CLUB FOCUS

Volume I, Issue VI November 2008

ENGLISH BRIDGE UNION

Welcome Limerick Competition The Olympics this year in Beijing were achievements? The winner of the limerick competition accompanied by a frenzy of reporting from our September issue is throughout our national media, and our Here at the EBU with the help and back- Mrs J Hinden from Brighton with the fol- winning medallists in the physical sports ing of all our members we have worked lowing fine rhyme: were rightly feted throughout the country. hard to support our national squads, and The Paralympics also received a good bridge players throughout the country can There was a young lady from Sark be justifiably proud of their achievements. deal of publicity in the press, TV and ra- Whose partner was kept in the dark. dio, with returning athletes being hailed as heroes. But when it came to the sports Full details of all the teams and their re- He never quite knew sults can be found on page 2. Copies of in which one has to use one's mental If her bidding was true – abilities, the , the press release and photos can be the equivalent of the Olympics for Bridge, found on the EBU website at She thought the game just a lark , Draughts and Go, held in Beijing www.ebu.co.uk/media. There will also be this October, there was hardly a whisper full reports on our teams' successes in Mrs Hinden receives a copy of The to be seen in any of the papers before or English Bridge. Golden Rules of Competitive Auctions by during the event. & . Thank you If any of the team members are your local very much to Mrs Hinden and everyone England had a hugely successful WMSG heroes, this is a great opportunity to get else who entered the competition. with all five of our national Bridge teams some publicity for them, your Bridge club reaching the quarter-finals, our Open and Bridge in general into your local Limericks for our next competition must team and our Under-21 team going on to press. Why not give it a try? If you need have a Bridge theme and include the win silver medals, and our Ladies' team help, email [email protected]. achieving the supreme triumph of the name of a place in the (Bridge) County of Cornwall. There should be plenty of inter- gold medal in their event. Despite this, Until the next issue, it has proved unimaginably difficult to esting place names there to find rhymes persuade the media to report on these Matt Betts and Krys Kazmierczak for. Entries should be in to the address on wonderful successes. Is our country inca- page 4 by 15 December 2008. The win- pable of recognising intellectual ner will receive British Bridge Almanack, by Peter Hasenson.

Down Our Club

Although the historical market town of Results are already encouraging with Wisbech is (just) in Cambridgeshire, in several new members having been re- This Issue bridge terms it is affiliated to Norfolk. The cruited between the two clubs. The town is blessed with two closely linked Thursday Club has had to move to a new Welcome 1 clubs: Wisbech (the "Wednesday" Club) venue, but that is proving very popular, Limerick Competition 1 and Wisbech Mixed (the "Thursday" Club). so much so that Club TD David Small The Wednesday Club is seen as the lead- says, “I find it difficult moving members Down Our Club 1 ing club with a somewhat higher standard out of the comfortable seats at the mid of play, while at the Thursday Club the play session break”. Both clubs are investing Dubrovnik 2 is gentler and more suitable for beginners. in new equipment, and the future is look- Well Done England 2 As players become more experienced they ing bright. "graduate" into the Wednesday Club. Pay to Play Rebate 2 If you live somewhere in the NE Cambs In recent years both clubs have been suf- or NE Norfolk area, or happen to be on Bridge Tales 2 fering from a gently ageing membership holiday there, why not pop along to Wis- Bidding Tools with few newcomers joining. In summer of bech for a friendly game of bridge. For 3 this year Krys Kazmierczak, the EBU Club further details contact David Small on Club Committee Update 3 Liaison Officer, was contacted for some 07768-466562 or advice on membership boosting. Since [email protected] Play with the Stars 4 then a simple programme of local advertis- Master Point - new benefits ing has been undertaken including posters 4 and feature articles in local newspapers. A Universal Membership - Update 4 warm welcome is extended to lapsed bridge players and those who have only Partner Teacher Courses 4 played before. A host system TD Training Courses has been introduced, and one or two mem- 5 bers are training as directors. It is hoped Master Points - new pricing 5 that a member will take the EBU's Partner- Events Teacher course so that bridge teaching 5 can be introduced to Wisbech soon. Contact Us 5 CLUB FOCUS Page 2

