July 2023 newsletter highlights: WCBU Officers / Western Cape Pairs and Teams / Monthly Sunday Pairs and Lunch / Charity Bridge in aid of Hospices / Bridge Learning / Statistics  

As always, there's a lot of bridge activities coming up. More information on many of the topics in this newsletter can be found in the attachments to this E-mail; by clicking on the links in the text below; or by visiting the Western Cape Bridge Union (WCBU) website.

The new WCBU office bearers are Mark Kenyon (President); Michele Alexander (Vice President, WCBU representative on SABF Committee and Safeguarding Officer); Hilary Nick (Treasurer); Brian Paxton and Beverley Hargrove will share the communication / secretarial role); Shirley Philips (Bridge Centre Manager) and Ian Holdsworth (club liaison). A particular focus of the new committee will be to ensure that clubs and players do indeed benefit from affiliation and SABF membership; in line with this new focus, affiliated clubs will no longer have to pay to use boards dealt by the dealing machine at the Bridge Centre. We welcome suggestions on other steps we could take.

The Western Cape Pairs is scheduled to take place on 19th and 20th August - the tournament brochure is attached or you can click here to enter. That will be followed by the Western Cape Teams on 30th September and 1st October and the rescheduled SAWBA online from 24th to 29th October. For avid golfing lady bridge players there is also the opportunity to play in Plett's Trump to Tee bridge and golf competition on 14th and 15th August (email entries to [email protected]).

The WCBU and Personal Trust invite players in the Cape Town area, including visitors, to participate in our July final Sunday of the month Pairs and Lunch event to be held at the Bridge Centre in Green Point on Sunday 30th July - that's in a couple of days time - starting at 10h00. The cost (inclusive of lunch and a glass of wine) is R100.00 per person. Can you think of any better place to be than at the bridge table with friends on a cold, wet Cape Town Sunday? So, come on and contact Shirley Phillips ([email protected]) to enter or to assist you in finding a partner.

Our next First Friday charity BBO tournament takes place at 10h00 on Friday 4th August in aid of hospices - just logon early to BBO, select Virtual Clubs - South Africa and you will see our WCBU sessions listed. Incidentally, speaking of our BBO tournaments, the numbers playing in each session have picked up significantly since we changed the starting time back to 10h00 and reduced the entry fee to BB$2.0. We look forward to seeing even more of you at our tournaments!  

Congratulations and good luck to the Western Cape players - Michael Alexander, Alon Apteker, Diniar Minwalla, Maureen Narunsky, Brian Pincus and Carol Stanton - who will be representing South Africa at the 46th World Bridge Teams Championships and the 13th World Transnational Teams Championship taking place in Marrakech, Morocco in late August and early September. We will watch your performances with keen interest. After the WCBU Medwin and Berkowitz trials held on Sunday 16th July 2023, the Duff team comprising Rose Duff, Andre van Niekerk, Glen Holman and David Beinart will represent WCBU in the Medwin trophy competition while the Keet team comprising Duncan Keet, Carol Stanton, Paul Lawrence and Stephen McBride will play for the Western Cape in the Berkowitz competition. Well done to Paul Reynolds and Imtiaz Kaprey who nudged Bernard Donde and Rob Stephens into 2nd place in the Impala Winter Cross-IMP Pairs competition, with Shirley Kaminer and Phil King in 3rd - Impala will be organising a Swiss Teams Competition on RealBridge during August to enter which contact Phil King ([email protected]).

Moving to ways of learning or improving your bridge, the next of leading bridge teacher Jeff Sapire's brief bridge tips:  An opening 2C is essentially game-forcing with one exception (2C-2D; 2NT 23-24 which can be passed). So open 2C with 23+pts or a hand with 9 tricks (but still at least about 17+pts). If you have Cape Town social bridge playing friends who are contemplating the daunting move to playing duplicate, then they should contact Neil Hayward ([email protected]) about playing in Keurboom's Gentle Bridge group on Wednesday mornings. I should also warn you to watch your E-mail in-box for an announcement of a stimulating bridge lecture which will be delivered by an international bridge writer and teacher; preference in attending will, of course, be given to paid up SABF members in the Western Cape but it will be open to others around the country, numbers permitting.  

Turning to the statistics you all love, in the past two months the results from more than 451 tables of face to face and online bridge have been recorded in the Pianola database on the WCBU website where players can compare and analyse their performance while also giving them the opportunity to compare their results in the two formats. Since the beginning of January 2023, the WCBU website has been used by 3,318 visitors who read 21,385 pages of information during 10,251 visits. Of the visitors, who live in 55 different countries, 85% reside in South Africa, 5% in the United Kingdom, 2% in America, and 1.5% in Australia; 36% live in Cape Town, 29% in Gauteng and 2% in Hermanus. As you would expect, the home page was the most popular page in July, followed by the results, Bridge Clubs, Bridge Lessons and Upcoming pages. Some 44% of visitors use a computer; 44% use a cell-phone; and 11% a tablet. And that's enough statistics for this month!