ACBL Unit 431, District 19, Victoria BC
On the first of each month, we receive from ACBL the list of new masterpoint rank holders for the previous month. Terry Foster and Heather Erskine, tireless organizers of the Mentor Games are both featured, having attained Ruby Life Master and Silver Life Master respectively. Congratulation to both of them as well as to the other November awardees.
You can see more on our Masterpoint Milestones page, located under “Members” in the top menu of Unit 431’s website, bridgevictoria.ca.
If you know people who might be interested in learning bridge, why not point them to this free online resource?
Head to our Facebook page for detailed information.
We are saddened by the recent passing of two Victoria players, Maxine Thomas and Cathy Bryce.
And we just learned that Paul d’Orban had died in May.
Links to their obituaries, can be found on our “In Memoriam” page, in the Members section of our website.
If you wish to add a short tribute to their entry, please send it to the webmaster.
Note that entries are sorted in reverse chronological order of the death.
We had exceptional participation for our little game. Eighty submissions were received. Almost everyone found at least one typo. Several people also reported awkward or grammatically ambiguous sentences.
As to the typos themselves, 58 players reported “We organizes…”, 19 reported “by an board…” including four who flagged both of them.
Needless to say, the prize winner had to be determined by random draw among eligible participants (four board members sportingly participated, knowing they would be ineligible).
The winner of Max Hardy’s 2/1 book is Sophie Watt. Congratulations, Sophie!
The page has now been corrected. However, should you see anything on the website which needs to be changed, please let us know by clicking on the “Contact Us” button. It will only take you a few seconds. You can also send us your comments and suggestions the same way.
ACBL states that “The objective of the Alert system is for both pairs at the table to have equal access to all information contained in any auction. In order to meet this goal, it is necessary that all players understand and practice the principles of Full Disclosure and Active Ethics. Ethical bridge players will recognize the obligation to give complete explanations. They will accept the fact that any such information is entirely for the benefit of the opponents, and may not be used to assist their own partnership.” (from ACBL Alert Procedures)
Self-alerting of bids is one of the unexpected benefits of playing on BBO. Only opponents get to see your self-alert. Your partner is unaware that you even alerted, thus minimizing unauthorized information. Of course you have to do it the right way, which means NOT using the chat box. Click here if you’re unsure of how to do it.
You should therefore have no qualms about alerting a possibly ambiguous bid since you are not conveying unauthorized information to your partner by doing so.
Larry Cohen in a 2015 article gives some interesting examples of possibly alertable bids.
With self-alerting, no need to keep track of ACBL rulings – just alert every not-so-obvious bid. Once you get used to self-alerting, you will find it becomes a natural part of the bidding process. Don’t forget that announcements, such as transfers, are also alertable.
Finally, if you’re unsure of the meaning of an opponent’s bid, click on it to elicit a response from the bidder.
JPW
We had 41 players submitting results this month.
Glen Thornborough won with a respectable 450 points out of a possible 500. He receives a free game at VICTORIA CLUBS on BBO.
All participants in the October game will be receiving a personalized email with their detailed scores.
Our new scoring system shows who’s doing well during the year. The leaderboard, which includes the top 10 players is updated monthly. It’s a horse race, with the first two players again switching places this month. And several others are hot on their heels. Two more months to go before we crown the winner for 2020! Click here to find out more.
Find the complete list of participants and scores under IYC Monthly Results in the It’s Your Call section at the top of the page. For quicker access, follow this link. You can also check comments from participants and even add your own!
To check out the November 2020 quiz, either click here, or hover your mouse over It’s Your Call (at top of page) to see a pull-down menu of choices.
ACBL published a document earlier this year (Convention Charts 2020) showing permissible bidding conventions for different types of games and competitions.
Club games will usually be conducted under the Open Chart. However, restricted games, such as mentor games should use either Basic or Basic+. Unit 431 mentor games will henceforth be using Basic+.
Here is an excerpt from the ACBL document, showing both the Basic and Basic+ Charts, so you can see the differences between them.
