This is the eighth monthly bridge update from the Western Cape Bridge Union (WCBU). Further information on all the bridge topics covered can be found on the WCBU website; just click on the links in this newsletter. Please feel free to forward this to fellow bridge players, including beginners, who might be interested.

Two more WCBU red point events are scheduled for the closing months of 2021.The Impala Open will take place on Sunday, 21st November 2021, using RealBridge, while this year's Cape Festival of Bridge (see attached flyer) comprises a pairs tournament on 11th and 12th December and a Swiss teams competition on 16th December. In between, the Outeniqua Open teams competition on 27th and 28th November is organised by the  Southern Cape Bridge Union, while there is also the GBU Year End Pairs on 5th December. You can click here to enter any or all these events. Looking further ahead to 2022, the annual South African Womens' Bridge Association (SAWBA) Congress takes place on 5th and 6th March (pairs), 7th and 8th March (interprovincials) and finally from 11th to 15th March (teams). On a less cutthroat note, from 1st November 2021, we will be organising 12 board BBO mini tournaments at 19h30 on Monday to Thursday nights inclusive; these should be particularly ideal for novices and for players with busy daytime schedules.

In the meantime, we have a number of October competition winners to congratulate, starting with Andrew Cruise and Tim Cope for winning the 2021 Western Cape Pairs, closely followed by Carol Stanton and Vanessa Armstrong. You can view the full results here.

The King team was the winner  of the "A" section of the October edition of the Personal Trust JM Bridge RealBridge Teams competition, with the Peninsula Club team not far behind. In the "B" section, the Philips and Pienaar teams took the first two places. Attached is the flyer for the November competition, where generous prizes will again be on offer, taking place on Thursdays 4th, 11th, 18th and 25th November. To enter, please contact Mark Kenyon ([email protected]). Each week's results can be found on the JM Bridge page, as can the logs from the Monday and Tuesday afternoon JM teams games.

Pauline van der Vyfer and Ellen Bryans won the October Warwick Wealth Tuesday pairs competition, where numbers competing have grown significantly since it started. The prize for the player with the median average score - that's the person with the same number of people getting higher and lower scores - was shared between Lynn Brown and Jimmie Potgieter. Well done to all of you! The results each week can be found on our website Results page. We encourage even more players to join the Tuesday crowd and win the November prizes.

Regular readers of these news updates will have noted our drive to both increase the number of players and improve the skills of existing players through our bridge teaching initiatives. We have two more scheduled for November. Sponsored by Personal Trust, Carol Stanton's next Zoom workshop for intermediate players, on Sunday 21st November at 15h00, will address the subject of Two Way Checkback Stayman. The flyer, including the Zoom link, is attached. Please note attendance at these workshops is NOT restricted to players in the Western Cape; bridge education knows no boundaries! If you weren't one of the more than 100 players from around the country who attended Glen Holman's October workshop on Lebensohl and Good / Bad 2NT, you will be relieved to know that you can click here to access the slides he used in that presentation, as well as the slides, notes and recordings from Carol Stanton's two September workshops covering Multi Landy and Lebensohl.

With nearly 70 beginners having participated in Carol Stanton's first two series of 101 beginner Zoom / RealBridge lessons, we now have a 102 follow on series of lessons to consolidate the skills of both beginners and of those who are at the kitchen bridge level. The course starts on 10th November at 19h30 (see attached flyer for details). Those, again from around the country, wishing to attend should contact Carol ([email protected]). We continue to seek experienced players to mentor the beginners while they play RealBridge test hands - mentors are remunerated and we will be advertising the services of bridge teachers who mentor on the WCBU website.

The next beginners 101 course starts in January 2022, as will our first course for online tournament directors. More details of both of these courses will be contained in our next newsletter.

A note to all SABF members: your 2022 subs of R 100 each should be paid before year end. Members in the Western Cape should pay theirs into ABSA (Branch 632005 Account 918 767 7416) clearly stating your SABF number, name and 2022Subs as reference.

As usual, let me finish with some statistics which provide insights into our playing community. As in previous months, the most popular pages on the WCBU website in October were our home, results and JM Bridge pages. However, moving up smartly last month was our Learn Bridge page which provides links to online educational material provided by the WCBU and others, and includes brief commentary on WCBU hands played the previous week and five new problems from Victor Mollo's Winning Double. Other popular pages were the News pages about the Intermediate workshops and with the Western Cape Pairs results.

Of the 473 players who have played in WCBU pairs in the last three months, 52% are recorded as living in the Western Cape, with 16% in Gauteng, 5% in Kwazulu Natal and 27% having no province recorded. These numbers were also reflected to some extent in the demographics of the 951 visitors to the WCBU website during the past month: 84% live in South Africa and 47% in Cape Town, 17% in Gauteng and 4% in Chicago. Visits have been recorded from people living in America (5%), the United Kingdom (5%), China (2.4%), Germany, Australia, Canada, France, Greece and the Democratic Republic of Congo. During the month they read 6,357 pages of information. Some 57% of visitors come directly to the website either because they know the address or have an E-mail link; 40% come as a result of a Google search; and just 3% via links on the SABF, Hermanus, Pianola and other websites. Some 54% of visitors use desktop or laptop computers; 39% mobile phones; and 7% tablets. And that's enough statistics for this month!

Finally, we look forward both to your comments / feedback and to encountering you at the WCBU virtual bridge tables in the days ahead.