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Status Reports
Status: Bridge (2022 - June)
(Text as at 03/07/2022 01:29:17)
*** 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’ve been playing again since December 2007, with numerous intermissions3.
- Since the summer of 2018, with a long intermission during the Covid-19 pandemic, which – sadly – still continues for Chess, I’ve been somewhat also committed to Billericay Chess Club4, but I’ve now decided I’m much more suited to Bridge than Chess, and will take Bridge the more seriously.
- Currently, my only bridge partner is David, though prior to the Covid-19 lock-down I’d also restarted and maintained old partnerships with Linda and Colin.
- As of September 2021, two local Clubs – Billericay Mayflower Bridge Club and Mountnessing Bridge Club (Defunct) – that I used to attend regularly have re-opened, after much misplaced worry in the latter case that there would be insufficient enthusiasm. So, I’ve been playing at both with David, initially to make up the numbers, and – in default of other enthusiastic volunteers – have taken on various roles on the Committee for Mountnessing5.
- I intermitted for a couple of months this quarter to focus on my philosophical researches. I don’t intend to play twice a week on-going, but to fill in as and when required.
- See my Bridge Page6 for full information on my Bridge activities.
General Status
- After 18 months off due to Covid-19, this ‘project’ is – from September 2021 onwards – back as a priority. As noted above, I play once a week at two clubs with the same partner. I don’t intend things to balloon further as in the past, especially as I have additional duties for Mountnessing Bridge Club.
- While I probably still spend too much time reviewing my results and writing to David with system improvements, in general my bridge-playing is under control.
- 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 Page7.
- Master Points:
- 36,9898, bagged to date, including 1,298 Blue Points and 107.39 Green Points.
- That makes me a National Master. My next milestone9 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:
- I’m still a K, but my rating is going in the wrong direction. Must try harder!
- See EBU: NGS for full details of the scheme, and previous Status Reports and my Summary of Progress to Date10 for my detailed meanderings over time.
- Summary of Progress to Date: I’ve hived off the history to a Summary of Progress to Date11 document, which is in need of a minor update.
- Further Details: of time expenditure against task are given below, extracted from the relevant version of my Summary Task List12 (which is regularly updated between Quarterly Status Reports) and YTD here13..
Summary of Progress during April - June 2022
- I spent 122.5 hours in 22Q2 on this Project, or related work (476.5 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2021). That's 59.8% of the planned effort (96.9% YTD). Overall, 17.9% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 23% YTD) - as against 26.7% planned (20.5% YTD).
- I was 40% under my time budget in the quarter, on account of not playing for 2/3 of it!
- Actual performance over the last quarter has been OK; about average at difficult Clubs, but slightly below NGS expectations.
- Further details follow:-
Bridge (Total Hours = 122.5)
- Bridge - Reading / Writing
- Bridge - Admin (Total Hours = 68.25)
- Bridge - Play (Total Hours = 33.75)
- Bridge - Mayflower (David Tennet) (16 hours)
- Bridge - Mountnessing (David Tennet) (13.5 hours)
- Holiday - Estimation Whist (4.25 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Playing" (33.75 hours)
- Bridge - Study (Total Hours = 16.5)
- Bridge - Session Reviews (David Tennet) (9 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review (5-Card + Strong NT) (7.5 hours)
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:
- I withdrew from the game 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.
- 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.
- I again retired from the game for 18 months, commencing in July 2017. I didn’t miss the game during this period either and I no longer did any Webmastering.
- I then played 2 games in 18Q4 and 6 games in 19Q1.Thereafter, things returned pretty much to normal until the Covid-19 pandemic, when all bridge in clubs and tournaments was shut down from the outbreak and lock-down of mid-March 2020, until full re-opening started in September 2021.
- While there were lots of opportunities for on-line bridge, and several local clubs ran their own sessions, I 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). The systems on offer were BBO - Bridge Base On-Line and RealBridge, which has the advantage of having video and audio links, with links to the EBU’s NGS and MP systems. While the development of RealBridge undercuts some of my objections to on-line bridge, in that there is inter-personal contact, it still has the drawback of being stuck in front of a computer screen. As in other “intermissions”, I don’t miss the game in the least – this time because I was happily focusing on my philosophical researches.
- I intermitted for two months in 22Q2, partly to focus on my philosophical researches.
Footnote 4: Footnote 5:
- And, for a while, for Mayflower.
- I was Secretary and Webmaster for both Clubs.
- I had primary responsibility for sorting out the details of a proposed merger of these two clubs, and had prepared what I considered to be an excellent case for the merger.
- Unfortunately, I had a falling-out with the Chairman and resigned – and a much weaker case was presented, and was rejected by Mountnessing.
- I’m now not on the Mayflower Committee, though assist with technical matters on the website, but am Webmaster for Mountnessing, and will probably end up doing a lot of the Secretarial work.
Footnote 8:
- 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 9:
- I no longer aim to climb the greasy pole, but simply to enjoy the game.
- As I’ve currently no intention of playing in GP events, there’s no point worrying about advancing my ranking, which is fairly meaningless in any case.
Live Version of this Archived Note
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Table of 12 Later Versions of this Note (of 16)
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- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026