♣♦ RED Points Frenzy ♥♠
Let’s continue the festive spirit! All regular duplicate sessions will give out RED masterpoints from now to 2nd January (inclusive), join us for a game with some Xmas snacks 🙂
Our City venue is open during Christmas, except Boxing Day 26th December. Yes we have Tuesday Morning (10am start) and Evening (7.15pm start) sessions on 27th December! And all regular sessions will remain the same for the rest of the year.
Our Canada Bay venue is taking Christmas break, no session after 19th December. All sessions will resume in Canada Bay from Monday 2nd January 2023.
♣♦ Friday 9th AND Wednesday 14th December – Xmas Parties! ♥♠
Party time! There will be TWO Christmas Parties this year – if you prefer a cozy game, Friday will suit you; if you enjoy a bustling day, then Wednesday will be your game. Of course you can always choose both 🙂
There will be morning and afternoon sessions on each day. Morning session 10.00am – 1.15pm and/or ARVO session 2.15pm – 5.15pm, lunch from 1.15pm – 2.15pm. Your choice of playing 1 or 2 sessions together with lunch. There will be separate sections for Open and Supervised players on Wednesday.
There will be a lot of fun programmes and spot prizes like Bridge Bingo, the most Xmassy dressed prizes, etc. Raffle Draw for one Xmas Hamper on each day to support The Smiths Family’s Christmas Appeal.
Members $50 / Visitors $60 per person per party. Fee includes a delicious Christmas themed morning tea, afternoon tea, festive snacks, a 3-course lunch, and drinks! Vegetarian options available. No concession, no vouchers. Same price for 1 or 2 sessions of bridge AND lunch on the same day.
If you are a visitor enjoying the SBC group, join as a member now to enjoy 13 months membership and SAVE $10 for the Xmas party immediately!
We can only accept bookings for 28 tables at each party. You MUST book online for catering and board dealing purposes.
♣♦ Sunday 27th November: Sunday Funday AND UHMP Pairs ♥♠
The majority of players in the bridge community have fewer than 100 masterpoints, so you are not alone! There are Congresses offering separate division for Novice and Restricted players, it’s great to stretch ourselves to see where we are in these tournaments, but 0-100 is still such a big range. So here you are, Sydney Bridge Centre is supporting the NSWBA to host the State Under 100 Masterpoints Pairs Championship, so players can compete with the others with similar masterpoints range in a No Fear tournament.
All are welcome. You don’t need to have played in any club qualifying event. The only pre-requisite is the masterpoint limit, i.e. you and your partner MUST each have under 100 masterpoints. If you and your partner are in 2 different categories, you will qualify under the higher category.
- Date: Sunday 27th November 2022
- Time: 1.30pm – 4.30pm (our clubroom opens door at 12.30pm, come on in to enjoy a free tea and coffee)
- Venue: Level 1, 162 Goulburn Street, Sydney
- Director: Marcia Scudder
- Entry Fee: $18 member ($15 concession member) / $22 visitor. Light tea sandwiches, a tasty cheese platter and moreish cake bites included. And don’t forget to join us for a sensational drink to finish a great game!
- Entry in advance essential for board dealing purpose.
Prizes and Masterpoints are awarded within each division. RED masterpoints. Pre-dealt boards with hand records.
? This event will be held in parallel with Sunday Funday afternoon duplicate. ?
You like the idea of supporting the bridge community? But you have more than 100 masterpoints? Join us for a Sunday Funday! A social Sunday afternoon game will be held parallel to the Under 100 Masterpoints Pairs Championship, the more people the merrier, so the newbies can feel that the experienced players are backing them up!
♣♦ Upcoming Workshop ♥♠
- Friday 18th Novmeber – Topic: Improve Your Overcalls and Competitive Bidding. Full day workshop, morning tea and a light lunch are included. 10.00am – 3.30pm.
Please find details on the flyers. Booking essential for catering purposes.
♣♦ Melbourne Cup Day at SBC ♥♠
The Melbourne Cup Day is one of the SBC’s signature bridge parties! It is always well-catered with amazing hors d’oeuvres and delicious champagne lunch. Other attractions include Cup Sweepstakes, TV coverage of The Race on the Big screens, Bridge Prizes, Best Dressed Prizes… AND RED masterpoints for the day.
- Date: Tuesday 1st November 2022
- Time: 10.00am – 2.30pm (with a lunch break), 3.00pm The Race on Big Screens
- Venue: City, Level 1, 162 Goulburn Street, Surry Hills
- $50 for members, $55 for visitors (fee includes a delicious morning tea, champagne lunch and table money. No concession rate on the day.)
Booking preferred for catering purposes. Please book online on the SBC website.
If you need a partner, please contact office for match making.
