Bridge for Africa

Bridge for Africa has been given the right to market and support the use of the smart-phone based BriAn electronic scoring system in South Africa and other African countries.

BriAn can be used to score pairs, teams and Cafe bridge tournaments. It can also function as a personal scoresheet for a tournament or as a record for social games of rubber or Chicago bridge. Other than players' phones, no equipment is required to run a duplicate session using BriAn. BriAn allows for PBN (hand record) files to be uploaded ahead of a tournament and for XML (results) files to be downloaed at the end of the tournament for transfer to Pianola.

Working closely with Victor Lesk, who developed the software, Cape Town's Constantiaberg Bridge Club has used BriAn to score its tournaments since February 2024. Neil Armitage, the president of the club, has prepared a BriAn tournament director guide and a player guide, each of which can be downloaded by clicking on the appropriate link. Feedback from experience to date is that the software makes it very easy to set up and score a tournament; however, it is important for a club using the software to have a core group of experienced players who can step in on the odd occasions when a player inadvertently selects a wrong option.

For Bridge for Africa member wanting to use BriAn under the auspices of the Bridge for Africa and enjoy the special prices negotiated, the procedure is as follows:

• Use the contact form to contact Bridge for Africa; Bridge for Africa will register the club with BriAn
• Provide a spreadsheet list of players (first name, last name, E-mail address) which Bridge for Africa will upload to BriAn and to Pianola
• Ideally one or more players should play a session at a club which is already using BriAn
• Each player at the club should download the free BriAn app from their app store
• At the first tournaments using BriAn try to arrange to have players present who have previously used BriAn to assist if problems arise

After each session download the XML results file and either upload it to Pianola or E-mail it to [email protected]