Congratulations to Roger and Margaret Shelley, who followed up their first place on Monday with another first place last night. Special mention also to a new, successful, partnership of Chris Douglas and Ross Marwood who came a very creditable second last night.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go as smoothly as Monday evening did. Several Pairs, new to on-line Bridge, were unable to make the 7.00 pm deadline. I am really sorry about that – it must have been frustrating for you. Your committee have been giving serious thought as to how we can make this easier for “on-line novices”. If you haven’t already done so, set up an SSD with your partner prior to the event (one partner submits it – the other accepts it). You can use a room called “The Office” in the main club to do this any time or you can use any of the playing rooms. Play a few boards together in the Social room just “to get your hand in” and “learn the ropes”. We have several, experienced, on-line players/partnerships who are very willing to play a few practice boards with partnerships new to on-line Bridge. Get in touch if you would like to arrange this or if you have any other questions.
On our “virtual” F2F evenings, make sure that you are there for seating at 6.45 pm when the BASSHM (or HEIGHN) room opens. Pairings may wish to appoint a “senior partner” who sits first (North at first available table), and “junior partner” who sits opposite a few minutes later. Use the phone or social media to chat to each other while setting up. At 7.00 pm, all players click “Ready” and away you go. Incidentally, the server will only allow 3 players to be “Ready” until 7.00 pm. If you have difficulties setting up it is often a good idea to click “Leave Table” and then return to find a seat opposite your partner.
Remember to use the “Refresh”, “Tables” and “Local Club” tabs at the top of the page to help locate members. From the “Local Club” or “Members” list, you can click on your partner’s name, their profile pops up, you can then “set as partner” and/or “chat to partner”.
The pace of play was an issue last night. This is partly explained by the fact that the 6 table Howell movement meant that we had 11 moves (but at least we all played each other and said “Hello”). However, at the risk of repeating myself, do please AVOID SLOW PLAY as it is very frustrating for most of the room to be held up by one or two slow players. Do alert artificial bids as you would do normally, but there is no need to “announce” bids that are clearly explained in your SSD e.g. Benji weak twos. Do claim if your line of play is clear but don’t claim if there are outstanding trumps and don’t claim if there are only a couple of tricks left.
We will be offering regular Monday (HEIGHN) and Thursday (BASSHM) Bridge at least up until Christmas (and probably beyond). Stay safe and stay sane. Andy