♣♦ Next Sunday Funday will be on 30th October ♥♠
The next Sunday ARVO game will be held on Sunday 30th October 2022, 1.30pm – 4.30pm. Join us for a fun game!
$18 for members ($15 for concession members) / $22 for visitors. Cucumber sandwiches, cheese platter, gherkin & ham rolls, cakes… and everything that makes a Sunday great! It’s also a nice way to finish the bridge game with a glass.
No need to book in. Walk-ins and visitors are welcome.
♣♦ Workshops for Everyone ♥♠
There will be TWO Workshops this week:
- Friday 7th October – Topic: Playing Easy Hands. Playing Hard Hands. Full day workshop, morning tea and a light lunch are included. 10.00am – 3.30pm. [Flyer]
- Saturday 8th October – A SPECIAL HALF DAY Workshop for players who play Open bridge and Congresses. A delicious morning tea is included. 10.00am – 1.00pm. [Flyer]
Please find details on the flyers. Booking essential for catering purposes.
♣♦ RED masterpoints on Labour Day at both venues ♥♠
We are OPEN as normal on Labour Day 3rd October! Join us for a game in Canada Bay or City, 10.00am – 1.15pm.
Normal table money fee. RED masterpoints. No need to book in, visitors and walk-ins are welcome.
♣♦ Have Your Say and Win a Free 2023 Membership ♥♠
The NSW Bridge Association/Sydney Bridge Association will be conducting a survey of its
members. The Survey is already sent to our members via their email address, if you didn’t receive it, please send an email to Survey Matters (support@surveymatters.com.au) and they will resend the Survey to you.
As we have previously advised, the NSWBA/SBC is seeking feedback directly from its members to provide input into a “where should we be in five years” warts and all review of strategy. Your insights will help ensure that the research will deliver valuable data to help NSWBA/SBC better understand your needs so that it can focus its activities on the services that are most important to you.
Your feedback will also help to shape future activities and marketing so that we can best
help you address your needs and challenges as bridge players and can look to ensuring the future of bridge in NSW.
As a way of saying thank you, everyone who completes the survey will have the chance to
go into a draw to win one of five free membership renewals for 2023.
Think: Insight & Advice and Survey Matters, two independent research agencies, have been engaged to conduct the survey on behalf of the NSWBA so you can be sure that your answers will remain confidential. I encourage you to provide us with honest and objective feedback.
Please look out for an email with your survey invitation from Survey Matters this week and
take the opportunity to tell us what matters to you!
John Scudder
Chairman
NSW Bridge Association (NSWBA)
♣♦ Open as Normal on Thursday 22nd September ♥♠
Both City and Canada Bay are open for Thursday morning session on the Queen’s Memorial Public Holiday 22nd September.
If you have never tried our Thursday morning sessions, give it a go on this extra public holiday. For more details of the venues, please go the page of Contact Us.
You don’t need a partner, visitors and walk-ins are welcome to our regular sessions.
♣♦ October Workshops for Different Levels of Players ♥♠
There will be two workshops in October. The Friday Workshop on 7th October is our normal one-day workshop, suitable for a wide range of players. Will is going to host a special half-day Workshop on Saturday 8th October for players who play Open bridge and Congresses.
- Friday 7th October: Playing Easy Hands. Playing Hard Hands.
- Saturday 8th October (half-day): Slam Bidding and Advanced Plays.
- Friday 18th November: Improve Your Overcalls and Competitive Bidding.
Booking essential for catering purposes.
♣♦ Stroke Awareness Day on Wed 7th September ♥♠
A special fund raising event to support the Stroke Recovery Association. Join us for a game of meaning! SBC will donate $5 from each player’s table money fee to the organisation.
Spot prizes including 1 bottle of Moet Champagne each for one lucky winner in the Supervised AND Open fields, 1 voucher of High Tea for Two at QVB. Lots of prizes for everyone. Raffle draw tickets are available from now at $5. Great raffle prizes including a game and after game discussion with a mentor.
RED masterpoints. $15 for member and $18 for visitors. No need to book just come on the day with or without a partner.
♣♦ Australia Wide Open Pairs ♥♠
Players really enjoyed the Australia Wide Novice Pairs held earlier this year. Here comes the Open Pairs version! The SBC Australia Wide Open Pairs will be held on Monday 29th August at both City and Canada Bay. Double masterpoints – GREEN for sessional results and RED for Australia Wide ranking.
$18 for members ($15 for concession members) / $22 for visitors. A souvenir booklet of hand commentaries included.
Please find details on the flyer.
