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If you plan to use the tube to travel to and from the club over the weekend 19 & 20 September, in particular for the Mixed Pairs on the Sunday, be warned there are works scheduled then that you will need to plan around. You won’t be able to reach Ravenscourt Park and you won’t be able to reach Hammersmith on the District or the Piccadilly.

If you plan to use the tube to travel to and from the club over the weekend 18 & 19 April, in particular for the Mixed Pairs on the Sunday, be warned there are works scheduled then that you will need to plan around. You won’t be able to reach Ravenscourt Park and you won’t be able to reach Hammersmith on the District or the Piccadilly.

You will be able to reach Hammersmith on the Hammersmith & City and Circle lines You can find details on the TfL website.

The LMBA Championship and 9‑high Pairs events due to have taken place on Sunday this week have been cancelled because of insufficient entries.

Members are encouraged to attend the club AGM to be held this year just before the regular duplicate on Friday 7 November.

Registration for our Half Marathon this coming Saturday 4 October has closed to enable the movement to be finalised. Would registered players arrive a little before 10.30am to assist in a prompt start, please.

Please allow extra time travelling to or from the club if using public transport over the weekend, 4 & 5 October. There is no service then on much of the District line including Ravenscourt Park.

The Friday evening duplicate this week on 12 June is upstairs in the Warwick Room.

The Goldhawks Tuesday duplicates due to have been held on 14 October and 21 October will not take place as most of the regulars are away on a bridge holiday. The duplicates will resume on 28 October.

If you use the tube to travel to and from the club, be warned there are strikes planned from the evening of Sunday 7 September through Thursday 11 September. You can find details of the strikes on the TfL website.

The LMBA’s green‑pointed Summer congress takes place at the weekend 5 & 6 July. There is still time to enter the pairs on Saturday and/or the teams on Sunday. Contact the club if you want to form a team; we have a visitng pair from Poland currently looking for teammates.

The YC’s Individual for the Keith Loveys Trophy followed by a Summer Party buffet and general knowledge quiz is coming up on Sunday 22 June. You can play bridge, come for the buffet and quiz or do both; please register to give us an idea of numbers.

Please allow extra time, if coming to the club by road, since King Street is due to be closed, because of planned works, from Friday 25 through Sunday 27 April.

The sixth (and last in the ladder) scheduled date for our Tuesday evening monthly matchpointed duplicate (upstairs in the Warwick Room) is coming up on 17 June.

The YC Championship Pairs for the Franklin To trophy takes place at the end of this week on Sunday 2 February starting at 11.30am.

The first scheduled date for our Autumn 2025 Super League matches is 27 August—Wednesday this week.

Both the Friday morning and evening duplicates this week on 15 August are upstairs in the Warwick Room.

The Friday evening duplicate is cancelled on 13 December but will be held at the club in the Main Hall as usual on the day before—on Thursday 12 December.

Please allow extra time travelling to or from the club from the Richmond direction if using public transport at the weekend, 5 & 6 September. There is no service on the District line between Turnham Green and Richmond at the weekend.

The club is closed as usual over Easter, so there are no Friday morning and no Friday evening duplicates on 18 April.

John Probst

John died at the age of 78 on 17 September 2026, after a long illness. John was a member of the Young Chelsea since the very early days—he joined in 1973. In a club with its fair share of “characters”, John stood out as one of the most colourful. He gave himself the nickname of Mad Dog and lived up to this with his lively style of bidding and play. He was a very active club member who played, taught bridge, contributed articles to the club magazine, and above all acted as the club’s main Tournament Director for many years—in fact he became an EBU Panel TD and was also chief TD for London County. John was a whizz at working out bridge movements and he developed and implemented a computer scoring system for the YC, long before standard programs were available. He was also briefly a committee member in the 1980s, though in 1981 he diverted his efforts away from the YC to set up a new club in north London—the Woodberry Bridge Club, which has gone from strength to strength over the years. The YC was always his home, however.

Nearly 20 years ago, John had a massive stroke which he survived but which caused him to lose most of his sight. He overcame this to continue to play bridge, with the help of players calling out the cards, but eventually this became too much for him and his last visit to the YC was to Goldhawk Road about ten years ago.

John had four children with his first wife, Fey, who he met at the club—Katherine, Richard, Diana and Stephen. All four played occasionally at the club whilst still very young and Richard went on to become a very good player you represented England internationally as a junior. Later on, John married Maxine, also a YC member, who cared for him through his stroke and recovery, before they parted amicably and she returned to her native Canada—though she is still a country member of the club and visits from time to time.

John was one of a kind, hard to describe. Any new club member who never knew John, or anyone with fond memories they would like to refresh, can get a good idea of his style from various examples of his written articles which are on the club website’s “History” page. There is an article he wrote in 1997 describing the special nature of the Young Chelsea, and many contributions from him in the club’s occasional magazine “Chelsea Bridge”. They are all worth a look.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to John’s family and friends.

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The National Inter‑Club Knock‑Out 2026–2027 season is coming soon. Entries to the EBU close at midday on Monday 9 October.

Last season, the club entered teams captained by the following: Graham Sadie, Claire Robinson, Boris Nedev, Richard Hillman, Guy Hart, David Muller, Tim Leslie/Ben Norton, Niall Igoe and James Thrower. Hopefully all will want to enter again, and other members are also welcome to enter teams—the more the merrier.