Greetings from Dubrovnik Well Done England The recent EBU Overseas Congress in groups coming to Dubrovnik. We had a England's Triumphant Bridge Teams! the Hotel Excelsior in Dubrovnik was a great time playing with the British players Congratulations to all our brilliant teams at great chance for local bridge players to and learnt about running tournaments the the World Mind Sports Games. play with UK players. The hotel is in a EBU way. beautiful location right by the sea with a Gold: the Ladies' Team of & I would like to thank Peter Jordan and great view over the Old Town. Ten local , Heather Dhondy & Nevena David Jones for their time and patience pairs participated in various different one Senior, Catherine Draper & Anne Rosen answering questions about running tour- session events. with Non-Playing Captain (NPC) Martin naments, beginner courses and so on. In the Welcome Pairs we didn’t get a sin- Jones and Coach Sandra Penfold. If you find yourself in Dubrovnik, please gle trick as a gift from our opponents. In come and play some bridge. Contact the Pivot teams, our locals finished sec- Silver: the Open Team of & Frano Jancic at [email protected] ond in their section which was the best Tom Townsend, Jason Hackett & Justin and we look forward to seeing you then. result for Croatian players. Later, I was a Hackett, Artur Malinowski & Nick member of a team of six which entered Frano Jancic Sandqvist with NPC Phil King and Coach against 30 other English teams on the Simon Cope. Monday. The competition was tough: there were three sessions of bridge with ten 8- matches over the course of Silver: the Under-21 Team of Adam Hick- two days. At the end of the competition man & Daniel McIntosh, Ed Jones & Tom our team finished 19th. This was a great Paske, Robert Myers & Ben Paske with experience for us, because we learnt to NPC Michael Byrne and Coach Alan Shil- work harder after defeat – gaining lots of litoe. experience. We even won some green points, but can somebody please explain Quarter-finalists: the Seniors' Team of what they mean? This event was followed Peter Czerniewski (Captain) & Ross by our local newspaper and radio. Harper, Chris Dixon & Victor Silverstone, The Dubrovnik Bridge Club was founded David Price & Colin Simpson. in September 2002. There are 30 active members from their early twenties to their Quarter-finalists: the Under-28 Team of early nineties. We run Duplicate Pairs on Fiona Brown & Susan Stockdale, Ollie Tuesdays with four or five tables. How- Burgess & Andrew Woodcock, Ben Green ever, since we can’t have another bridge & Duncan Happer with NPC David Green- evening in these premises we always wood and Coach Diane Greenwood. look forward to joining any large bridge

Pay to Play rebate for frequent players Bridge Tales

When putting together the Pay to Play Focal Point scheme, the EBU was mindful that some A husband was getting increasingly of those who play Bridge frequently are Does your club have a website? Why irritated at the bridge table as his wife pensioners on a fixed income. It has not put a link in to Club Focus? Our continually failed to lead hearts, de- therefore put a cap on the amount any permanent web-address is: spite the fact that he had bid them member will pay through Pay to Play. www.ebu.co.uk/cf twice. Eventually, his patience Once a member has played more than snapped. He took the ♥A K Q from his 150 Pay to Play sessions in a year, then hand, tore them into little pieces and any subsequent sessions are exempt and Bridge Tails threw them onto the floor saying: ‘I will be rebated at the financial year-end clearly have no use for these’. directly to players from the EBU – clubs will not be involved in this process. Re- His wife produced an excuse that, in a bates of over £5 will be paid directly to more lucid moment, even hubby would individuals by cheque. Rebates of £5 or have realised had some justification: less will be held over in the member’s she said ‘I haven’t got any hearts’. account. The director was called, and by this Since submissions will be made by each time it had dawned on hubby that he club to the EBU using members' EBU might find it hard to explain away his numbers, the system will easily be able to behaviour. However, the husband had keep track of the fact that a member has years of experience at self-justification played, say, 100 times at Club A, 50 times and said: ‘I am awfully sorry Mr Direc- at Club B and 50 times at Club C. In this The game had gone on for far too tor. I dropped them and they broke.’ example the member would be due for a long, and Might had found himself too rebate of 50 times the Pay to Play fee. comfortable.

