Bridge in Charlbury

I will be hosting a second combined teaching and social bridge event in Charlbury on Wednesday June 28th starting at 2.30pm – some bridge tips to start with, followed by rounds of Chicago, the most fun way to play the game in a social context. The session will be held in a lovely barn just outside Charlbury. and hosted by Andrew and Rosie Dent.

If you would be interested in joining this session please let me know by email (using the contact link to the left or on the top menu) and I will give you the details. If you have already told me that you wish to play there is no need to let me know again. I will be emailing those who have said they were coming to confirm their place.

Looking forward to seeing you on the day.

Jonathan

Bridge coming up (correction)

The normal online Tuesday morning session I mentioned in my last email is going ahead, as I said, but for some reason, I put in the wrong date. I was of course referring to May 30th, not June 20th, as I mistakenly wrote. My apologies for that – hence this attempt to clear up the confusion. May 30th it is, starting at the normal time of 9am.

Jonathan

Bridge coming up

The normal online Tuesday morning session is going ahead tomorrow. Depending on numbers will decide whether to kick off by playing together one of BBO’s 8 board robot bridge challenges for Acol players – a great way to test your knowledge and share my thinking – or move straight on to supervised play. Please let me know by email if you are available and I will send details and add you to the list of players who get notified every week.

Jonathan

Bridge in Charlbury

A reminder that I will be hosting a combined teaching and social bridge event in Charlbury on Wednesday May 24th starting at 2.30pm – some bridge tips to start with, followed by a few rounds of Chicago, the most fun way to play the game in a social context. The session will be held in a lovely barn just outside Charlbury. and hosted by Andrew and Rosie Dent.

Looking forward to it

Jonathan

Bridge coming up

I will be hosting a combined teaching and social bridge event in Charlbury on Wednesday May 24th starting at 2.30pm – a few bridge tips to start with followed by a few rounds of Chicago, the most fun way to play the game in a social context. If you would be interested in joining this session please let me know by email (using the contact link to the left or on the top menu) and I will give you the details. If you have already told me that you wish to play there is no need to let me know again.

I have also resumed the online Tuesday morning sessions with a slightly new format. We kick off by playing together one of BBO’s 8 board robot bridge challenges for Acol players – a great way to test your knowledge and share my thinking – followed by several hands of supervised play. Again if you are interested please let me know and I will send details and add you to the list of players who get notified every week.

Look out also for the next beginners and refreshers lessons that I will be announcing shortly.

Jonathan

Online bridge update 33

The two-hour Monday morning seminar tomorrow (December 7th) will be a mixture of a single topic and another Play These Hands With Me session. I am happy to say that the technical problems that blighted the seminar two weeks ago were temporary (apparently caused by problems with Virgin Media’s network) and last week’s went ahead successfully without incident. To sign up for this and Tuesday bridge there are Paypal payment buttons in this post and also in the sidebar of most pages on the website.

Pay for seminar

7th December 2020 from 9.30am

£20.00

There will be the normal Tuesday morning supervised play session again this week (8th December), starting at 9.30am. Please let me know as early possible that you intend to join, ideally by early Monday event as it makes it so much easier to arrange the tables and reduce the risk of having to turn one of you away. Annabel will be back this week, so we should be able to run the full four-table session as normal.

The ten group sessions also continue as normal this week. Looking ahead, some of you will be taking breaks in the run up to Christmas, so it would be helpful if you could give me some notice if you know you are going to miss one of those sessions, so I can arrange substitutes, if necessary. My current plan is to offer some sessions in the week after Christmas, but reduce those in the week immediately running up to Christmas Day, which is on a Friday this year.

Tuesday supervised play

8th December from 9.30am

£15.00

I am playing in the final of the Portland Club annual member and guest pairs competition tomorrow – a fun event involving a lot of untried partnerships – and if there are any interesting hands I will bring them up on Monday. This was a hand from a match last week. Do you think the West hand, with three points, should bid after his partner opened 2 No Trumps? My partner did not, but our opponents did and there was no way to prevent nine tricks being made, with hearts friendly – the defence cannot stop the fourth heart winning – and the diamond finesse also working.

Happy bridging….

Jonathan

Online bridge update 32

The two-hour Monday morning seminar tomorrow (November 30th) will be another Play These Hands With Me session, including some deals I have played recently. To sign up for this and Tuesday bridge there are Paypal payment buttons in this post and also in the sidebar of most pages on the website.

Pay for seminar

30th November 2020 from 9.30am

£20.00

There will be the normal Tuesday morning supervised play session again this week (1st December), starting at 9.30am. Please let me know as early possible that you intend to join, ideally by early Monday event as it makes it so much easier to arrange the tables and reduce the risk of having to turn one of you away. There is no Annabel this week, so it is more important than usual to get the numbers right. The ten group sessions also continue as normal.

