Ring Viv Morris Who Will Try to Find Partners

PROGRAMME Date What’s on DIRECTOR Spare Player Tuesdays Aggregate Rubber Roy Ashmore Partners provided Wednesday Duplicate 1.00 pm Jane Rutherford et al Ring Viv Morris who will try to find partners Thursdays Learners and Improvers George Collins et al Always available March 1 Fri Teams of Four Dennis Chambers None 4 Mon Duplicate Richard Ray Sula Turpin 7 Thurs Charity Challenge Sim Pairs George Collins None 8 Fri Duplicate Chris Kinloch Guy Turner 11 Mon Duplicate George Collins Sandra Ruffell 15 Fri EBU Sims (subsidised) Steve Howell Ken Smallbone 18 Mon Duplicate Arthur Whittaker Chris Comer 22 Fri Duplicate “Six Partners” Keith Williams Viv Morris 25 Mon Individual Round 5 Helen Kinloch Gill Harris 29 Fri Good Friday Duplicate Steve Howell Arthur Whittaker April 1 Mon Easter Monday Duplicate As available Helen Kinloch 5 Fri Duplicate Helen Kinloch David Lewis 6 Sat Tessa Henshaw Ladies Individ Chris Kinloch None 8 Mon Teams of Four Dennis Chambers None 12 Fri Duplicate Steve Howell George Collins 15 Mon Duplicate “Six Partners” Richard Ray Gill Williams 18 Thurs Bayer No Fear Sim Pairs George Collins 19 Fri Duplicate Keith Williams Eric Clucas 22 Mon Duplicate Arthur Whittaker 26 Fri Duplicate Steve Howell 29 Mon Individual Round 6 Stan Babb Gill Harris If you can’t attend on a day for which you are nominated, please swap with someone as soon as possible. New directors and spare players are always welcome. Chairman: Helen Kinloch (01189) 813210 [email protected] Vice-Chairman: Mary Lucas (01256) 882670 [email protected] Treasurer: Arthur Whittaker (01256) 334496 [email protected] Secretary: Sandra Ruffell (01256) 363102 [email protected] Committee: Andy Fry (01256) 780056 [email protected] Viv Morris (01256) 889946 [email protected] Richard Ray (02380) 253239 [email protected] Jane Rutherford (01252) 615690 [email protected] Jan Yates (01256) 466766 janyates47@btinternet,com Club: Maydene, Sherborne Road, (01256) 541988 [email protected] Basingstoke RG21 5TG Web site: www.basingstokebridgeclub.org.uk 21st April Pottage Final Basingstoke 2pm BASINGSTOKE BRIDGE CLUB NEWSLETTER Issue 230 March 2013

County successes Congratulations to our Solent Cup team of eight (Christine & Richard R., Brian A. & John S., Chris K. & Richard H., Keith B. & Steve T.) who beat Gosport by 74 IMPs. They will now play Hedge End in the final of this prestigious county knock-out competition which Basingstoke won two years ago. We wish them all the best.

Congratulations also to Chris, Bob and team mates who won the Valentine Swiss teams.

NICKO news Unfortunately our two remaining NICKO teams were knocked out in the third round. There’s always next year! . March events Teams of four this month is Friday 1st March. Please enter teams on the board or on the web site, and do try the web site facility or let me know if you need team mates. The Charity Challenge (E-Cats simultaneous pairs in aid of Prostrate Cancer Charity) will be on Thursday 7th March. Please make sure your names are on the board in good time. There will be no spare player that night, and the cost will be £5.20 for members and £6.20 for visitors. Back in the seventies, the Basingstoke partnership of Len Whitbread and Jim Gordon came 2nd in the world in this competition!! Len subsequently presented the club with the Whitbread trophy which was to be awarded to the highest scoring Basingstoke pair in the Charity Challenge. (You don’t need to do as well as they did over all: just get the best internet score at Basingstoke and the trophy will be yours.) The fourth round of the “Six Partners” will be on Friday 22nd. It is good to see more people taking part in this optional competition. Remember there are 12 rounds in all (alternately Mondays and Fridays.) So there is still plenty of time to play with some different partners. (Unfortunately “Six Partners” seems to be a bit of a misnomer, as some people still ring me up to ask if they have to partner 6 different people on every one of these evenings! No, just play with at least 6 different partners over the year (each one on a different “Six Partners” night.) The penultimate round of the Individual will be on Monday 29th. To ensure you qualify you need to have played a minimum of four times out of six. Remember if you play more than four times you can drop your worst score, or even your two worst ones.

Results With a view to persuading more members to look at the web-site (which now contains many interesting innovative features) we shall be running an experiment during the month of March: On Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays you will not receive the usual e- mail with results. Instead, you must simply go on the internet to access the club web-site (www.basingstokebridgeclub.org.uk) and just click on “results” on the left hand menu. (It is a good idea to add the web site to your “favourites”, as this saves some time.) You will find this procedure just as quick as opening an e-mail. Thursday’s results, which are not up-loaded to the EBU and therefore do not go on the web site, will be sent by e-mail as usual.

Members’ area If you have never accessed the members' only area on our web site, here are some clear instructions from Richard: Go to the web site and click on "membership" on the box on the left hand side. This takes you to the log in page. Put your email address in the top box. Click on "forgotten password". Leave the site. You will then receive a password via e-mail. Go back into the site and enter details in the log-in boxes (e-mail address in top box and password in bottom box.) You will now be in the Members area. Click on "Account" to change any details about yourself. At the bottom of this page there is a box where you can change your password to something easy to remember. Enter this password twice. Click on "SAVE" at the top of the page. You can now access any other parts of the members’ area: see the list of members and contact details of those who have agreed to have theirs published; send and receive messages; find a partner; read minutes of committee meetings, AGM etc.

Recent purchases Following the AGM when our healthy financial position was reaffirmed, the committee decided to upgrade our bridge mates this year. Basingstoke was one of the first clubs in the country to invest in these when they were introduced. It is now right to keep up with developments by installing the improved version, and we are very grateful to Stan for getting it up and running so quickly. We get a substantial discount on the new bridge mates and Andover Bridge Club intends to buy the old ones. The boiler is to be replaced as it is no longer operating economically. Some of the bidding boxes were rather worn and damaged, so we have acquired some replacements. We have also bought a substantial number of new packs of cards which will gradually replace the existing ones as dealing proceeds. Many thanks are due to Jan & John and the army of volunteers who helped to unpack all the new ones. . Attachments Overleaf you will find the first of a new series of articles by David. This one describes the Unusual No Trump convention and the Gambling 3NT. Helen