I hope you have a pen and your brand new 2022 diary to hand as you read this, our first bridge newsletter of the year. We have a series of bridge related events planned, several of which will also be of interest to players living outside the Western Cape.

As the latest Covid wave dies down, formal face to face bridge is starting to take place. Already the Hermanus and Impala bridge clubs are playing in the traditional way, while the Cape Town Bridge Centre will open its doors to players in mid February under strict Covid safety provisions; to celebrate, a special bridge event will be held on Sunday 27th February; watch the WCBU website and your E-mail in-basket for more details. Grand Slam Bridge Club hosts its first session at the Centre on 15th February at 13h30.
 

The Centre will also be the venue for Pro-Am tournaments scheduled for 29th May, 28th August and 27th November, as well as the red masterpoint Western Cape Bridge Festival from 16th to 18th December. Our two other red point events, the Western Cape Pairs on 14th and 15th May and our Western Cape Teams on 10th and 11th September, will both probably be played online so players in other parts of the country can compete without the cost and inconvenience of travel. More details of all these events will be published on the WCBU website and in our monthly newsletters, as will details of Western Cape clubs as they open.

While traditional bridge gets underway, the WCBU will continue running BBO pairs tournaments on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and, for less experienced players, Fridays at 10h00, as well as on Saturdays at 13h30; this should satisfy the more than 80% of our online players who still want at least a smidgeon of online bridge from the comfort of their homes. The JM Bridge Club will continue running its monthly Thursday night Personal Trust sponsored RealBridge teams competition where prizes are on offer; teams from around the country can contact Mark Kenyon ([email protected]) for further details or to enter the February competition. However, NOTE that from the beginning of February we will no longer be running 12 board mini tournaments at 19h30 on Mondays to Thursdays.

South Africa's first red masterpoint tournament of the year is the KZNBU's Jenny Armstrong Swiss Teams Competition taking place on 20th February on BBO, while the South African Women's Bridge Association (SAWBA) annual competition is scheduled for early March, also on BBO. You can click here to register for these events. In the SAWBA Interprovincial teams competition, the Western Cape will be represented by the Duff and Zimet teams who narrowly edged out the Stern team in this weekend's trials.

Turning now to bridge education, both Carol Stanton's January Tournament Director and Beginner Bridge courses were oversubscribed. Attached is the brochure for Carol's next beginners' course which starts in early March. Our free Personal Trust sponsored February Zoom workshop for intermediate players, on the topic Carding and Signals, will be run by Sven-Ake Bjerregaard on Sunday 13th February at 15h00; the attached brochure has the details, including the Zoom link. As usual, we welcome attendance from players everywhere who want to improve their bridge skills. You can click here to access the slides from Glen Holman's January lecture on the Law of Total Tricks, as well as the handouts from earlier workshops by Glen and Carol.

As we resume face to face bridge, the WCBU committee has commissioned Michael Alexander to provide brief summaries of bridge rules, ethics and etiquette that might have been forgotten during the Covid bridge hiatus; a new item will be added to the WCBU website each Sunday. His first announcement covers five actions that dummy is NOT allowed to take:   1. ask a defender about a possible revoke 2. try to prevent an irregularity on the part of a DEFENDER 3. draw attention before the hand is over to any irregularity 4. point out how many tricks have been won or lost 5. suggest a director be called. The next five actions will be published on the website next weekend with other topics to follow. If you have any query on the rules, please email Michael [email protected] - if he doesn't know the answer, he will find it!

If you would like an insight into how the world's top players think as they play hands, you should try the Tournament Series on the New Tricks Bridge Club website. I'm sure we can all improve our bridge by watching how they reason out the layouts of the hands as the bidding and play progress.

It's just on a year now since the WCBU's now not so new website went live; we welcome feedback from those of you that have used it. If you are one of our 36% of visitors accessing it with a cell phone, then the top menu item RESULTS is prominent and you can click on the down arrow alongside to quickly access the other menu items instead of scrolling down endlessly. Results from face to face sessions will be uploaded to the website from BridgeMates in the same way as those from BBO. Players who have registered on Pianola via the WCBU website are able to log on and view an analysis of all the sessions they have played during the past year as many of you are already doing.

During January, the WCBU website was visited by more than 600 visitors who viewed some 3,600 pages of information. As happens month after month, the two most popular pages were the home and results pages. However, this month these were followed in popularity by the Learn Bridge and Bridge Clubs pages.

Finally, a reminder to all SABF members: your 2022 subs of R 100 each should be paid promptly. Members in the Western Cape should pay theirs into WCBU's new FNB bank account number 62926125263 clearly stating your SABF number, name and 2022Subs as reference. Please note that our ABSA account is being closed.

If this monthly Western Cape Bridge news was forwarded to you by a friend and you would like to receive future copies, then please E-mail me. If you wish to unsubscribe, then please click on the unsubscribe link below. You can also access our terms and conditions, including compliance with the POPI Act, from the other link below.

Finally, we look forward both to your comments / feedback and to encountering you at the WCBU virtual and real bridge tables in the days ahead.

Stay safe and enjoy your bridge