This is the tenth newsletter of Bridge for Africa (BfA), a non-profit company which assists bridge players in Africa to play more and better bridge by providing Internet marketing, scoring and administrative services to clubs currently ranging from the largest in the Western Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal to amongst the smallest. You will find previous editions of our newsletters in the news section of the Bridge for Africa website. We welcome enquiries from other African bridge clubs interested in using our services.

Although it only takes place on 4th and 5th April, entries are already streaming in for the 2025 Hermanus Pairs Tournament, so much so that entries might close soon; you can click here to find more details of the tournament, open to all bridge players and not just SABF members. Sadly, several other annual tournaments along the coast will not be taking place this year - unless, of course, you can put pressure on the organisers of previous years to reconsider - so it was pleasing to hear that a club further up the coast is organising a new teams event in mid June, while the ever-popular Bedford teams tournament will again be held in September or October; as we get them, we will send you more details of these. If you know of any other bridge tournaments, including charity events, taking place anywhere in Africa in the months ahead, please send me details so we can publicise them and so swell the turnout.

You can click here to view a schedule of the weekly online and face to face sessions organised by BfA client clubs, all of which have a reputation for being friendly and welcoming. For completeness sake, we have included the popular Constantina Club where membership has closed due to the maximum 17 tables now regularly playing in their Monday and Friday sessions. As a result of demand, consideration is being given to starting a Wednesday club in Constantia, Cape Town. The results from all these BfA club sessions are posted on our Pianola website and can be accessed by clicking on the Results menu item on the BfA website. In the next few days we will arrange for Pianola to send an E-mail to all players who have played at BfA clubs to date with a link to a web page where they can register a user name and password. Thereafter they will be able to log in to Pianola to view and analyse their performance.

You can click here to view the January 2025 Buccaneer results and log which shows the Pinelands 1A team leading League 1 and the intrepid Hermanus team League 2. Congratulations to the following for achieving the best average in 3+ sessions at their club in January 2025: Jean and Pierre Jordaan (BfA BBO); Anne Dematteis and Liz Cork (Constantina Monday); Graham Spolander (Village Monday); Jeanne and Wilson McLeod (Village Thursday); Ken McKenzie (Constantiaberg); Heather Roche (Le Domaine Thursday RealBridge); Nanette Clouston and Sandy Condotti (Le Domaine Friday A); Ingrid van Rooyen and Linda Stead (Le Domaine Friday B); Katinka Steere (Constantina Friday); Ian Holdsworth (Hermanus Duplicate Bridge Club); and Clyde Mallinson (BfA / Le Domaine Saturday RealBridge Pairs). Well done to all of them! You can click on the Competitions button while viewing results in Pianola to see the details of the other contenders in each of these monthly competitions.

Moving to upgrading your bridge skills, here is this month's bridge tip from top bridge teacher Jeff Sapire: When you open the bidding and partner responds, and there’s an overcall, unless you have a clear-cut bid, just pass. Partner will get a chance to bid again: e.g. Kx xxx AKxxx Kxx 1D-1S (2H) ? Pass! Over the past month, the Bridge Tips page has been the third most popular on the BfA website after the home and results pages; you can now download a printable PDF file of the bridge tips from the introductory section on that page to discuss (and memorise?) with your bridge partners.

Sadly, tournament directors with all the latest rules at their fingertips are in short supply these days, with sessions frequently taking place where no experts are present. So in this, and each of the next few BfA newsletters, we will provide a summary of how to deal with some of the common offences starting with where a player inadvertently makes an insufficient bid. The only person who is able to act when this happens is the left hand opponent (LHO) of the miscreant; the other two players cannot even draw attention to the bid. If LHO passes or bids, then the insufficient bid stands. However, once LHO draws attention to the insufficient bid, then life gets more complicated and it will be necessary to call a TD or refer to the attached precis, with examples, prepared by Ian Holdsworth based on the latest rule updates from the World Bridge Federation. The rules are not so clear on what happens when a player deliberately makes an insufficient bid but hopefully that never happens at BfA clubs. And clearly you don't have to worry about insufficient bids when playing on BBO!

When Covid struck in 2020, we all migrated to playing on BBO and, later, RealBridge. We quickly developed the good habit of warmly greeting each new pair of opponents with a brief message summarising the systems we play. Sadly - and inconsiderately for our opponents - some of us have become sloppy and no longer summarise our systems whether playing online or face to face. This is a particular problem where you and your partner do not play the SAYC (Standard American) system so many of us are used to but instead use the likes of four card majors, weak 1NT, strong two's, strong one club and multi two diamond bids; be sure to call a director when your opponents do this without the bids being announced or alerted. And, if the defending opponents fail to disclose their carding system, don't do anything immediately an interesting card is played but instead wait a few tricks before quizzing one of the players - unlike sharp you, they might not have noticed partner's first discard for instance!

Following a workshop with BfA club TDs, a new release of the BriAn scoring app has been implemented which includes a number of features aimed at improving usability, eliminating finger trouble and making Android and iPhone interfaces more consistent with each other (thank you Victor Lesk for responding so promptly and positively). Players at the BfA clubs where BriAn is used have been very positive in their feedback. You can click here for more details of the changes.

Turning to BfA statistics, during the past 30 days our member clubs recorded the results of 443 (up from 406) tables of bridge on Pianola; 829 (up from 766 at end December) players have played in tournaments at BfA clubs since the middle of April when we started operations. This newsletter now goes to most of the more than 1,600 players, mostly on the mailing lists of BfA member clubs, in our Pianola player database to assist them to play more and better bridge. The Google map of African bridge clubs has been viewed 7,779 (up from 7,328 at end December) times since it was created.

As usual we look forward to your comments and feedback. We look forward to seeing you playing at our clubs and in our online sessions in even greater numbers than in 2024.