Tuesday supervised play

1st December from 9.30am

£15.00

The answer to the question of last week “how do you bid a strong balanced hand with 25-26 High Card Points?” is: open with 2 Clubs, our strongest bid, and then rebid 3NT to show a balanced 25-26 HCPs. You just have to wait quite a long time to get an example……

Happy bridging….

Jonathan

Online bridge update 31

The two-hour Monday morning seminar tomorrow (November 23rd) will be another Play These Hands With Me session, including some deals from the international tournament I played in last week. By way an example try this hand out, the first one of the whole four-day event. How would you bid and play this slam hand (follow this link)? To sign up for this and Tuesday bridge there are Paypal payment buttons in this post and also in the sidebar of most pages on the website.

Pay for seminar

23rd November from 9.30am

£20.00

There will be the normal Tuesday morning supervised play session again this week (24th November), starting at 9.30am. Please let me know as early possible that you intend to join, ideally by early Monday evening, as it makes it so much easier to arrange the tables and reduce the risk of having to turn one of you away. The ten group sessions also continue as normal.

Tuesday supervised play

24th November from 9.30am

£15.00

Question of the week: how do you bid a strong balanced hand with 25-26 High Card Points?

Happy bridging….

Jonathan

Online bridge update 30

The two-hour Monday morning seminar tomorrow (November 16th) will be another Play These Hands With Me session, possibly including some deals from the annual Portland Club duplicate competition in which I am playing today. Thank you all for your positive comments about these session. Just as Andrew Robson likes to use the example of his 1NT doubled minus 7 experience in his classes, there can be times when you learn as much from hands that go wrong as from those that are triumphs…..

I am including Paypal payment buttons in this post again, but if you have trouble making them work you can also book your place in the seminar or for the Tuesday morning supervised play session by going to any page of the website and looking for the payment option in the right hand sidebar.

Pay for seminar

16th November 2020 from 9.30am

£20.00

There will be the normal Tuesday morning supervised play session again this week (17th November), starting at 9.30am). Please let me know as early possible that you intend to join, ideals by early Monday evening, as it makes it so much easier to arrange the tables and reduce the risk of having to turn one of you away.

Pay for Tuesday bridge

17th November 2020 Supervised play

£15.00

I may have to postpone or reschedule one or two of the group sessions this week because of other commitments, but will let those involved know separately. Meanwhile I would like to thank everyone who enrolled in the beginners bridge course yesterday and maintained their concentration so admirably for the full five and a half hour experience. There are some quick learners among them, I can tell, and I look forward to welcoming them into our group. The second part of the two-day course will be on November 28th.

Jonathan Davis

Online bridge update 29

The two-hour Monday morning interactive session Play These Hands With Me continues to work well so I have decided to extend it for a few more weeks, albeit with a mild twist. I will kick off with a small number of hands based around a specific theme and then move on to generate new randomly dealt hands to bid and play through (discarding those that are of no great teaching value). The idea is to talk through my thinking at every stage of the hand and discuss all the issues that come up with you as we go through.

This format is one that I know from personal experience is invaluable in taking the conventions and play techniques you have learnt so far and applying them to a real life situation at the table. As many of you have told me, it is one thing to know in principle what to do and another to put all that into practice. In particular, the challenge is to organise and prioritise your thinking so as to focus on what is most important at each point, recognising that this may differ from one hand to the next.

I am including a Paypal payment button in these posts but if you have trouble making them work you should be able to book your place by going to any page of the website and looking for the payment option in the right hand sidebar.

Pay for seminar

9th November 2020 from 9.30am

20.00 £

There will be the normal Tuesday morning supervised play session again this week (10th November), starting at 9.30am). You can book in by using the payment button in this post or in the sidebar of the website. If you have any technical problems with that, pay by bank transfer as normal and let me know that you are planning on attending. Please let me know as early possible that you intend to join as it makes it so much easier to arrange the tables. If we have the same 16 as last time I am proposing to arrange this as a teams match – the purpose being to enable me to allow you to compare your bidding, play and scores to a professional match (one of the better features of Bridge Base Online).

Pay for Tuesday bridge

10th November 2020 Supervised play

15.00 £

All the group sessions will continue this week in the usual way as well.

Last week I took the decision to defer our new two part online bridge course for beginners by a week because some of those attending had to change their plans because of the recent new lockdown rules. Day one will now be on 14th November and day two on 28th November. Each day consists of two three-hour online lessons; one from 9.30am to 12.30pm and the second from 2pm to 4.30pm. Each one can be booked separately, so that you can decide after the first whether you want to move on with the next. Thank you for everyone who has booked up so far. I still have one or two places left (numbers restricted to ensure sufficient individual attention).

The sessions are fully interactive and participants will receive a full set of my notes after completing each day’s session. We will also play through together a series of example hands to illustrate the game in action. Some people think that it is not possible to learn the game in just one or two days, but I know from experience that this is far from the truth. The aim of the course is to take you to a point where in answer to the question “do you play bridge?” you can truthfully reply “Yes, I can”. Bridge is a skill for life that you won’t regret acquiring and this course will give you the platform to achieve just that.

Jonathan Davis