Obviously, any sessions played at non- Andrew Kambites Sleep quickly arrived. EBU clubs do not count.

CLUB FOCUS Page 3

Bidding Tools: Responding to 1NT - Red Suit Transfers

In the last issue we looked at responding With hand (1) above, you transfer (by re- 6) ♠J9 ♥76 ♦KQ8743 ♣Q82 to 1NT when you hold a 4-card major, and sponding 2♦) to show 5 hearts, then bid we also mentioned a couple of hands for 2NT to show an otherwise Responder wanted to do a weak take-out which there wasn’t a good bid using tradi- with invitational values. With hand (2), you into diamonds, but knew that a 2♦ bid tional methods: transfer, then bid 3♥ to show more than 5 should show hearts. Never mind, he hearts, but not quite enough points for thought, after pulling a few faces, I’ll bid 1) ♠Q9 ♥KQ874 ♦J76 ♣K82 game. 2♦ anyway, and follow up with 3♦; part- 2) ♠Q9 ♥KQ8742 ♦J7 ♣K82 ner should get the message! Unfortu- Some more examples: In theory neither hand is quite good nately, opener assumed that responder enough to force to game, but there is no 3) ♠AQ974 ♥KJ5 ♦J7 ♣K82 had a good hand with (at least) 5 hearts way to invite game whilst showing length 4) ♠AQ974 ♥KJ3 ♦J ♣K842 and 4 diamonds, and jumped to 4♥. With in hearts (remember that a 2♥ response is a combined 21 HCP, and playing in a 3-2 weak, while a 3♥ response is forcing). With (3) respond 2♥ to show 5 spades, fit, this was not a success! There are then bid 3NT since you have the values for other ways by which you can show a Red Suit Transfers (‘RST’) solve these game. Opener can choose whether to weak hand with a long minor when you problems, and provide you with a lot more leave it in NT or bid 4♠. With (4) respond play RST. We will be looking at these and flexibility generally. If you have a 2♥, then bid 3♣ to show an unbalanced some other artificial uses for the now with at least 5 cards, you bid the suit be- hand and values for game. redundant 2♠ response in the next issue. low it at the 2-level. Thus a 2♦ response guarantees a 5+ card heart suit, and a 2♥ Of course you need to agree with part- response shows 5 or more spades. ner that you are playing transfers. Just like many other conventions, transfers can Opener is required to ‘complete the trans- be abused by partnerships that haven’t fer’ by bidding your suit, after which you understood their methods fully: describe your hand further with your sec- ond bid: 5) ♠AQ974 ♥53 ♦J87 ♣KQ2 With a weak hand, you just pass, as if you had just made a ‘Weak Take-Out’. With Responder didn’t like to bid no Trumps values, and an otherwise balanced hand with a small doubleton, so after transfer- (or nearly balanced), you should bid No ring, bid the spades again. Opener, who Trumps. With an unbalanced hand bid a had a doubleton spade, and good hearts, second 4+ card suit, or show that you hold assumed that responder had 6 spades, a 6-card major by ‘rebidding’ the suit. and the best contract of 3NT was missed.

Club Committee Update The new EBU Club Committee held a very Midlands • What do members want/expect of the positive first meeting on 17 September Club Committee 2008. The aim of the Committee is to pro- Maggie Jones from Northamptonshire: Herefordshire, Leicester, Northampton- vide representation and consultation for all What new services could the EBU shire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire • EBU Clubs and Club Members and make provide which would be useful to recommendations to the EBU Board in any clubs? matters affecting them. South West • Which of the EBU’s current services One of the tasks of this interim committee Phil Green from Wiltshire: Avon, Cornwall, do you find most useful? of volunteers is to work out a permanent Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire regional representation structure and • Proposed simplification of the alerting method by which representatives will be rules on doubles. voted onto the Club Committee in future. East What help do clubs need with the im- In the meantime the allocation for the Suzanne Gill from Norfolk: Cambs/Hunts, • plementation of universal membership current committee members is as follows: Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk via Pay to Play South East • The new EBU 5-year Business Strat- Margaret Eddleston from Hertfordshire: North egy Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire Terry Jacobs from Sheffield: Derbyshire, with assistance from Stefanie Rohan from Isle of Man, Lancashire, Manchester, Mer- London for London & Middlesex seyside and Cheshire, Notts, Staffs and Your local representative can be con- Shrops. tacted through your county secretary, by Tom Garrett from Berks and Bucks: Berks Lesley Millet from Leeds: Cumbria, email to [email protected] or by writing to and Bucks, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, NEBA, Westmorland, Yorkshire Club Committee, Broadfields, Bicester Oxfordshire Road, Aylesbury, HP19 8AZ.

