Play sessions continue

This is to confirm that we will be continuing to run our two regular morning sessions throughout March, one on Tuesday mornings at The Trout and the second on Friday mornings at the Terrace Room in Islip Village Hall. The Trout sessions have now been running for more than two months and are proving popular, with everyone entering into the spirit of an open-minded review of each hand played.
Last Friday’s inaugural event at Islip was also well attended and the feedback on both the venue and the play session itself has been positive, so do please come and try one of these events if you can. They are a great opportunity to play real life hands and discuss them afterwards, both at the table and under supervision from Annabel and myself. Each session runs from 10am to 1pm.
If you are interested in coming it would be helpful if you could update your likely dates on the Doodle polls for each event. I don’t take these as a binding commitment on your behalf, but they are a useful indicator of core numbers. We can also normally accept you if you simply turn up on the day, with or without a partner. So don’t assume that just because the numbers on the poll look lop-sided you won’t get a chance to play – there have been more people coming than expected every week so far.
The links to the Doodle poll are as follows:
The Trout
Islip Village Hall
Each session consists of a series of real life pre-dealt hands, selected by me to bring out important points of interest. Here is one hand from Tuesday’s session which showed how bidding a slam does not depend solely on the number of High Card Points you and your partner have between you. The shape of your hand is just as important. Do you have the methods to bid Six Spades if these were your two hands? We discussed exactly how that might happen at various tables.
6S hand from The Trout March 2019
Details of the next series of bridge courses will be posted to the website any day now. My expectation is that the next round of courses will start after the school holidays, but with some one-off seminars on specific conventions and play topics between now and then. So please watch this space……..

A new play venue

As promised we are ready to try some additional times and venues for our play and learn sessions. The popular morning sessions at The Trout will continue, starting at 10am every Tuesday.  On the morning of Friday March 8th we will be holding our first trial morning session in the Terrace Room at Islip Village Hall, starting at 10am. This is one of the best venues that I have come across, spacious, comfortable and well-appointed, and ideally suited to playing bridge. It is just a couple of minutes drive from the A34 north of Oxford, and also accessible from the ring road. There is plenty of free parking. Postcode OX5 2TH.

We are offering a three hour play session with supervision available from myself and Annabel on a series of pre-dealt hands (hand records available at the end). As the Tuesday morning sessions have shown, these play and learn sessions combine an element of real life competition with the chance to meet new people and practise what you know or have learnt so far in a friendly atmosphere.

As with the Tuesday sessions, the simplest way to book a place is to make a bank transfer quoting Islip March 8th as a reference. Alternatively send us an email (bridge@arb-oxf.uk, or arb.oxford@gmail.com) declaring your intention to play and we will provide the bank details by return. All sessions cost £15 and refreshments will be available. While it is possible to turn up unannounced, we will try – but cannot absolutely guarantee – to find you a table.

We now have two new Doodle polls running for you to indicate which dates in March you might be able to make, one for The Trout on Tuesday mornings and the second for Islip on a Friday morning. These polls don’t commit you to play, of course, but are helpful for planning purposes. Once the current crop of teaching courses has ended, we may be able to work in opportunities to play on other days of the week as well, including our first duplicate sessions.

These are the links:

The Trout in March

https://doodle.com/poll/wa6msa8sqkkvhiv4

Islip on March 8th and other dates

https://doodle.com/poll/sa7ytsd5p22n5r32