Although this April update is from the Western Cape Bridge Union (WCBU), much will also be of interest to bridge players elsewhere in the country. Further information on all the topics covered can be found on the WCBU website; just click on the links in this newsletter. Please also feel free to forward this to fellow bridge players, including beginners, who might be interested.

The last few months have seen clubs opening for face to face bridge. However, disappointingly, and with a few exceptions, the numbers playing are much lower than we expected based on the experience of bridge clubs in other countries. One major exception here in the Cape was our first Personal Trust Sunday Bridge and lunch at the Bridge Centre in Green Point which was well attended. We hope the next two, on 1st May (yes, that's next Sunday) and 29th May, will also attract a good crowd. The cost is just R 50 per person. To enter contact Shirley Phillips (072 673 4248 or [email protected]). We look forward to seeing you there - as well as back at your clubs playing face to face!

Those of you pursuing red master points have three opportunities during May. You can play in the Southern Cape Bridge Union's Heidi Atkinson Memorial Pairs on 7th and 8th; KZNBU's Petra Mansell memorial pairs on 21st and 22nd; and the EPBU's PE Congress pairs on 28th and 29th. Those three events should be more than enough to get you thoroughly warmed up for this year's Congress with Teams taking place on RealBridge from 16th to 19th June and Pairs on BBO from 14th to 17th July; the Congress brochure is attached. You can click here to enter these events on the SABF website.

In today's trials for teams to represent the Western Cape in the Medwin and Berkowitz interprovincial teams competition that forms part of Congress, the Cruise team prevailed, followed at a distance by the Kaprey team. The March winner of the JM Bridge Personal Trust teams competition was the Bjerregaard team, followed by the Bryant and Intiaz teams. The competition drew teams from around South Africa and even one from Ireland. Contact Mark Kenyon [email protected] if you would like to enter the May edition of this competition which takes place on Thursday evenings. Congratulations, too, to Colette Stott and Kitty Cruise who won both Impala Bridge Club's Butler and Autumn pairs face to face competitions.

We have a number of bridge education events coming up, all of which are open to bridge players everywhere and not just in the Western Cape. At our next Personal Trust sponsored Zoom lecture on Sunday 15th May at 15h00, Bernard Donde will address the subject of Balancing. You can click here to find the Zoom link for the lecture; we will send a reminder nearer the time. If you missed Chris Bosenberg's lectures on Doubles you can find his slides here. Bernard's slides will be found on the same page as well as the slides from previous lectures.

Carol Stanton continues to be busy with bridge teaching. Her next beginners 101 course starts next Friday 29th April; friends and family interested in learning will be relieved to know there are still some slots available; contact Carol [email protected] in order to enrol. We also continue to seek experienced players to mentor the beginners while they play RealBridge test hands or to participate in our schools bridge teaching program which have restarted. Mentors / teachers are remunerated and we will be advertising the services of professional bridge teachers who mentor on the WCBU website.

After two years away from the bridge table, some of us are rusty about the rules of bridge so we have commissioned Michael Alexander to prepare a series of brief articles on the rules, with a new one posted on the WCBU website each Sunday. During April he covered exposed card, change of call and asking questions. You can view them all here.

This newsletter would not be complete without some statistics. In the past two months the results from more than 487 tables of bridge have been recorded in the Pianola database on the WCBU website. Since the beginning of January 2022, the WCBU website has been used by 2,548 visitors who read 18,991 pages of information during 7,682 visits. Of the visitors, who live in 38 different countries, 88.8% reside in South Africa, 3.5% in the United Kingdom, 2.6% in America and 0.9% in Australia; 51% live in Cape Town, 17% in Gauteng and 3% in Hermanus. As you would expect, the home page was the most popular page, followed by the results, JM Bridge, Bridge Clubs and SAWBA pages. And that's enough statistics for this month!

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As always, we look forward both to your comments / feedback and to encountering you at the WCBU virtual and real bridge tables in the days ahead. In the meantime, stay safe and enjoy your bridge.