Bridge Victoria

The Canadian National Institute for the Blind is putting on a fundraising bridge game, Bridging Barriers Charity Game. Here’s a chance to contribute to a worthy cause while enjoying your favourite game.

Game information

1. Where: on BBO
2. When:  Sunday, March 7, 2021 from 10:00AM -12:30PM (PST)
3. Format: 18 boards, stratified A/B/C (point ranges to be announced).
4. ACBL Club Championship rating points (2X the normal club black points).
5. The game will be run through Island Bridge Club, with Roy Stefaniec directing.
6. Prizes will be awarded to top E/W – N/S scores for all three strats.
7. Grand Prize – a 38” strand of pearls donated by Stones Jewellry, valued at $1195.
8. The winner will be announced on game day, Sunday, March 7 at 9:55 am.
   

The cost is $50, eligible for an income tax receipt for the whole amount.
(Please disregard previous information stating receipt was for $35.)

Specific instructions:

1. Choose your partner (you must have a partner to play with, but register individually, to receive your tax receipt)
2. Have your BBO username (handle) ready before you pre-register (required field).
3. Pre-register through this link: https://www.classy.org/event/cnib-bridging-barriers/e317773
4. Game day: log onto BBO between 9:00-9:30 am on Sunday, March 7.
5. Select Challenge then All Tournaments. Type CNIB into the SEARCH field in the top right-hand corner.
6. Click on CNIB and you will be placed at a table, one partner invites the other and you are ready to play!
7. Draw for the Grand Prize takes place at 9:55 am, just before the game starts. Only players are eligible to win.
8. If you have trouble logging on at game day, contact Roy Stefaniec at 250 812-1615.

The Unit 431 Board of Directors will hold the annual AGM on Sunday, February 28, 2021, at 3pm, by Zoom. This allows time for the Sunday mentor game to complete, and for players to log on to the AGM.

Instructions for joining the meeting will be sent to all members several days in advance of the AGM, along with an agenda and an information package, so members can review reports from the Board and the slate of candidates for election to Board vacancies. Nominations will close at the AGM.

A quorum of 20 members is needed to conduct business such as the election of Board members and approval of the financial report. We hope you can attend. We plan to keep the meeting to approximately 30 minutes.

Thank you,

ACBL Unit 431 Board of Directors

As 2020 fades away, it’s time for a year-end report. Our quiz has been now running for four complete years. Although the format remains the same, we’ve significantly improved the interface this year, for a friendlier user experience. We have also added a new scoring system to determine who’s doing well during the year, even if they don’t win outright in any particular month. This is shown in the leaderboard, which includes the top 10 players and is updated monthly. For 2020, after a heated battle for first place, John Miller has come out on top.  Click here to see the final results.

And let’s not forget the results for December:

Thirty-nine players submitted results for December. Congratulations to Don Copeland who won with 460 points out of a possible 500. He receives a free game at VICTORIA CLUBS on BBO.

Of note, Don Copeland and John Miller are the only two players to have won IYC 5 times. Who knows what might happen in 2021?

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 January 2021 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.

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 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.

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:
. 

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.

Victoria Bridge Centre Head Street closure

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 and Nev are moving!

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