Newsletter 11 December 2025
In our newsletter this week...
- Christmas Lunch
- Holiday Schedule
- Supervised Sessions Schedule
- New Members
- Membership Renewal Update
- New Rank Promotions
- Gift Certificates
- Online Lessons
- Upcoming Events
- Results
- Fundraising for Victor Chang Cardiac Research
- A Hand from the NSW State Youth Championships
- Pay Attention!
- Some Housekeeping Announcements
- Lighter Moments
Christmas Lunch - RSVP by tomorrow!
I hope you will all join the Christmas lunch on Wednesday 17 Dec at 1 pm.
For catering purposes it is essential that tickets to this event need to be prepaid, please click on the link below to register through your myABF account.
- When: Wednesday 17th December 2025 at 1 pm
- Cost: $42.50 pp
- Click here to register
RSVP by Tomorrow 12th December 10am!
Holiday Schedule
- 24th December Wednesday morning session - ON
- 24th December Wednesday night session - CANCELLED
- 25th December Thursday club session and RB - CANCELLED
- 31st December Wednesday morning and evening club sessions - ON
- 1st January Thursday club session - ON
- 1st January Thursday RB - CANCELLED
Supervised Sessions Schedule
- 24th December Wednesday night Supervised - CANCELLED
- 26th December Friday morning Supervised - No Lecture but DUP session ON at 9:30am
- 31st December Wednesday night Supervised - No Lecture but DUP session ON at 7:15pm
- 2nd January Friday morning Supervised - No Lecture but DUP session ON at 9:30am
- 7th January Wednesday night Supervised - back to normal
- 9th January Friday morning Supervised - back to normal
New Members
- Gwenyth Meadows
- Alan Johnson
- Roanna Chan
- Klaus Dorbecker
Membership Renewal Update
There are now less than 200 replies still to be received. If you haven't already done so, please send your response today. If you have replied there's no need to do anything further.
Some FAQ below:
- I have auto top up, you can take the fee, do I need to anything else - Yes you need to email me your consent
- I have replied but I haven't heard back - You probably won't, assume all is fine if you don't hear anything
- I haven't been charged - The fees will be collected on 5th of January 2026
- How do I top up my account - log into your myABF account and click on "Bridge Credits"
- I haven't received any emails - if you have lost the email then send consent to
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - I don't have access to my emails - come into the office and sign a paper form
- I don't know if I have enough funds - reply now pay later
As you see I need something in writing before I am authorised to charge your account. To the one member who wrote back saying that I can renew them for all futures to come, I will need to find out if that's legally valid but thanks for the idea!
New Rank Promotions for the month of November
Graduate
- Cox, Elle
- McIntyre, Jennifer
Club
- Meadows, Ruth
Local
- Beard, Helan
- Heesom-Green, Jo
- Hoskin, Peter
- O'Sullivan, Marilyn
Bronze Local
- Davidson, Marian
- McNeill, Gwen
- Shanahan, Sylvia
Silver Local
- Evans, Chris
- Lalor, Mandy
- Renfrey, Gary
- Renfrey, Karen
Regional
- Game, Sue
- McPhail, Julie
- Vickers, Ian
State
- Schwartz, Josh
- Walcott, James
- Merryn Hare
Bronze State
- Milner, Deborah
National
- Kloren, Bricet
Gift Certificates
Stuck for a great Christmas present? Why not give your family and friends beginners Bridge lessons? We have beautiful gift certificates, and all CBC members can purchase the six-week course at a 10% discount. The next classes start on Wednesday 7 January 2026. See our manager, Elizabeth, for more details.
Online Lessons
Will Jenner-O'Shea is running online lessons suitable for all club players most Thursdays starting at 9:30am.
You can attend the Zoom live, or receive the recording, notes, and replayable hands afterwards.
Results
Congratulations to the winners of the Barry Turner Teams:
- Julia Hoffman - Christopher Quail - Pam Crichton - Judith Tobin
Also congratulations to the following pair who have finished 2nd in the Open Pairs StepBridge Congress:
- Paul Nelson - John Donovan
Upcoming Events
- Tuesday night competition will be restarting on the 27th January.
Fundraising for Victor Chang Cardiac Research
Hi everyone,
At the minuscule age of eighty, I am once again tackling the Rottnest Island 19.7km swim on February 21 2026, but this time with the support of son Jeremy, daughter Sophia, and granddaughter Georgia. I have swum from Cottesloe solo, a couple of times as a duo, and lots as a team of four. This is the first time as a three-generation team.
We lost Sophia's husband, Lee, to cardiomyopathy earlier this year, and to help prevent more losses from this disease, we are fundraising for cardiomyopathy research through Victor Chang. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
The link to my fundraising page is https://rottnestchannelswim26.grassrootz.com/victor-chang-cardiac-research-institute/tim-mather
Any help you can provide to reach our goal of raising $3,500 would be greatly appreciated.
- Tim Mather
A Hand from the NSW State Youth Championships
For the first time interstate players were invited to the NSW State Youth Championships, and I had the opportunity to attend. On board 12 of the afternoon pairs this hand came up:
East led the 2 of Hearts which was won by West’s Ace. From the bidding, West knew that East must have 4 hearts and therefore by leading another heart it would be ruffed by Declarer. Not wanting to finesse partner in Spades, this prompted them to return a club finessing Declarer’s Queen. After playing the Ace and King of clubs, West shows out which allows East to lead the fourth club forcing Dummy to ruff high and promote a trump trick in West taking the contract down 3 for 800. While Declarer could have won an extra trick by finessing the 10 of Diamonds on this layout, it was more likely for trumps to break favourably. Considering North’s hand, the 5D contract was not unreasonable, with it being unlucky that East West found the correct defense.