Barbara Herold from East Sussex (with The Committee Members/Regional Repre- assistance from Andrew Jenkins): sentatives are arranging meetings with Channel Islands, Kent, Surrey, Sussex their club and county representatives to discuss various issues before the next Club Committee meeting on 19 January 2009. These include: CLUB FOCUS Page 4

Play with the stars MP - new benefits Progress report on On Sunday 23 November, Wimbledon The EBU has agreed in principle to a new Universal Bridge Club will be holding its annual benefit – a 50% discount on the fee charity event. The highlight of the day is for an appropriate future event. Membership the auction to play with a well known bridge celebrity in our Play with the Stars It will be trialled at the Ranked Masters in The Universal Membership Project Board st evening on 26 February. Last year, we March 2009 for promotions between 1 – commonly known as BUMP! - had its st were delighted to auction nearly twenty Jan and 31 Dec 2008 to:- second meeting on 29 October 2008. All top international players and we are hop- Regional Master (25 Green Points) in the members of the committee have been ing to increase that number this year. Regional Masters event. very busy over the past few months work- Raffle tickets are being sold and the top prize is the chance to play with Andrew Premier Master (10 Green Points) in the ing towards making the change over from Robson in our February event. Regional Masters or Masters events. the current system of membership to uni- versal membership as simple as possible We have chosen the following extremely Masters (5000 local points) in the Masters for all clubs and their members. We have worthwhile charities to support this year: event. Great Ormond Street, Breast Cancer been investigating and formulating the Details will follow - if you qualify for the Hope, St Raphael’s Hospice and The regulations for Pay to Play and the new trial of this exciting scheme, you will be Village of Hope. Club contract, which is in its draft form. contacted personally in early January. These documents will be winging their The committee and members of Wimble- don Bridge Club welcome you all to join way to the Club Committee for discussion us in these events and our attempt to at their next meeting on 19 January 2009. raise money for four outstanding chari- BUMP has also been working closely with ties. The day is normally great fun and Barry Capal and his team at Aylesbury includes a glass of wine and a delicious who are undertaking the changes to the tea. For those of you who cannot join us internal and external information technol- but still wish to be involved, there is ogy systems. always the opportunity to buy raffle tick- Joke Corner ets, make a sealed bid for a player or A group of chess enthusiasts checked One of the most distressing parts of our send us a donation. into a hotel, and were standing in the job is the need to investigate potential All details can be found on our website lobby discussing their recent tourna- scams. We know that the vast majority www.wimbledonbridgeclub.co.uk or by ment victories. After about an hour, the of our membership is honest and abide telephoning the club. Closer to the time, manager came out of the office, and by our rules and regulations. However, we will post names of the players to be asked them to disperse. 'But why,' they we would be negligent in our duty to pro- auctioned. Sealed bids for players need asked, as they moved off. 'Because,' he tect the interests of that majority if we did to include a cheque made out to Wimble- said, 'I can't stand chess-nuts boasting not undertake this task. To this end we don Bridge Club. All cheques for unsuc- in an open foyer.' have set up a small working group to in- cessful bids will be returned. vestigate these issues and recommend avoidances and penalties. The Club Committee are undertaking Focal Point sterling work and reaching out to all the What happens to your old copies of English Bridge? Do you keep them or throw clubs in their various regions to determine them away? If you throw yours away or know someone who throws them away, what support, if any, our clubs need in why not use them to provide your club with a little more free advertising? Consider terms of IT skills, as well as looking at putting a label with your club information inside an unwanted copy of the maga- what services they would like us to offer zine and leaving it in your local doctor's or dentist's surgery for other people to and develop for them. We would ask you read while they are waiting. You never know, it might encourage someone new to all to respond to any communications you visit your club. get from your regional club committee representative. They are there to help you get the best out of the EBU. For Partner Teacher Courses further information about your representa- tive please go online at: www.ebu.co.uk/ We recently held our last Partner Teacher Course for this year in Aylesbury. The club/ photos below show our future teachers preparing their lessons. If you would like more information on next years courses, please contact Lisa on 01296 317 200 or At the time of writing this, one of my visit the EBU website. tasks is to contact all our County Chair- men and ask them to nominate a county management committee representative to be a point of contact for Pay to Play in their county. Please keep an eye on your county websites and our website for further information about these individu- als.