♣♦ Meet the SBC Representatives ♥♠
We ran two State Open Teams Qualifying events over 3 Tuesdays and 3 Thursdays in the City from early August. The events concluded yesterday and two teams were selected. Congratulations to:
- Tuesday winners: Alex Glikin – Michael Young, Terry Palmer – Mick McAuliffe
- Thursday winners: Jacky Gruszka – Cheryl Henke, Maurice Ripley – Jane Biscoe
They will represent SBC to compete in the State Open Teams Metropolitan Final on 16th October 2022. The State Open Teams Metropolitan Final will be held in conjunction with the NSWBA Jacaranda Teams Congress. Two teams from the Jacaranda Teams will qualify to play in the Finals of the State Teams. One place will be offered to teams representing metropolitan bridge clubs. The other place will be offered to teams consisting solely of metropolitan Sydney players. That means, if you are interested in playing along side our SBC representatives, you can form a team and qualify via the Congress.
The Grand Finals will be played over the weekend starting Friday 9 December 2022.
We ran a qualifying event for the Grand National Open Teams (GNOT) in June. Two SBC teams qualified to compete in the Metropolitan Final on 17-18 September 2022.
♣♦ NSW State Wide Pairs Highlights ♥♠
The State Wide Pairs was successfully held last Wednesday. We are pleased to see 4 tables compete in the Intermediate division and 7 tables Open. Our players once again demonstrated the amazing SBC culture – Sherry Gao volunteered to be a Bridge Buddy of one of our fresh beginners. John Sharpe graduated from our Beginners Course this March and is keen to play more in the duplicate. The pair came 2nd in the Intermediate field, well done!
If you are a bit concern diving in the Open field, talk to us for more details about our Bridge Buddy program. If you are interested to be one of our Bridge Buddies, please also let us know. You don’t need to have a lot of experience, you just need to be patient, even-tempered and pleasant to play with!
Congratulations to the sessional winners:
- Open (NS) – Paul Roach and Ken Cahill
- Open (EW) – Jake Andrew and Orsolina Aroney
- Intermediate (NS) – Ru Bizys and Virginia Addison
- Intermediate (EW) – Lyn Harris and Marcia Riik
Sessional results can be found on Pianola. There are clubs still running the event, the state wide results will be posted on the NSWBA website once processed.
If you enjoy the competition, don’t miss out the Australia Wide Open Pairs on Monday 29th August 2022.
♣♦ Next Sunday Funday will be on 31st July ♥♠
Our first Sunday afternoon game on 17th July went well with 10.5 tables! We hope you enjoyed the classic cucumber sandwiches, cheese platter and everything makes a Sunday great. As requested by players the club will now run two Sunday Fundays each month. The next Sunday Funday will be held on 31st July 2022, 1.30pm – 4.30pm.
No need to book in, visitors are walk-ins are welcome. $18 member ($15 concession member) / $22 visitor.
♣♦ Share your love of Bridge with a friend ♥♠
Emma Barnes is one of the best bridge teachers in the country! She is patient, humorous and makes bridge easy to learn! It’s not too late to enrol, join us from Lesson Two on. Come in half an hour earlier, Emma will help you to catch up. Our current Beginners Courses are held on:
- 6 Wednesday mornings from 20th July – 24th August at City, 10.00am – 12.15pm
- 6 Wednesday evenings from 20th July – 24th August at City, 6.30pm – 9.30pm
If you are beyond Beginners level, consider the Improvers Course:
- 6 Thursday mornings from 21st July – 25th August at Canada Bay, 10.00am – 12.15pm
$159 per person per course. Please find the details and enrol on our website.
♣♦ Victory in the ANC ♥♠
Our Wednesday morning players wondered where Marcia is – she is in Adelaide captaining the NSW Women’s Team in the Australian National Championships (ANC). Congratulations to the NSW Open, Women’s and Seniors, who won the 2022 interstate teams championships! Besides from Marcia Scudder, you probably recognise some of the NSW representatives from our mentoring programme and the NSWBA Teams of Three event:
OPEN: NSW defeated VIC
- NSW Open – Liam Milne, Sophie Ashton, Simon Zhang, Wayne Zhu, Paul Dalley, Tony Nunn, David Fryda (NPC)
- VIC Open – James Coutts (PC), Justin Mill, Simon Hinge, Stephen Lester, Ben Thompson, Rob Fruewirth
WOMEN’S: NSW defeated SA
- NSW Women’s – Kinga Moses, Avril Zets, Nazife Bashar, Marcia Scudder (NPC), Giselle Mundell, Rena Kaplan, Helena Dawson
- SA Women’s – Ingrid Cooke, Therese Demarco, Alison Fallon, Susan Lusk, Pam Morgan-King, Felicity Smyth, David Parrott (NPC)
SENIORS’: NSW defeated ACT
- NSW Seniors’ – Robert Krochmalik, Peter Buchen, Paul Lavings, John McIlrath (NPC), Avi Kanetkar, Warren Lazer, Pauline Gumby
- ACT Seniors’ – Sean Mullamphy, David Hoffman (PC), Adrienne Stephens, Peter Kahler, Michael Cullen, Bernie Walters
If you have played on Wednesday night, you probably have met the NSW Youth Team. The team has done really well to come 3rd in the qualifying round, considering that half of the representatives only learnt bridge a couple of weeks before this National Championships! We hope this will encourage you to dive in competitions.