Lame pun aside, if you’re looking for gold, you might want to try ACBL’s “Fall into Bridge” online tourney, Oct 15-18. There are events available for all levels of players.
You’ll need to sign up with a partner. Both of you will require a BBO username (aka “handle”). If you need info on how to get one, or indeed on any other aspect of BBO, click on BBO🔺 in the top menu of this page.
A veritable cornucopia of gold, ruby and silver hit Victoria this September with a new Gold Life Master, a Ruby LM, two Silver LMs and a newly minted Life Master.
In addition, nine other players attained new Master ranks on their way up to Life Master status.
Find out who they are on our Masterpoint Milestones page. And if they’re friends of yours, why don’t you send them a congratulatory email since you probably won’t be seeing them in person for a while!
BBO is having a Carnival weekend with some weird and wacky games. Check it out here.
For more information on BBO (local games, how to play, etc) click on BBO in the top menu of this page, or in fact any page on the website.
For a second consecutive month 38 players submitted results.
Mike Dorn Wiss won the September quiz with 470 points (out of a possible 500). He receives a free game at VICTORIA CLUBS on BBO.
All participants in the September game have received a personalized email with their detailed scores.
Our new scoring system shows who’s doing well during the year. The leaderboard, which includes the top 10 players is updated monthly. There’s a close race going on between the first 2 players who traded places this month. Click here to find out more.
Find the complete list of participants and scores under IYC Monthly Results in the It’s Your Call section at the top of the page. For quicker access, follow this link. You can also check comments from participants and even add your own!
To check out the October 2020 quiz, either click here, or hover your mouse over It’s Your Call (at top of page) to see a pull-down menu of choices.
The past few months have been transformative for our bridge-playing activities. Many of us are now playing regularly on-line, whether with our usual partners at local games or further afield with strangers and robots.
Our website has accordingly given greater prominence to online bridge, particularly BridgeBase Online (BBO) as well as our local version of ACBL’s It’s Your Call bidding quiz. Ours is appropriately called It’s Your Call, Victoria and is exclusively for Unit 431 players.
To ensure quick and easy access to these resources, I have modified the top horizontal menu of our website, adding two new items, BBO and It’s Your Call, as shown below:
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Furthermore if for example you hover your mouse over, say, BBO, you will trigger a pulldown menu with more items:
So, bottom line, you can quickly (2 clicks!) reach these resources from anywhere on our website, bridgevictoria.ca.
Feel free to comment by clicking on the “Contact Us” button at the top of the sidebar on the right.
As you may have heard, Bill Wastle has closed the Head Street location of the Victoria Bridge Centre. Bill is currently storing his bridge supplies and equipment and when circumstances allow, he may reopen in a new location. In the meantime, the Victoria Bridge Centre continues to run virtual club games on BBO. Thank you, Bill, for your hard work and dedication to the Victoria bridge community. Click here for a complete list of local BBO games.
Rita Beny and Nev Hircock, long time bridge teachers and supporters of Victoria duplicate bridge are moving up island to French Creek. They assure us that once face to face bridge is active again, they plan to visit Victoria on a monthly basis. All the best Rita and Nev and we hope to see you at island tournaments and clubs in the future!
Victoria players have taken to online playing like a duck to water. As a result, we have two new Silver Life Masters, one Bronze Life Master and three Junior Masters for August.
To see who they are, head to our Masterpoint Milestones page on our website, bridgevictoria.ca
Our bidding game, strictly for Victorians, is fairly popular with Unit 431 players. So far in 2020, 112 of you have played it at least once. In 2019, the total number of players was 104.
We reward the monthly winner with a free game useable at one of the local virtual clubs. But what about those who do well throughout the year without coming in first? To recognize their achievement we have set up a scoring system, similar to what ACBL uses to give out masterpoints. Click here for an explanation of the scoring system.
Using the scoring system I have calculated overall scores for the past calendar year (2019). All 104 participants will be receiving their individual 2019 score in the next few days.
