Sadly, two of our members passed away recently.
You will find links to their obituaries on our In Memoriam page.
Author: JP Weber
Gordon McOrmond wins Penticton Regional!
Congratulations to local hero Gordon McOrmond of Sidney!
He came in first with 135.22 gold MPs in the Penticton Regional, beating well-known players including Iftikhar Baqai, Mitch Dunitz, Dan Jacobs and Mark Itabashi.
For detailed information on the tournament, go to McBruce’s Sunday’s Daily Bulletin at mcbruce.ca/25pen/sun.html.
Two weeks to the Victoria Regional!
The Victoria Regional starts Monday April 7th and runs until the following Sunday.
It’s a great opportunity for local players to score some gold points without having to leave the island. And it’s a lot of fun too!
If you have questions about anything regarding the tournament, you will likely find them answered on our tournament website, vicregional.ca.
To save you some time, here are the direct links to the three most frequently asked ones.
If you need more information, please contact me at chair@vicregional.ca. I’ll be happy to help.
JP Weber
Chair, Victoria Regional 2025
Flag Day at Monterey
Some 30 bridge players showed up in red and white for Flag Day, Saturday February 15. Well done, people!
And, thank you Madeleine for this great initiative.
AGM reminder
ACBL Unit 431’s Annual General Meeting will be held starting 12:00 noon, February 21, 2025, at Strawberry Vale Hall, 11 High Street, Victoria.
All paid-up ACBL member in good standing with Unit 431 are invited to attend.
The meeting’s agenda is to review the past year, confirm current board members, and vote in new players taking positions.
If you wish to volunteer as a board member or assist with events held by the board, please contact Ernie Tradewell (president) or Farhad Rohani (vice president).
There will be an individual bridge movement game after the meeting, followed by pizza.
Players participate solo and switch partners each round. Debbie Wastle will organize and direct the game: debwastle@gmail.com.
For ordering purposes (we don’t want to order too many or too few pizzas), please pre-register by emailing Maureen Trappe at maureen.trappe@outlook.com.
New masterpoint achievements!
Our Unit now boasts a new Ruby Life Master, a new Silver Life Master as well as new Club and Junior Masters.
See them on our Masterpoint Milestones page.
Keep up the good work, Victoria players!
Remembering departed players
We’re not a young crowd, so although sad, it’s perhaps no surprise that several active players have passed away recently.
You can see their obituaries on our In Memoriam page.
Unit Mentor Game Cancelled
Terry Foster and Heather Erskine, long-term organizers of the monthly Unit Mentor Game are cancelling the game due to low turnout.
Here is the message they sent to their participants:
After going through many game cancellations (due to low game registrations) in the last several months, we have decided to cancel the monthly Unit 431 Mentor Games until further notice. This decision does not affect Mike’s game and he will continue on as normal.
We have enjoyed getting to know and work with you all over the past 8 years and we wish you all the best going forward.
Thanks very much,
Terry and Heather
As they mention, VBC continues its on-line (BBO) mentor game at 12:15 on the fourth Sunday of each month with Mike Ainsley in charge. For more information, contact Mike at meainsley23@gmail.com.
Bridge Bulletin contest – we have a winner!
Last month’s Bridge Bulletin featured two smiling Victoria bridge players. Our little contest asked you to name them.
A total of 616 players received the invitation (also posted on our website), with 300 actually opening the email. Of these, 21 accepted the challenge and sent in their answer.
15 gave the correct answer, which can be found on page 25 of the October Bridge Bulletin. The featured players are Jill Plasteras and Madeleine Tremblay, part of the runners-up in the 0-2500 Mini-Spingold KO Teams.
The winner, drawn randomly from the correct results is Jim Brackenbury. He received Augie Boehm’s book, Masterpiece Deals, A Gallery of Beautiful Card Play.
Halloween at VBC
Participants at Thursday’s VBC game were invited to dress up in their Halloween costumes and several took up the challenge.
The ghostly winners for best costume were Margaret Skinner and Nicole Dupuis, who received a dinner gift card from Victoria Pub Company, valid at any of their four pubs, Bard & Banker, Irish Times, Penny Farthing, Vis-a-Vis.
Victoria team at Worlds in Buenos Aires
Follow the progress of our Victoria players at the World Bridge Championships by clicking here.
As a reminder, Michael Roche and Daniel Lyder are playing in the Open Team event, while Gord McOrmond and Mike Hargreaves are part of a Senior Team.
Some of the games are being shown on VuGraph for free. You can access the schedule by going onto BBO.
Latest Bridge Bulletin
I’m sure most players enjoy the monthly Bridge Bulletin. In fact, I’ve been told that some people who are no longer playing keep up their ACBL membership just for the magazine.
The October issue features something we rarely see – photos of Victoria players. Have a look. Once you’ve found them, click here for a chance to win a bridge-related prize.
There’s also a very funny and relatable article by Susan Morse on surviving a bad slam. And of course, all the usual good stuff.
Photos from a national competition
Over 20 Victoria players attended the Summer NABC in Toronto, held from July 17 to 28.
Here are pictures we received.
List of Unit Life Masters Updated
Our list shows in what year Victoria players (319 of them) became Life Masters. It covers the period between 1962 and 2023 and is updated yearly. You’ll find the full list under Members.
Quick trivia question: When did our current Unit president become a Life Master? Hint: it’s been a while.
You can also look at Masterpoint Milestones (also under Members) to see who’s moved up the Masterpoint ranks, from Junior Master to Grand Life Master. Updated every month!
