October newsletter highlights: Festival of Bridge, Interclub, SAWBA / November Zoom Lecture / Warwick Wealth Bidding Competition / October & November Personal Trust Bridge and Lunch / and more

As usual there's a host of bridge related activities coming up that will be of interest to bridge players and beginners, not just in the Western Cape, but around the rest of the country so read on. More information can be found in by clicking on the links in the text below.

Our final red point event for the year is the ever popular Cape Town Festival of Bridge, comprising a teams and a pairs tournament and taking place at Cape Town's Green Point Bridge Centre in mid December; visitors from upcountry and overseas are particularly welcome to join the local players and enjoy our hospitality. More details can be found by clicking here or you can click here to enter. The annual national interclub teams competition takes place on 11th, 12th and 13th November 2022 using RealBridge at the Bridge Centre, Green Point (and other centres around the country); click here to enter before 6th November.  

The Western Cape Bridge Union and Personal Trust invite players in the Cape Town area, again including visitors, to participate in our next two final Sunday of the month Pairs and Lunch events to be held at the Bridge Centre in Green Point on Sundays 30th October 2022 (that's this weekend) and 27th November 2022, on both occasions starting at 10h00. The cost (inclusive of lunch and a glass of wine) is just R75.00 per person - where else can you get a bargain like that?. Contact Shirley Phillips ([email protected]) to enter. We look forward to seeing you there.

The WCBU Committee would like to thank everyone who has played in our first Friday of the month Charity Pairs events. The first, in August, raised more than R 3,000 for hospices in the Western Cape, while the second, in aid of the Peninsula School Feeding Scheme, raised sufficient money to provide 3 children with 2 meals per day for a year. We are still waiting for confirmation of the amount raised in our October tournament in aid of the Amy Foundation. Our next Charity Pairs, to be held on BBO starting at 10h00 on Friday 4th November, will again be in aid of hospices; just log onto BBO and find the WCBU tournament listed under Virtual Clubs - South Africa. Players are encouraged to suggest other charities in the Western Cape they would like to support through these tournaments.

SAWBA 2023 will also be taking place in Cape Town in March 2023; the interprovincials will be played online while the pairs and teams will be played face to face at the Bridge Centre. Trials to represent the Western Cape in the interprovincials will take place online in early December. There are 3 sections: A, B and Bunny Pritchard. So get your teams together and contact Shirley Phillips (0726734248 or [email protected]) with entries or any queries.

The Cape Town Wednesday Duplicate Bridge Club (CTWDBC) has restarted following the Covid hiatus. Please consult the Clubs page on the WCBU website for more details of all the affiliated clubs now operating in the Western Cape. After eight weeks, the WCBU is leading the Saturday afternoon countrywide competition; the log can be found on the results page on the WCBU website.
 

Congratulations to the Terblanche team on winning the Impala Open and the Steve McGibbon Trophy. They were followed by the Narunsky team in second place, while the Rode team won the Bsection competition. Well done to all of them and a big thank you to all involved in both organising and playing! You can view the full results on the results page on the WCBU website. And, while we are congratulating winners, well done also to Roy Danilowitz on winning the WCBU's Warwick Wealth September bidding competition. The November edition of the competition is here to challenge you; again there's a R 250 for the winner each month.

Our November Personal Trust sponsored bridge lecture for intermediate and advanced players will take place on Sunday 20th November at 15h00 when Craig Gower will deliver the lecture on “when to cover”; the Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89780654415?pwd=dG82V0poRTB6M3dSWmFJVlg4UzMzdz09. Please note that there is no charge for attending and players from around South Africa are welcome. However, please be sure to MUTE yourself as soon as you enter the Zoom lecture room so that you don't distract the other attendees and spoil the recording by talking on your phone or to your family. Note that Zoom limits the number of attendees at any lecture to 100. You will also find this Zoom link on the Lectures page on the WCBU website. Slides, handouts and recordings of this (and previous) lectures will also be available on this page from soon after the lecture; alas there was a problem with recording the October lecture by Hennie Fick but his slides are there.

Still on helping you to improve your bridge, the second of leading bridge teacher Jeff Sapire's brief bridge tips: Don’t use Stayman when you have 4333 shape. You won’t always be right, but in the long run it’s a winner!Players should take note.

Finally, some more statistics. In the past two months the results from more than 628 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 giving them the opportunity to compare their results in the two formats. Since the beginning of January 2022, the WCBU website has been used by 5,659 visitors who read 42,321 pages of information during 18,248 visits. Of the visitors, who live in 63 different countries, 84% reside in South Africa, 5% in the United Kingdom, 3.7% in America and 1% in Australia; 44% live in Cape Town, 22% in Gauteng and 2% in Hermanus. As you would expect, the home page was the most popular page over the past month, followed by the results, Bridge Clubs, Lectures and Learn Bridge pages. Nearly 53% of visitors use a computer; 36% use a cell-phone; and 11% a tablet. And that's enough statistics for this month!