We hope that everyone is well and managing to cope in these difficult times.

No doubt you will all be missing your bridge sessions and seeing friends at the Club  but there are other ways of keeping up with the game.  Quite a few of our members are playing bridge online or watching the excellent seminars that are being broadcast.

There are various websites where you can play online and the EBU have a detailed description of these and explain  how you can do this with your usual partner or with friends  at  https://www.ebu.co.uk/node/3736     All these online websites are very similar and all are excellent.  As an example of what you can do the  EBU link below describes how to register on just one of the sites and how to set up a table where four friends can play     http://www.ebu.co.uk/ebuscore-wiki/bboinstructions.

Of the seminars Jack Stocken has  just developed a paid subscription daily Bridgecast using Bridgebase Online  to go through an instructive Intermediate or Advanced hand (or both) with a video commentary.  See https://yorkshirebridge.co.uk/jacks-daily-bridgecast/     

Andrew Robson also offers something similar  https://www.andrewrobson.co.uk     

Those of you who have been on the Mr Bridge cruises will know Bernard Magee.  Bernard Magee is streaming free live bridge seminars on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11.00am on YouTube. You can watch live and ask questions or comment during the event or catch up on past seminars.  Go to  https://mrbridge.co.uk/  and scroll down to Live Seminars

We hope that we’ll all be playing bridge at the Club soon – but in the meantime enjoy what you can do online and keep safe and well.

The Bradford Swiss Pairs scheduled for 19th April 2020 will no longer take place this year due to the current Covid-19 epidemic. 

CLUB CLOSED WITH EFFECT FROM TUESDAY 17 MARCH UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

In light of advice from the Government on March 16th the Committee has decided to suspend all drives at the club until advice is received that it is safe to resume. We will be keeping a close watch on news updates and hopefully the exponential growth of the disease will be flattened by following the official advice and resumption may be all the earlier as a result.

The Secretary will be informing, via email, all those members signed up to Pianola and phoning those others she can identify who are not.

Mark Armitage

The final match in the 2019-2020 season was played on March 8th with our A, C and D teams winning their matches.  The season as a whole was good for all our teams so well done to all who played.  The A and B teams just missed being promoted  but the C team played very well and (by one point!) will being playing in the division above next season.  Thanks to all who played.

This is just to let everyone know that unfortunately we are having to cancel the afternoon drives on Tuesday March 3rd and Thursday 5th (and Friday morning 6th), as the staircase and hallway are being re-decorated all that week - and there will be no access to the upstairs bridge room or cloakrooms.

All being well, the decorator will have completed the work within the week and we shall be back to normal by the following Monday.

There were some very closely fought matches in the Yorkshire League on 16th February.  Bradford results were as follows:-

Bradford A v Sheffield B         Lost 8-12

Bradford B v  Keighley B       Won 12-8

Bradford C v  Garforth B        Won 14-6

Bradford D v Huddersfield D  Lost 6-14

Bradford E v Huddersfield F.   Lost 9-11

The final League match will be on 8th March.  Good luck to all our teams then!!

Congratulations to   Elaine, Kath, Pat and Sharon who were in the winning Ladies team and to Stuart, John, Alan and Steve who won the Men's Team event.  A great evening was had by all who participated and thanks are due to Stuart for organising this double competition.

Congratulations to Sharon and Stephen Halston who won the Flitch competition on 12th February. Pauline and Chris Fort came second, Well done to both pairs.

This competition concluded in a resounding victory for Team Andrews L who finished on 79VPs (from a possible 100). In rather ungallant fashion they beat Team Andrews M in the last match to leave them second on 59VPs, a full match behind. I think Lauri will be making his own dinner this week!

Anothr 2Vps behind these two came Team Jagger in third spot.

Members may be interested to know that Team Davies captained by someone who is no stranger to the winners rostrum will be  receiving another award for their efforts in this competition - The Wooden Spoon. 

Thanks to all those who played through the winter and to Stuart for his organisational skills.

Full results and the final table can be viewed via the link on the results page.

Our C and D teams both won in the 5th Yorkshire League match and the E team match was a draw.  The A and B teams unfortunately lost despite playing well and putting up a good fight.  Good luck to all our teams in the next match!!

Very well done to our E team who won their match against Halifax D on 19th January with a score of 16-4. 

Round 5 matches will be played 26th January and all our teams will be competing then.

The Yorkshire Pairs  is the major Open Pairs competition in the County with the top 5 pairs being invited to represent Yorkshire in the EBU county pairs championship. 

Three Bradford members were competing in this top level match on January 12th and all did extremely well. Alan Jarvis, playing with a member of Leeds, came first and Stuart Davies and partner George Bak came second. Good luck to them all in the inter county final!

This competition has now passed the halfway stage.

The latest round of matches saw the lead change hands and team Andrews L. now have an 8VP lead over team Andrews M.

However with the two at the top yet to meet there is all to play for in the last two rounds. Team Jagger in third spot could also come into the mix.

Congratulations to our A and B teams who both won their fourth round match and to the E team whose closely fought match resulted in a draw. The full results together with the current rank order for each division can be seen on the YCBA website.

Club members had a great time at the Christmas Celebration held on 18th December.  Many, many thanks to Margaret Andrews and her helper Lauri.    The food was really lovely and much appreciated.  THANK YOU!!

This is just a reminder that there will be NO DRIVE on the afternoon of Tuesday 31st December. The Tuesday drives will resume the following week.

Our E team played exceptionally well on December 15th winning their match by 20-0.  A really great result.

The next match is for all teams and will be played on January 5th.

Congratulations to Sandra Andrews & Peter Franks who have won this club championship event. Their 65% score was enough to pip Louise & Mark Armitage who took the runner up spot and Sharon & Stephen Halston in third place. 20 pairs took part. Well done Sandra & Peter!

The Tuesday afternoon drive is holding its Christmas buffet next Tuesday December 17th  starting at 12.30-12.45pm with bridge at 1.30pm.  People are bringing along some snacks and everyone is welcome.

Gill Copeland,  with son Tom, has been playing in the National American Bridge Congress in San Francisco with resounding success.  There were about 1,000 tables in play each day and many different events with Gill and Tom coming first out of 385 players in the  final they were competing in on December 1st.    

It's great to know that Bradford players can do so well in a national congress in another country!!  

Good news.  Margaret is out of hospital and she returned home on December 4th!

Round 3 was not as good for us as the previous two rounds have been but our A team is to be congratulated on a win and the E team drew their match. The full results can be seen on the YCBA website www.ycba.co.uk - then click onto Yorkshire League, then Match 3. The current rank order for each division can also be found there. The next match is for the E team only and will take place on December 15th.