Highlights from the AGM
Unit 431 held its Annual General Meeting on February 16th 2024, via Zoom.
Two new board members were elected by acclamation for 2-year terms:
- Jill Stainforth as Membership Coordinator. Jill had been serving as interim for the past few months.
- Susan Jobbins as Inventory Coordinator.
The president welcomed both to the board. He also thanked outgoing Inventory Coordinator Madeleine Tremblay for her service.
The list of board members, including photos (for most of them), can be found on the Unit’s website, bridgevictoria.ca, under Governance.
Highlights
- We held 1 regular Sectional Tournament and 2 limited (0-299) sectionals. We will be using both Monterey and Mary Winspear for tournaments this year. Monterey is preferred due to the cost so we will continue to try to locate both seasonal sectionals at that location.
- The Seasonal Gathering (formerly Christmas Party) was one of our largest celebrations in many years with 28 tables. Prior to the bridge game, attendees enjoyed a hilariously commented fashion show which saw golfers, boulevardiers and geocachers among others strutting the runway. A good time was had by all participants.
- The unit posted a net profit of about $3000 for 2023, an improvement over the previous year.
- The unit received a $4500 grant from ACBL to help develop bridge in Victoria, to be applied to Duplicate Light.
- We are now using pre-duplicated boards for all sectional games including team games. Pre-duplicated boards are now available for all sectional team games on the island. It was made more convenient to provide these boards by having all unit boards barcoded for the duplicating machine.
- We remember all those bridge friends we lost during the past year: Alan Filmer, Nancy Allan, Mary Szarka, Emma Abrams, Sue Foley, Nigel Williamson, and Michael Scott-Kerr. Obituaries can be found on our In Memoriam page (under Members).
- The results of the 2023 Unit races (Mini McKenney and Ace of Clubs) for all masterpoint categories can be found under Members on our website. Click here for direct access.
Attendance
An announcement was sent on January 21st via ACBL’s email service (Pianola) to all 406 members with valid emails . 73% (297) opened the email and presumably read it. A reminder, which included the link for the Zoom meeting was sent to the same group on February 13th. 266 people opened the email.
Only ten people actually showed up for the AGM. We reached quorum (20), after phoning around for volunteers.
It’s disappointing that less than 4% of Unit members feel sufficiently motivated to attend the AGM. Perhaps the they are put off by the format (Zoom) which is unfamiliar to many. The board will be trying to bring back an in-person AGM next year. As with previous live AGMs it will include a bridge game, as well as free pizza.
Member directory updated!
We have updated our online member directory. In addition to 400 Unit 431 members, the directory contains another 160 Victoria area duplicate bridge players who have asked to be included.
Each player entry includes their name, phone number, email address and BBO handle when available.
The directory is available to registered users who can gain access after going to the website, bridgevictoria.ca and then logging in. If you need instructions on the login procedure, click here.
If you’re not yet registered and wish to do so, click on this link.
New masterpoint achievements in November
Our Masterpoint Milestones page is updated monthly with the names of Unit 431 members who attain new levels in the rankings.
November awardees include a new Sapphire Life Master as well as two Silver Life Masters.
Find out who they are by clicking here.
Our website is moving to a new home!
Our website has been experiencing issues over the past few months, including slow page loading, and occasional outages.
To address these problems, we are moving to a new, hopefully more reliable host. We expect the migration to be completed by Friday, November 10. As with any move, temporary glitches can be expected.
If you notice anything not working as it should, please let me know by emailing me at webmaster@bridgevictoria.ca. You can also use the “Contact Us” button found on the right side of every page of the website.
Thanks for you help,
JP Weber
Webmaster, Unit 431
Embrace ACBL’s new convention card!
ACBL’s new convention card was introduced over a year ago, in the March 2022 Bridge Bulletin.
It’s actually much better than the previous one and takes into account the recent changes in alert and announcement procedures.
However, most of us, myself included, haven’t started using it yet.
Why is that? I can think of a couple of reasons:
- At our age, we’re set in our ways and change is hard.
- Clubs and tournaments haven’t exactly been promoting its use, in fact they still have a large stock of the old ones to get rid of.
So why adopt it?
- You’ll need to do it eventually. ACBL is aware that it could take several months for the existing cards in circulation to be replaced with the new one and has stated that “During the transition, either card will be acceptable.” No word yet on when the transition period will end.
- It will be a good opportunity to go over your conventions with your favourite partners, and review the new alert/announcement procedures. (e.g. transfers should now be announced by naming the suit transferred to – for instance, after 1NT, 2D, opener should say “Hearts”, no less, no more).
If you can’t easily find a paper copy, just download it from ACBL and print it.
To help you understand the new CC, ACBL published a series of explanatory articles in the BB over the last year. Local player Esther Wiebe has taken it upon herself to collate all of them within the pdf document below (which you can read and also download by clicking on 
) in the title bar, below.
Unit receives a grant from ACBL for Duplicate Light!
<span style=”font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; color: #000080;”>As reported in the July ACBL Bulletin, Unit 431, (Victoria/Gulf Islands) was granted $3500 to subsidize player entry fees for an already successful pilot project aimed at bringing aspiring duplicate players to play at clubs games. Called “Duplicate Light,” the program allows new players to practise duplicate in a relaxed environment before moving to the regular game.</span>
<span style=”font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; color: #000080;”>For more information, head to our <a style=”color: #000080;” href=”/tournaments-and-events/duplicate-light/”><u>Duplicate Light page</u></a>.</span>