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Status Reports
Status: Bridge (2020 - June)
(Text as at 03/07/2020 22:09:07)
*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***
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Rationale for this Project
- I showed some natural talent for bridge in my youth1, and I’ve wanted to see how far I can 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 enough2 to justify making it a major focus of my efforts.
- I withdrew from the game3 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 for 18 months, commencing in July 2017, but played 2 games in 18Q4 and 6 games in 19Q1. Thereafter, things have returned pretty much to normal.
- While, since the summer of 2018, I’ve been somewhat also committed to Billericay Chess Club4, I’ve now decided I’m much more suited to bridge than chess, and will take bridge seriously again.
- While my main bridge partner is David, I’ve also restarted and maintained old partnerships with Linda and Colin. However, bridge in clubs and tournaments was shut down with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lock-down of mid-March 2020, and show no signs of re-opening this year.
- While there are lots of opportunities for on-line bridge, and several local clubs run their own sessions, I’ve decided not to take part as it’s too much like a busman’s holiday (given I spend all day in front of a computer). As in other “intermissions”, I don’t miss the game in the least – this time because I’m happily focusing on my philosophical researches.
- Just before the lock-down, I’d agreed to take on support of the Hutton and Mountnessing websites, together with support of the Mountnessing scoring kit (laptop and phones).
- See my Bridge Page5 for full information on my Bridge activities.
General Status
- This project is now effectively moth-balled.
- 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 Page6.
- Master Points:
- 36,3897, bagged to date, including 1,249 Blue Points and 107.39 Green Points.
- That makes me a National Master. My next milestone8 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:
- Started as a K, rose to an Ace of Clubs in early February, stayed at that level until (what turned out to be) the last game of the quarter (National Pairs) where a rotten set dropped me down to a K by 0.01%. Stuck there until bridge resumes!
- See EBU: NGS for full details of the scheme, and previous Status Reports and my Summary of Progress to Date9 for my detailed meanderings over time.
- Summary of Progress to Date: I’ve hived off the history to a Summary of Progress to Date10 document.
- Further Details: of time expenditure against task are given below, extracted from the relevant version of my Summary Task List11 (which is regularly updated between Quarterly Status Reports).
Summary of Progress during April - June 2020
- I spent 31.25 hours in 20Q2 on this Project, or related work (444.5 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2019). That's 27% of the planned effort (90.1% YTD). Overall, 4.3% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 21.3% YTD) - as against 16.7% planned (21.9% YTD).
- I significantly “underspent” my effort allocation – which had included a large provision for on-line bridge.
- Progress (if any) in the current quarter can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List12, and YTD here13.
Bridge (Total Hours = 31.25)
- Bridge - Reading / Writing
- Bridge - Admin (Total Hours = 14.5)
- Bridge - Study
Plans for the Near Future:
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 2:
- My view is that anyone sufficiently smart to play bridge at the expert level is probably sufficiently smart to do something more useful with their time, so ought not to be playing, except in retirement.
- That said, anyone would like to play like an expert should this be possible while still keeping bridge as a relaxation. I doubt this is possible, certainly in my own case.
Footnote 3:
- 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 did any Webmastering.
Footnote 4: Footnote 7:
- 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. However, I have written a reconciliation program, but haven’t sorted out the discrepancies yet.
- 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 8:
- 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 69)
Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 22)
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Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026