Bridge has featured on the radio twice within the past couple of weeks. Firstly, Nicola O’Dowd was interviewed on LMFM in advance of the recent very successful Trim Bridge Bash that she organised – so successful that it will be run again, over two days this time, next season. And CBAI Chief Executive Dermot O’Brien was interviewed on Newstalk’s Lunchtime Live programme a few days ago. Click on the relevant link to listen to either interview – about eight minutes each, and Dermot’s is prefaced by a brief advert, so don’t be alarmed if it starts with nothing to do with bridge!
We also have news of two novel bridge events to report. The Welsh Bridge Union runs a monthly “Cake Club” afternoon on RealBridge. It’s a friendly and social gathering, hosted by established players who will provide assistance to complete beginners if necessary, and they have very kindly offered to open the next afternoon to CBAI members, completely free of charge. It’s called the Cake Club because there will be a break for tea/coffee and, of course, cake. You’ll find full details here. The game is on Wednesday 10 September at 2 p.m.; to register your interest in playing, please email Rachel Oliver and let her know whether you’ll be coming with a partner or solo (in which case the hosts will provide a partner for you). You’ll be sent an email RealBridge link on the morning of the event that you’ll need to click on to join the game. If you haven’t played on RealBridge before, the platform uses a camera and microphone so that you can see and hear the other players at the table, which makes it a lot more sociable. If there’s demand for an Irish equivalent of the Cake Club, we’ll be more than happy to set a regular game up with RealBridge – just let us know.
From the social to the competitive, the first ever eBridge Cup has launched on BBO and FunBridge, with the backing of the World Bridge Federation. This is a set of tournaments played as an individual with and against robots, and a valuable prize fund of $15,000 has been made available. There is no charge for entry, but the tournaments you play will attract a fee on BBO and/or FunBridge (you can play as many tounraments as you like, on both platforms). The format is a Qualification phase in September, a Semi-Final phase in October (top 500 qualifiers), and Finals in November (top 200 qualifiers). There’s also a consolation event for those not making the Semi-Finals. More than 5,000 players have already registered to play so it will be a very competitive event, with both platform, WBF, and local federation masterpoints at stake. Given that it’s the first tournament of its kind, evaluating the appropriate masterpoint formula is tricky; we won’t provide a full scheme for the moment, but we will commit that any Irish player making the Semi-Finals (apart from a few novelty qualifiers chosen randomly) will earn at least 0.5 National Points, and anyone making the Finals will earn at least 1 National Point … and we are certainly prepared to make higher awards for top finishers. The CBAI will also earn a small fee from the entry of any player registered as Irish on the relevant platform, so you’ll be supporting us by playing. You can register any time up until the end of the qualifying phase on 28 September. Best of luck to anyone taking part. It would be great to see the Irish flag amongst the top rankings.