We are pleased to welcome Rob Knox who joined the staff last week. Rob has joined the Accounts Department and will take over from Gail Nancarrow upon her retirement in September.

Rob's biography

We're pleased to announce the top clubs by number of player sessions for the year (2025/26). This is for sessions played up to the end of March.

Top 50 clubs by players 2025/26 | English Bridge Union

In preparation for Gordon Rainsford’s planned retirement at the end of March 2027, Jonathan Lillycrop has been appointed Chief Tournament Director of the EBU with immediate effect. Robin Barker will remain as Deputy Chief TD and Gordon will become “Consultant TD”.

Congratulations to Kay Preddy and Norman Selway who won the Portland Pairs, the EBU's Mixed Pairs Championship, with 65.55% over 48 boards in a field of 72 pairs on Sun 29 March. They were followed by Jeremy Dhondy & Anne Rosen with 63.80% and Dan McIntosh & Claire Robinson on 63.39%. Well done to all of them.

Congratulations to EBU member Kevin Castner who, as part of the Munich Plus team won the 2nd European Online Senior's Teams Championships for the Julian Klukowski Trophy on RealBridge.

We have 64 teams entered for this year's Spring Fours, so we have closed bookings through My EBU. If you want to join a waiting list in case of cancellations please contact us on 01296 317203 or comps@ebu.co.uk. 

We are aware that an email has been sent to a number of contacts for EBU clubs in BridgeWebs. If you have received such an email, please do not reply to the sender and do not be concerned. These emails appear to have been sent to people listed on club website, where emails are publicly available, and there does not seem to have been any data breach.

Congratulations to Sara Moran and Andrew McIntosh who won the Silver Medal in the Mixed Pairs Championship at the EBL Winter Transnational Championships in Prague last week!

We would like to inform you that from 1st February, the cost of our 12-Board games (both live and daylong) will go up to $2.40.

This is the first time these prices have gone up for a couple of years and we hope you will agree that this is not an excessive increase, being below inflation.

We are sad to announce the death of former Welsh International Diane Kurbalija.

As well as belonging to the WBU Diane was also a member of Gloucestershire. We extend our sympathy to Diane's family and friends. 

You can read her full obituary on the Bridge Great Britain website via the link below:

Diane Kurbalija Obituary

Congratulations to EBU players The Seniors (Rob Cliffe, Roger Gibbons, David Kendrick, Malcolm Pryor, David Robinson, Ed Scerri, Tony Sowter, Trevor Ward) who came third in the European Fall Online Transnational Senior Championship.

If you missed it, you can still listen again to Zeb Stocken on BBC Radio 2 as he reviews bridge in the style of the poem, The Night Mail with OJ Borg on the Sara Cox show just after 4.30pm.

Listen again on BBC Sounds, Zeb joins 37 minutes and 20 seconds into the show.

Congratulations to Cecilia Hazel Birdsall and Sam Akayan who won the EBL Under 16 Pairs on April 13 with a Cross-IMP average of +3.65 over 14 boards, almost double the score of the runners-up.

Congratulations to the DE BOTTON team (Antonio PALMA, Nicolai HEIBERG-EVENSTAD, Thor Erik HOFTANISKA, Artur MALINOWSKI) who won the bronze medal in the BAM Final A at the 2nd European Winter Transnational Championships in Prague.

The three people behind RealBridge, Andy Bowles (Operations Director) Graham Hazel (CEO and CTO) Shireen Mohandes (Commercial Director), all long-standing EBU members, have been given the IBPA Personalities of the Year award in the 2024 IBPA Awards. Well done to all of them!

Due to recent illness, Tony Russ has resigned from the board of the EBU and all associated committee memberships. Abbey Smith has been appointed to take his position as Vice-Chair of the EBU until the AGM in November.

Due to recent illness, Tony Russ has resigned from the board of the EBU and all associated committee memberships. Abbey Smith has been appointed to take his position as Vice-Chair of the EBU until the AGM in November.

The next Online Women's Training Session is on Wednesday 12th June and the expert is Pierre Schmidt. Simply TOO GOOD TO MISS! Partnerships or teams preferred but, if interested, contact England Co-ordinator, roswolfarth4901@gmail.com. 

We are sorry to announce the death of Mike Scoltock after a  long illness during which time he continued to play bridge. Mike was one of Surrey's top players over several decades and his achievements are listed on the Mayfield Bridge Club website.

We offer our condolences to his family and friends. 

Running from 3 - 5 December 2024 and annually thereafter, a new EBU Winter Mid-Week Online Congress will take place on Realbridge. This will have the same format as the former Seniors Congress, which it will replace, but it will be open to all EBU members without age restriction.

The EBU selection committee would like to invite applications for participation in the trials processes for the women’s, seniors and mixed teams. More details

The Board has elected Adrian Darnell as Chair and Tony Russ as Vice-Chair of the EBU until the AGM on 29 November when further elections will take place. This follows the resignation from the Board of former Chair Ian Payn after thirteen years on the Board, including six as Vice-Chair and four as Chair. The Board  expressed its gratitude to Ian for leading the EBU through recent, turbulent times.

Congratulations to Gordon Rainsford, EBU Chief Executive/Chief TD, who at the World Bridge Team Championships currently ongoing in Marrakech, Morocco, received a WBF TD promotion. He is now listed as one of a number of WBF Chief Tournament Directors.

• Full list of WBF TDs

Following a short temporary suspension while a bug was fixed that had been identified as allowing players to claim more tricks than they could legitimately get, these games have now been reinstated, in addition to the other (SAYC) daylong games which have continued to run throughout.

Players in the West Midlands will be saddened to hear of the death of Jayne Crump. There is a memorial post on the West Midlands Bridge Club website. We extend our sympathy to Jayne's family and friends.

Stratford-upon-Avon bridge club has announced that the funeral for Roy Dempster, a well-known bridge player nationally who sadly died last month, will be held on Wed 12 April at Noon.