The top 10 scorers for 2019 are:
Rank Name Score
1 Duncan Smith 423.9
2 John Miller 422.1
3 Don Copeland 379.5
4 Holly Boudreau 361.1
5 Michael Cockerell 353.6
6 Bob MacDonald 351.2
7 Gina Curran 231.4
8 David Todd 227.2
9 Janette Magne 217.2
10 Joan McLeod 207.8
The next step will be to set up an ongoing leaderboard of top scorers as we progress through the current year. The leaderboard will be updated at the end of each month, starting with the September quiz.
Watch this space for further developments.
For any question or comment, please use the “Contact Us” button on the right sidebar.
Marguerite Watson passed away on August 14.
Find more information and access her obituary on our In Memoriam page.
Response was down significantly this month with only 38 players submitting results.
Judging from the scores, this was a difficult set of problems, which maybe discouraged some from submitting results. Congratulations to Sophie Watt who came in first with 430 points (out of a possible 500). This is Sophie’s second win in the past year or so. She merits herself a free game at VICTORIA CLUBS on BBO.
All participants in the August game have received a personalized email with their detailed scores.
Find the complete list of participants and scores under It’s Your Call-Results in the MEMBERS section at the top of the page. For quicker access, follow this link. You can also check comments from participants and even add your own!
It’s now impossible to make an insufficient bid or to double your partner or redouble when no double has been made. Note that when (if) we get back to playing at clubs, all those possibilities will exist anew, possibly to the delight of your opponents.
To check out the September 2020 quiz, either click here, or hover your mouse over Members (at top of page) to see a pull-down menu of choices, one of which is It’s Your Call, Victoria!
Tony Farr handily won our website quiz with a perfect score! He receives $20 (US) in BBO $. Four players tied for second place. As specified in the contest rules, a random draw was held among these four to determine second ($10) and third ($5) prize. The recipients are respectively Judy Irwin and Terry Foster. Congratulations to all.
And thanks to all seventeen Unit 431 members who participated.
Yes, turnout was quite modest. It looks like my premise, that bridge players enjoy games, was probably flawed. It seems more likely they enjoy games as long as they’re spelled b-r-i-d-g-e!
For those interested in the details of the quiz (distribution of results, difficulty of questions, etc) please head to the quiz page.
JP
Dear Unit 431 member,
Our Unit’s website has been active under its current moniker (bridgevictoria.ca) since April 2015. The purpose of the website is to provide timely and comprehensive bridge-related information to our local duplicate bridge community.
Bridge players enjoy games, so, to celebrate the site’s five-year anniversary, I thought it might be fun to set up a little quiz exclusively for Unit 431 members. You might think of it as a treasure hunt through the website.
There are 15, mostly easy questions. The winner will receive $20 in BBO dollars. Second place gets $10 and third place $5.
If you’re already familiar with the website, you shouldn’t find it too difficult. If you’re not, here’s a great opportunity to learn about how useful bridgevictoria.ca can be to you as a Victoria bridge player.
The quiz will be available for one week, starting Sunday, July 26 at 9 am and ending Saturday, August 1 at 10 pm.
You can take the quiz as many times as you want, but only your last attempt will be considered when we compile the scores.
All the answers are found on the website. If there is any discrepancy with data from an external source, the website data will be deemed correct.
In case of one or more ties, a random draw will determine the top three winners.
Click here to get to the quiz. You can also find it under Members in the website’s top menu.
Hope you enjoy the challenge!
JP
JP Weber,
Webmaster, Unit 431
We had a very good response this month with 48 players submitting results.
The winner is Bob MacDonald with a near-perfect score of 490 (out of a possible 500). The prize for winning is a free game at VICTORIA CLUBS on BBO.
All participants in the July game have received a personalized email with their detailed scores.
Find the complete list of participants and scores under It’s Your Call-Results in the MEMBERS section at the top of the page. For quicker access, follow this link. You can also check comments from participants and even add your own!
Our quiz has a new look and an improved interface, tweaked slightly from last month. You no longer have to worry about submitting multiple bids on a problem.
To check out the August 2020 quiz, either click here, or hover your mouse over Members (at top of page) to see a pull-down menu of choices, one of which is It’s Your Call, Victoria!