To all NICKO team captains: Please enter your team by emailing the club with the names of your team members as soon as possible. We will then check your eligibility and forward the entries to the EBU. All team members must be bona fide club members as detailed in the eligibility requirements—see:

www.ebu.co.uk/competitions/national-inter-club-knock-out-nicko

Please also note that teams are asked to indicate willingness (or otherwise) to play matches online in the early rounds of the competition. Later rounds will default to face‑to‑face, but early matches may be played online to reduce travel costs etc.

The NICKO entry fee is £106 per team (less for teams containing juniors, who are charged at half price) which will be deducted from the team captain’s YC club account.

Looking forward to receiving your entries and to a successful season in the competition.

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Item posted 12 September 2026

Congratulations to the YC members listed below who attained a promotion in EBU rank during August!

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Item posted 9 September 2026

It is safe to predict that a Young Chelsea team will win the NICKO this season as two have battled through all the earlier rounds and will face each other in the final. They are YC B (Paul Barden, Sally Brock, Barry Myers, Claire Robinson, Cameron Small and David Willis) and YC D (Brian Callaghan, Heather Dhondy, Richard Hillman, Ambrose Holmes‑Mackie, Paula Leslie and Nicola Smith).

Meanwhile in the plate YC H (Maruša Baša, Jonathan Harris, Niall Igoe, Eduard Malhasyan and Steve Root) will face whichever Sheffield BC team gets through the remaining semifinal.

Good luch to all our players involved.

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Item posted 8 September 2026

The Young Chelsea Individual is held in memory of the late Keith Loveys, a popular club member and expert bridge player. At eight tables, entries were significantly higher than they were last year. As usual, the event was part of the Summer Party this year on Saturday 26 July.

Congratulations to the overall winner Brian Callaghan finishing on 68.45%.

The event featured winners for each compass direction; Brian was the top South player. First amongst the Norths was Sara Chiappara on 56.85%, amongst the Easts was Barry Myers on 57.14% and amongst the Wests was Martin Baker on 61.31%.

Results

[See more…]  

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Item posted 26 July 2026

The Young Chelsea is affiliated to the LMBA which, as last year, ran the London Congress at the club. This year’s event took place over the weekend of 4 & 5 July. On the Saturday, 40 pairs played a seven‑round Swiss Pairs.

Congratulation to the winners, over a match clear of second place, on 119 VPs Sarah Kosch and Jon Cooke. Their prize was £200.

Results

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On the Sunday 17 teams played a six‑round Swiss Teams.

The results were close at the top with the final ranking in doubt up to the last board. Congratulations to the winning team on 81.51 VPs: Steve Raine, David Willis, Andi Boughey and Adam Hickman. They received a £240 prize.

Results

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[See more…]  

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Item posted 14 July 2026

Congratulations to the triumphant England Women’s Team of Nevena Senior, Helen Erichsen, Fiona Brown, Charlotte Bedford, Lucy Norman and Nicola Smith who won the 2026 European Women’s Championships played in Riga finishing on 7 July.

Nicola is a Young Chelsea member and plays regularly in the Super League. The others are from further afield, but all turned out for the most recent YC Women's Teams (perhaps a proving ground) in November 2025.

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Item posted 10 July 2026

Huge congratulations to Claire Robinson and Daniel McIntosh who won the European Mixed Pairs 2026, played in Riga over the last four days of June.

They easily managed two days of qualification from an initial entry of 37 pairs to reach the semifinal. Their following one day of semifinal was just good enough to scrape through. Then, after two of three sessions in the ten‑pair final they were average. But an above‑70% last session saw them leapfrog the field to claim first place for England on 57.82%. Poland finished second on 55.00% and Türkiye third on 54.64%.

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Item posted 1 July 2026

On Saturday 6 June the Young Chelsea BC, representing London, won the EBU Garden Cities Trophy. This is an inter‑county competition for teams‑of‑eight, the final of which was played this year in the West Midlands Bridge Club in Solihull.

The picture shows six of the team: John Pemberton, Brian Callaghan, Chris Duckworth, John Dean, Aaron Hutton and Hanna Tuus. The other two, Jon Cooke and Cameron Small, had to dash off to catch a train (which they managed to do). Jon and Cameron were the anchor pair this year, just topping the cross‑IMP ranking, but all the pairs were positive on cross‑IMPs.

The cup will reside in the YC trophy cabinet until next year’s event.

The YC last won this tournament in 2011.

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Results

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Item posted 7 June 2026

The Spring 2026 Young Chelsea Super League finished on Wednesday 13 May, the last scheduled date of the season.

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In Division One, only two teams were in a position to take the first two places, and they played head to head on the day. Congratulations to team Leslie (Mike Bell, Sarah Bell, Andi Boughey, Matt Brown, Ambrose Holmes‑Mackie, Stephen Kennedy, Phil King, Tim Leslie, Sean Mekie and Stefano Tommasini) who won by enough to take first place on 126.27 VPs and received the £600 prize.

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[See more…]

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Item posted 15 May 2026

The 2026 YCKO is under way, details can be found on the  dedicated YCKO 2026 pages.

We are delighted to announce that we have raised the grand total of £5,521.21 for the Help Ukraine Emergency Appeal. The club organised a special fundraising duplicate on 6 March and our Ukrainian staff rallied round baking cakes and donating Ukrainian goods for sale. The event attracted a great mix of club members and others, all of whom gave very generously and the funds rolled in. We are very grateful to all, and every penny will go to the Ukrainian people. [See more…]

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Item posted 9 March, updated 19 March 2022