Yorkshire Contract Bridge Association

New Beginner’s Bridge course

15th February 2022

The YCBA has commissioned Jim Edwards to produce comprehensive digital resources for the first ten lessons of a beginners’ course in bridge play.
Lesson 1 can be openly previewed at  https://bridgeplay.uk/Lessons/Index/123

This full course materials are available free of charge, exclusively to Yorkshire EBU affiliated clubs. Our Clubs can now contact Jim at  jimedwards.bridge@gmail.com to get their Club password access to the full course materials. 

Tollemache Qualifier 2021 – November 13th/14th

4th December 2021

The withdrawal of some of our top pairs meant Yorks were on the back foot straight away and once again failed to qualify for the Tollenmache final.

31 county teams entered on Realbridge and these were split into 2 groups of 16 and 15 with the top 4 qualifying from each group.

Yorkshire were in the group of 15 and finished 8^th, 23 victory points short of 4^th. The team took a hammering from the eventual winners, London (who cantered to victory) and there after mediocre performances left them mid table. Robinson and Sowter were by far and away the best performing pair being the only ones positive on the cross imps.

The organisation of the pairs and the seating rights etc. were well coordinated by the NPC Alan Brosgill, who did a sterling job ensuring everyone was in position at the correct time and keeping us well informed.

In the Yorkshire group, qualifiers were London, Berks and Bucks, Gloucester, Norfolk
and in the other group, qualifiers were Manchester, Devon, Warwicks, Herts.

Some notable teams performed worse than Yorks (Surrey, Middlesex, Cambs, Kent) but that is of no consolation!

Yorkshire Team: Robinson / Sowter / McNiff / Hayward / Woolven / Cohen / Pike / Waxman / Cook / Haines.

YCBA Great Northern Swiss Pairs – Winners

7th October 2021

The 2021 Great Northern Swiss Pairs took place again this year on BBO.

Congratulations to Paul Murray & Andrew Woodcock who finished in first place, with a score of 57.97%.

In second place were Ron Davis & Tracy Sherman with a score of 56.04%, and in third place were Robin Jepson & Alan Brosgill with a score of 55.82%

The top three and results links are shown below

TD Refresher Seminar video

8th August 2021

For anyone who missed Phil Godfrey’s online seminar on 24 July, a recording is available to the end of August here

TD Refresher Course on July 24

16th July 2021

To help ease you back into potentially face to face bridge, Phil Godfrey, one of our leading tournament directors, will be running a refresher course on common calls/problems on Saturday 24^th July.

Full details are available in the Event Calendar.

Wakefield Bridge Club on the move.

14th July 2021

Wakefield Bridge Club are moving premises. Please see their website for the new address and directions to their clubhouse.

Yorkshire success at EBU virtual Seaside Summer Congress

9th July 2021

Yorkshire pair Keith Joules and David Beck won the Swiss Pairs event at the EBU virtual Seaside Summer Congress (previously the English Riviera Congress) by the considerable margin of 34 VPs. Full results are available on the EBU website or here

Garden Cities Trophy success

27th June 2021

Many congratulations to the Sheffield A team of Dave Robinson & Tony Sowter, Richard Pike & David Waxman, Arthur Hughes & Dave Banks, and Baz Caygill & Sandy Davies for winning the Garden Cities Trophy.

This is a national competition for winners of county leagues teams of 8 and after coming through the regional heats, they went on to win the final.

Full results can be found here

YCBA Secretary post advertised

22nd June 2021

The YCBA is seeking to make an appointment from among its membership to the position of Secretary.

It is an honorary role but travel and other reasonable expenses will be reimbursed – travel expenses in accordance with an existing scale.    The successful candidate will be co-opted until the next Annual General Meeting in June 2022.    Under the YCBA Constitution all officers including the Secretary are elected annually at the AGM.

Full details are available here.

Applications should be sent by email to Nick Woolven, chairman@ycba.co.uk

Yorkshire Invitation team win Friendly against Southampton and District

17th June 2021

Friendly between a Yorkshire invitation team & Southampton and District

On 10^th June a friendly took place between a Yorkshire invitation team and Southampton and District. The Southampton team comprised of the Corwen winning pair, 2 of the strongest players from Kent and several strong Southampton players. I am pleased to say that the Yorkshire team won by 3 matches to one.

In the first match Nick Woolven and Mike Ferguson were on fire and partnering Mike Jackson and John Hayton, winning by 73-26.

The second match probably saw some of the best bridge from both teams and Southampton won this by 58-38. The Yorkshire team was Alan Hayward and Alan Jarvis partnering Robin Jepson and Alan Brosgill.

The third match saw Keith Joules and David Beck partnering Ian Johns and John O’Sullivan winning by   49 -24, with some good contracts being bid and made.

The final match saw Chris and Pauline Fort partnering Stephen and Cheryl Brown who had a storming victory of 41-9 bidding and making some good contracts missed in other matches.

The match was played in a friendly manner and competitive spirit and the banter afterwards on the zoom meeting was lively.