- Jade Wilkinson
Pay Attention!
Recently I had the opportunity of playing with one of Australia’s strongest players. We had a brief discussion about system, but didn’t get into too many details and early in our first match I picked up the following hand.
♠964
♥A843
♦AKT3
♣KJ
I opened One No Trump showing fifteen to seventeen balanced. My partner bid Two Diamonds as a transfer showing Five Hearts and I bid Three Hearts – this is known as a super accept. I knew it showed four Hearts but didn’t know if my partner would assume I had a maximum, a minimum, good hearts, good controls….There are many permutations and we had never discussed it.
My partner bid Three Spades. Whatever he thought my Three Heart bid meant, this now shows we definitely want to be in game and quite possibly in Six Hearts if we have decent controls. I bid Four No Trumps as keycard and he responded Five Spades, showing Two Aces and the Queen of Hearts or an Ace, the King of Hearts and the Queen of Hearts. I bid Six Hearts and the opponents led a club. Here is what I saw:
dummy:
♠AKQ3
♥KJ962
♦8
♣T32
declarer:
♠964
♥A843
♦AKT3
♣KJ
One agreement many experts have is to show the Queen of Trumps when you don’t have it if your hand is contextually better than you have shown. Four No Trumps by me is about the strongest action I could take (I could also cue Four Clubs as a slightly weaker slam try) so in that context my partner felt his hand was excellent. Nonetheless, having bid slam off one ace, I will now have to find the Queen of Hearts.
Right Hand Opponent won the Ace of Clubs and played another back which I won with the King. Time to tackle trumps. With no bidding from the opponents, the best percentage play is to cash the two top Hearts and hope the Queen is either singleton or doubleton. However, the order matters since in the very unlikely situation where one opponent has all four of the missing trumps I can still win all the tricks if they sit under dummy and can never win all the tricks if they sit over dummy.
Accordingly I played the Ace of Hearts. LHO played the five and RHO pitched a Club! Things are looking good now. I played another Heart, LHO played the Seven and I won with Dummy’s nine. Here is what I was looking at now:
dummy:
♠AKQ3
♥KJ6
♦8
♣T
declarer:
♠964
♥84
♦AKT3
♣void
I just need to get to my hand to finesse the outstanding Queen of Trumps. But wait….how do I do that? The easiest way is to ruff a Club, finesse the trumps and then play the Ace-King of Diamonds, throwing away Dummy’s losing Spade and Dummy will be high. But what if my LHO overruffs? Then I will be one off. The alternative line is to play a Diamond now to my Ace and King, pitching Dummy’s last club and then draw trumps, hoping that the Spades are three-three and that the fourth little Spade will grow up into a winner. It all comes down to the Club holding of my LHO.
I cast my mind back and remembered she had played some spot card….the Nine I think? And then the Six on the second round of clubs. That looks suspiciously like a doubleton, but some people play “top of nothing”. If she’s led from Nine-Seven-Six then I can safely ruff my third club. If she’s led the doubleton then I can’t and will instead have to rely on Spades being three-three – this is about a 36% chance. So it depends on what I think the probability she led doubleton is versus the probability she’s led top-of-nothing. I’ve played her before and it wouldn’t surprise me if she believed in top-of-nothing, but I also know she loves leading doubletons! What to do…..I realise at this point that the table are all staring at me. Time to play a card and stop doing mental arithmetic.
I figure the Nine-Six of Clubs lead is just too doubleton-y! I’m going to get over-ruffed, so I have no choice but to play my top two Diamonds (pitching Dummy’s club) I then play a Heart to the Jack and cash Dummy’s King of Trumps. On which my RHO played the Nine of Clubs! LHO hadn’t led the Nine-Six of clubs at all. She had made the very normal lead of the Four of Clubs, followed by the Six. Guaranteeing that ruffing a club would have been safe all along.
I’ve learned this lesson so many times and after thirty years I’m STILL getting it wrong! I had to pay attention at trick one. I had to see the Four of Clubs and then remember it! I would then have easily made this rather skinny slam. As it was, I now rather glumly played off my Spades and sure enough, they were Four-Two so I lost the final trick to RHO’s Jack of Spades and went one down.
Our post-mortem of the hand was mercifully brief but nonetheless brutal:
Me: “Sorry Paul. That was stupid.”
Partner: “Yes. Yes, it was.”
Moral of the story – stop and think at trick one. Think about the whole hand, not just how you are going to win this trick and……Remember the little spot cards! They matter.
If you have any interesting hands that come up (or hands you wish you’d known how to play) we would love to hear about them at:
- Steve Geddes
Some Housekeeping Announcements:
- Barnardos have taken all the donations today. I was asked to thank our members for their generosity.
- We have been given a large collection of Bridge World and Australian Bridge magazines which Ian says: "are a great read for the bridge nerds out there". So if you are a bridge nerd, come take a look.
- There's still time to get a raffle ticket, it will be drawn on Tuesday the 16th December at 1pm.
- The club is open for bridge throughout the holidays with the exception of Christmas Day. The office however, will be unattended on public holidays so I ask our members to help the directors as much as possible during this festive season.
Lighter Moments
This morning I saw a sign outside a gymn that vaguely reminded me of my new year's resolution, it read:
"Life has its ups and downs, we call them squats".
I was too busy to do any of that, but I did have my own ups and downs, I call them playing East/West.
Have a great week everyone!
Elizabeth
- Order a name badge
- Log into myABF
- RB links for 13 Dec to 18 Dec