♣♦ Go for GOLD – SBC GNOT Qualifying Event ♥♠
The SBC GNOT Qualifying Event will run over 3 Thursday mornings on 16th, 23rd & 30th June at City. 10am – 1.15pm. An extra $3 per player in these sessions.
Only the best 2 out of 3 results are counted, drop the worst results by playing in them all! To qualify, you must play with the same partner in at least 2 sessions.
GNOT (Grand National Open Teams) Club Heats are the only event you can earn Gold masterpoints at your local clubs. Don’t be putt off by the title “Teams”, you only need to compete as Pairs, and we will form one SBC Team from the top two pairs. The Team will be sponsored by SBC to compete in the Metropolitan Final on 17th – 18th September in our Goulburn Street clubrooms. Four teams from the final will qualify to the National Finals on 25th – 28th November in Brisbane, Queensland this year.
Visitors are welcome. GOLD masterpoints awarded for each session. The more you play the more you can collect GOLD points without travelling to national congresses!
♣♦ NEW Lesson plus Game session at Canada Bay ♥♠
A NEW Wednesday Afternoon session (1.30pm start) is added to the Canada Bay session timetable, starting from June! The session will start with a one-hour lesson with 4 practice hands and notes, then followed by a two-hours duplicate game. There will be a different theme for each month and you will go through a different topics under the monthly theme each week.
For June, we follow the theme “Reverses and Jumps”:
- 1st June: The Tale of Two Hands
- 8th June: Responding to Reverses
- 15th June: Reverses in Competition
- 22nd June: Jumps
- 29th June: mini summary
For July, we are going to talk about 1NT responses.
You don’t need a partner, visitors and walk-ins are welcome. $18 for members to do both (lesson AND game, they costs $12 each!), $22 for visitors to do both. You can choose to attend only the lesson or to play only the game, it will cost you $12 (member) / $15 (visitor).
♣♦ We are OPEN on Queen’s Birthday ♥♠
Both our City and Canada Bay venues are OPEN as normal on Queen’s Birthday 13th June. A RED Masterpoints Day!
- City: 10am – 1.15pm
- Canada Bay: 10am for 10.15am start – 1.30pm
Join us for a game!
♣♦ SBC players won the entry to ANC Restricted Pairs ♥♠
Jo Morgan and Gail Spalvins won the complimentary entry to the ANC Restricted Pairs in Melbourne in 2019. They never go, as ANC was cancelled due to Covid.
The hosting of ANC (Australian National Championships) rotates between states. This year the event will be held in Adelaide in July. A delayed prize to the winners this year, unfortunately Gail Spalvins will be on holiday, so Jo Morgan has invited her friend Gial Leslie (picture) to join her in the ANC Restricted Pairs in Adelaide in July. Good luck!
♣♦ Teams of Three – A fun way to learn ♥♠
This was probably the smallest Teams of Three in recent years. There were 18 teams competing in one field. A big thanks to our Captains who volunteer to support the event in such a short notice, and gave our players a fantastic learning experience!
Congratulations to the winners:
- 1st REW: Fraser Rew (Captain), James Palmer, Alex Phillips and Alan Stoneham
- 2nd PEAKE: Andrew Peake (Captain), Julie Mansfield, Ray Burr and John Dobies
- 3rd MUNDELL: Julie Guthrie, Mark Guthrie and Jake Andrew
The Best Restricted Team belongs to Team Neill: Bruce Neill (Captain), Ian McLaren, Steve English and Gayle Calvert. A special prize to our Novice Team who just finished their beginners course in mid-March: Marcia Scudder (Captain), Kyna Foo, Stephanie Price and Marlene Velecky.
Full results can be view on the NSWBA website.
We ran the Cancer Council Morning Tea in April, and raised over $600 for donation. The Raffle was drawn today – Patricia Watson is our lucky winner of a complimentary game with Warren Lazer as her partner. The gourmet hamper (2nd prize) went to Irene Mytkowski.
Our next Congress will be the Christmas in July on 16-17 July, we look forward to seeing you again!
First time in history, the 2021 Sydney Spring Nationals will be held online on RealBridge! There are events for all experience levels.
- Event: 2021 Sydney Spring Nationals
- Platform: RealBridge
- Date: 14th – 24th October 2021
- GOLD masterpoints
- Please find the program brochure and enter via www. MyABF.com.au
The full results can be found on the NSWBA website.
Our next Congress will be the SBC Christmas in July – Pairs and Teams on 17-18 July.
