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Status Reports
Status: Bridge (2019 - December)
(Text as at 19/01/2020 23:41:17)
*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***
(For the live version and other versions of this Note, see the tables at the end)
Rationale for this Project
- I showed some natural talent for bridge in my youth1, and I’ve wanted to see how far I could get with a bit of application (but – given the breadth my other interests – without fanaticism).
- However, this project has always needed to be kept rigorously in hand, something that has rarely been the case since I returned to the game.
- Basically, Bridge is fun – and I do reasonably well, but not well enough.
- I withdrew from the game2 for most of 2015, but returned in the final quarter. This absence allowed me to get things in perspective for a while thereafter – playing twice or three times a week, with the occasional tournament.
- I again retired from the game in July 2017, but played 2 games in 18Q4 and 6 games in 19Q1. Thereafter, things have returned pretty much to normal.
- While I’m now also committed to Billericay Chess Club3, I’ve now decided I’m much more suited to bridge than chess, and will now take bridge seriously again.
- While my main partner is David, I’ve also restarted and maintained old partnerships with Linda and Colin, so I played 28 times in 19Q4.
- See my Bridge Page4 for full information on my Bridge activities.
General Status
- Highlights of the Quarter:-
- NICKO Round 1 (Thursday 5th December): Played with David, and Colin & Peter, for Mountnessing A. Won by 10 IMPs, but against a rather weak team. 1 GP gained.
- ECATS CiN SIMS (Monday 11th November): Played with Linda. Gained 431 LPs.
- Mountnessing Bridge Club: Played on 9 Thursdays with David. Pretty average.
- Mayflower Bridge Club: Played on 11 Tuesdays with David and Linda. Again, pretty average.
- Hutton Bridge Club: Played on 7 Mondays with Linda and Colin. Very successful.
- Statistics: by partner and club-category can be obtained by following these links – for the last quarter and to date.
- Results: Follow this link. Further information can be found from my Bridge Page5.
- Master Points:
- 35,6706, bagged to date, including 1,191 Blue Points and 105.39 Green Points.
- That makes me a National Master. My next milestone7 will be to achieve Premier National Master status (40,000 LPs, including 100 GPs) – so comfortably there as far as GPs are concerned, but still a long way to go for local points.
- EBU Grading:
- Dropped down to a Q at the start of the quarter, but rose back up to a K, comfortably so at the end of the quarter.
- See EBU: NGS for full details of the scheme, and previous Status Reports and my Summary of Progress to Date8 for my detailed meanderings over time.
- Summary of Progress to Date: I’ve hived off the history to a Summary of Progress to Date9 document.
- Further Details: of time expenditure against task are given below, extracted from the relevant version of my Summary Task List10 (which is regularly updated between Quarterly Status Reports).
Summary of Progress during October - December 2019
- I spent 174.75 hours in 19Q4 on this Project, or related work (174.75 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2019). That's 90% of the planned effort (90% YTD). Overall, 25.8% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 25.8% YTD) - as against 25% planned (25% YTD).
- Progress (if any) in the current quarter can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List11, and YTD here12.
Bridge (Total Hours = 174.75)
- Bridge - Reading / Writing
- Bridge - Admin (Total Hours = 15)
- 19Q3 Status Reports & personal Bridge webpage updares (6.75 hours)
- Bridge - 20H1 planning (0.75 hours)
- Bridge - Colin Benji - Convention Card Update (2 hours)
- Bridge - Emails to David, Etc. (2.75 hours)
- Bridge - Hutton AGM (0.75 hours)
- Bridge - Strong Diamond - Convention Card Update (1.25 hours)
- Bridge - Stuff for parties (0.5 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Admin" (14.75 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review (Linda - Rev-Benji, 5CM, SNT) (0.25 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Study" (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Play (Total Hours = 92.25)
- Bridge - Hutton (Colin Scott) (19.5 hours)
- Bridge - Hutton (Linda Fleet) (3.25 hours)
- Bridge - Mayflower (David Tennet) (16.75 hours)
- Bridge - Mayflower (Linda Fleet) (19.5 hours)
- Bridge - Mountnessing (David Tennet) (29.75 hours)
- Bridge - NICKO R1 (David Tennet) (3.5 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Playing" (92.25 hours)
- Bridge - Study (Total Hours = 64.25)
- Bridge - Session Reviews (Colin Scott) (7.5 hours)
- Bridge - Session Reviews (David Tennet) (17.5 hours)
- Bridge - Session Reviews (Linda Fleet) (8.75 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review (Colin - Benji) (5.25 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review (Linda - Rev-Benji, 5CM, SNT) (5.5 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review (Strong Diamond) (18.75 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Study" (63.25 hours)
- "Brock (Sally) - The Easy Guide to Five-card Majors" (1 hour)
Plans for the Near Future:
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 2:
- When not playing, I didn’t miss the game at all, but maybe this was mainly because acting as the Essex County Bridge Association (ECBA) Webmaster provided a psychological substitute.
- However, I didn’t miss it over the 18 months from July 2017 either, and I no longer do any Webmastering.
Footnote 3: Footnote 6:
- There’s a slight discrepancy between my records and the EBU stats.
- When the EBU had 33,776, my calculations had 33,915, made up of 22,962 LPs, 1,175 BPs and 100.06 GPs.
- I’ve not been bothered to determine the reason for the discrepancy, nor repeated the comparison as now I’m playing regularly timing issues also play a part.
- I think I had about 5,000 LPs from my student days, but never registered any, more’s the pity.
- My Gold Points have now “aged off”.
Footnote 7:
- I no longer intend to “aim” to climb the greasy pole, but simply to enjoy the game.
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 67)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 24)
Summary of Notes Links from this Page
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Summary of Note Links to this Page
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Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026