East Dean and Friston

The club meets in the Village Hall on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month throughout the Summer and Winter.  Play starts at 7.00pm prompt but please be at the hall by  6.50pm.  We average between 8 - 11 tables and generally play 21 hands finishing at between 10.00 and 10.15pm

 

Although we all try hard  to win we do not take our bridge too seriously.  We place a strong emphasis on the social side of the evening and after finishing your three hands at a table we allow, or even encourage, conversation as long as you are not too noisy. All bidding is silent using bidding boxes.

 

Many of our members had not previously played duplicate bridge before joining our club but had only played rubber bridge.  If you have only played rubber bridge don’t be afraid to try duplicate.

Duplicate is a way of removing the “luck of the cards” from bridge by everyone playing the same hands. The results of each time the hand is played are recorded on a travelling score sheet which travels with the cards. If we start the evening with 7 tables each hand is played 7 times and each result entered on the travelling score sheet. This allows the organiser at the end of the evening to compare each North/South pair against all other North/South pairs and similarly for East/West.

 

The simplest way of explaining it is that at the start of the evening all hands (say 21) are dealt and placed in plastic wallets which each have four compartments; one for each of north, south, east and west. Bidding is silent using bidding boxes so that people on an adjacent table cannot overhear your bids. During play instead of throwing all four cards into the centre after each trick your own cards are lined up in front of you. Winning tricks are pointed towards you and your partner and losing tricks towards the opposition

 

The score is entered on a travelling score sheet which is kept with the cards in the plastic wallet. The cards are replaced in the four compartments in the wallet and passed onto the next table ready for the next four people to play the identical hand. The East – West pair also move (but in the opposite direction to the cards) so during an evening you will play against 7 other couples.

 

As the evening progresses and more results are entered on the travelling scores sheet it is possible to compare how you performed against other people playing the same hand. It can be very interesting trying to fathom out how a pair bid and made 4 hearts whilst you went 2 down with the identical cards!

 

Once the evening has finished all the travelling score sheets are collected and the overall results are produced for the evening and converted to a percentage. The total results are then sent to all players by email and the pairs with a score of 50% and above are published on the web site.

 

And that’s all there is to it!