 

Each affliated club in the county will be allowed to enter one team. Please enter as soon as possible. If there are fewer than 14 entries, we will allow multiple entries per club up to a maximum of 14. If we get too many additional teams, they will be allocated in the following order:

1. Entries per club, i.e.no third team will be accepted until all first and second teams have been

2. The teams's average NGS (taken immediately after entries close)

Entries close on 21st March. The price is £56 per team of 8, which may be paid by the club or team captain. Payment should be made to:

Payee name: WCBA

Sort code: 52-30-27

Acc. no.:35527234

Entries via the web site, click here.

Further to the EBU AGM on 25th November where the issue of online cheating was discussed, the EBU has increased the sentences for online cheating. The full details are available by clicking on this link. Wiltshire Contract Bridge Association supports the efforts made by the EBU to ensure that everyone is able to enjoy their bridge.

Congraulations to Gayle Webb on being voted in as the club representative on the EBU Board. We are very lucky to have someone like Gayle representing the interests of all EBU affiliated clubs and we wish her every success in this new post. For more details, click here

Wiltshire Clubs Online

The country is now in the third period of lockdown and although there is hope with the current vaccination programme, it seems unlikely that face-to-face bridge will resume until early summer 2021.

In the meantime, many of you are already playing online at your local club or at Wiltshire events, or taking part in the online Teams League. Clubs are offering support and help to any of their members who wish to play online, and many Wiltshire clubs are happy to include members from other clubs in their online sessions. For details, click here for the list of Wiltshire clubs and click on the web link for the club to see what they are offering.

Wiltshire Online Bridge

Whilst the doors of our various Wiltshire clubs remain closed, our members have been learning new skills and online bridge is growing at a rapid rate.  Many of the clubs are now running “Virtual club” duplicate sessions, and teams matches and leagues have been evolving.

Wiltshire is running two weekly online competitions which are open to all Wiltshire players and members of Wiltshire clubs. 

On Tuesday and Saturday afternoons we have an 18 board match-pointed pairs, Tuesdays starting at 2pm, and the Saturday session starting at 1pm. 

Both these events are suitable for players of all standards.  The cost is $3.00 BBO per session and they last approximately 2 hours. 

This is a great way of getting a competitive game of bridge and for meeting up with old friends from your own club or neighbouring clubs throughout Wiltshire.

Results of these events are shown in our results tab in the main menu.

If you would like more information or would like to enter to play on either day, please contact Gayle Webb gaylewebb@blueyonder.co.uk .  It is essential that you contact Gayle prior to entering on the day as these events are “closed” events so as to ensure only Wiltshire players are involved.

If you have not played online and would like some help with how to get started, please contact anyone of the three below, all of whom will be happy to help you

Gayle Webb         gaylewebb@blueyonder.co.uk

Stuart Bridge      stuartbridgeuk@yahoo.co.uk

Richard Samter  richardsamter@gmail.com