Sally Bugden CLUB FOCUS Page 5

TD Training Courses: 2009 - 2010 I am looking for venues to host TD Train- Focal Point ing Courses in 2009/10, preferably where National Pairs we haven’t been for some time. There are If you’re viewing Club Focus on-line, four courses in the full series – Essen- please note that all web addresses are From now until early February clubs tials, Book Rulings, Judgement Rulings clickable. will be running heats of the national and Assessment. Courses are usually pairs. This is an event for all club held on Saturday or occasionally on Sun- players where approx one third of the day, roughly a month apart, with each field qualifies for one of five regional one lasting from 10.30 till about 4.30. So finals, which are in turn qualifiers for a full series might run February, March, Master Points a national final April, May. Is your club running a heat? If it is, Having held the price of master point cer- Successful course members passing the and you would like it advertised on tificates unchanged for well over two Assessment Course gain a Certificate of the EBU website, then let years, we now need to increase it in line Competence and become recognised [email protected] know. If it is not, with the recently agreed increases in Club TDs. and you would like to know more membership subscriptions. The cost will about doing so, contact Perhaps your club would like to join with rise by 5%, just one year’s inflation, which [email protected]. other clubs in the area to run the courses. means that the cost of a certificate goes Courses are viable with a minimum of 8 from £0.38 to £0.40 and the cost of a Full details are in the EBU diary on people. book of fifty certificates from £19 to £20. pp 36-38 or see the website where you can also download an entry form. For full details email [email protected] For books of certificates, this increase will st putting Club TD Courses in the subject take effect from 1 December, 2008. For directly credited master points, it will take line. st effect from 1 January, 2009. John Pain

YEAR END CONGRESS

London Forthcoming EBU Events 27 - 30 December 2008

Seniors Congress: 7 - 9 November, Daventry Blackpool Year End Congress London: 27 - 30 December, London 28 - 30 December 2008 Year End Congress Blackpool: 28 - 30 December, Blackpool London - This extremely popular and en- Swiss Teams Congress: 17-18 January, Hinckley. joyable event opens with Pre-Congress National Men's Pairs & National Women's Pairs: 24-25 January, Hinckley. Pairs at 2.00pm on the Saturday, followed by Swiss Pairs at 7.15pm. Please note Mercian Tenerife Congress: 4-9 February. that the Mixed Pairs runs concurrently with the Women's and Men's Pairs on the Mon- For more information, please email [email protected] or see the EBU website. day.

Blackpool - This extremely popular and enjoyable Congress opens at 2.00pm on Friday with a special Mixed or Open Pairs. At 7.45pm is the first session of Swiss Contact us Pairs, which will continue all day Saturday. The Congress finishes on Sunday with a We hope you have enjoyed reading this issue of Club Focus. Are you interested in two-session Swiss Teams event starting at writing for the next newsletter - number seven? Have you started learning bridge? 11.30am. The second session will con- Have you got any funny stories about bridge? Does your club have any interesting clude at about 7.15pm. ideas or solutions to common problems which other clubs might benefit from? Would you like to publicise any special events open to non-members and members? Do you have a special pet who likes to play cards? Please let us know! For more information, please visit the EBU website or see the EBU diary. If you would like to contact us or send us your articles, feedback or comments, please email: [email protected] or post to: Club Focus, , Broadfields, Aylesbury, HP19 8AZ. Deadline for submissions is 10 December 2008.

If this newsletter is printed, Information contained in this edition is correct at time of going to Published by the please don’t forget to press. Production schedules mean that entries listed or reviewed English Bridge recycle it afterwards. may change between going to press and publication. Union 2008