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Status Reports
Status: Bridge (2024 - September)
(Text as at 10/10/2024 00:47:31)
*** 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 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 back playing again since December 2007, with numerous intermissions3.
- While I’ve now decided I’m much more suited to Bridge than Chess, I will also take Chess more seriously than hitherto and try to learn something about the game. This means that I can’t spend much time on Bridge even if I wanted to.
- As of September 2021, following the Covid lockdowns, two local Clubs which I used to attend regularly – Billericay Mayflower Bridge Club and Mountnessing Bridge Club (Defunct) – re-opened. Unfortunately, while the former is – while not exactly thriving – still comfortably holding its head above water, the latter has sadly died.
- In default of other enthusiastic volunteers I have taken on various roles on the Committee for Mayflower: I’m Secretary, Team Captain and Webmaster and an accounts signatory; I can also run the scoring system, though only as a backup.
- For 2024, I’ve decided to play once a week with Albert at Mayflower and once a month at Chelmsford, also with Albert. Otherwise, I’ll only play in the occasional social event. The reasons for playing with Albert are threefold: enjoyable & relaxing, low maintenance and reasonably successful.
- I’m also on occasion playing in ECBA events, with either Albert or David P.
- See my Bridge Page4 for further information on my Bridge activities.
General Status
- 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:
- 38,7406, bagged to date, including 1,298 Blue Points and 109.39 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, and getting there for local points, though still another 1,300 needed.
- EBU Grading:
- The quarter was – as usual – a bit up and down, but mostly up this time! I consolidated my K rating and am hopeful of returning to AC next 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 the above-mentioned Summary of Progress to Date9 document, which I now intend to update annually unless there’s an exciting development.
- 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) and YTD here11..
Summary of Progress during July - September 2024
- I spent 144.75 hours in 24Q3 on this Project, or related work (442.5 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2023). That's 185.1% of the planned effort (141.4% YTD). Overall, 21.5% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 15.1% YTD) - as against 11.5% planned (10.5% YTD).
- Well, … is this starting to get out of hand? I exceeded my time allocation by 85% (and by 40% YTD), but – much as in the last two quarters – I don’t think this really represents scope creep.
- I played weekly at Mayflower, monthly at Chelmsford, at two social events and at the ECBA Club Pairs & Swiss Pairs (both with David P). All very enjoyable and moderately successful.
- I enjoyed playing the Strong Diamond with David T one Tuesday when Albert was away.
- I booked time having fun playing estimation whist while on holiday to this project.
- Looking back, I probably spend too much time enjoying myself reviewing the sessions after the event, important though this is.
- Further details follow:-
Bridge (Total Hours = 144.75)
- Bridge - Reading / Writing
- Bridge - Admin (Total Hours = 30.25)
- Bridge - Play (Total Hours = 69)
- Bridge - Chelmsford (Albert) (7.25 hours)
- Bridge - DP Bridge Party (7 hours)
- Bridge - ECBA Club Pairs (David P) (3.5 hours)
- Bridge - ECBA Swiss Pairs (David P) (6 hours)
- Bridge - Mayflower (Albert) (32 hours)
- Bridge - Mayflower (David Tennet) (3.25 hours)
- Bridge - Robert's Bridge Party (3.5 hours)
- Holiday - Estimation Whist (6.5 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Playing" (69 hours)
- Bridge - Study (Total Hours = 41)
- Bridge - Session Reviews - Albert (14.75 hours)
- Bridge - Session Reviews - David P (5.75 hours)
- Bridge - Session Reviews - David Tennet (0.75 hours)
- Bridge - Session Reviews - DP Bridge Party (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Session Reviews - Robert's Bridge Party (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review - Albert (7.5 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review - David P (4.5 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review - Graham (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review - Robert (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review (Strong Diamond) (2.75 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Reviews - DP Bridge Party (1.25 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Reviews - Robert's Bridge Party (2.5 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Study" (41 hours)
Plans for the Near Future:
- To reflect reality, I’ve increased my time allocation to 10 hours / week for the coming Quarter (and – currently – for the rest of the academic year).
- In the coming Quarter – 24Q4 – there is only one ECBA event and one social event in addition to the usual weekly and monthly sessions (and one of the monthly sessions is cancelled). So I hope to come in under budget.
- However, a potential fly in the ointment is the NICKO (see EBU: NICKO). I’m captain of the Mayflower team and the organisation of this – particularly if it’s on-line – might be a real pain.
- Detail:-
- Play:-
→ Mayflower: Weekly on Tuesday, with Albert
→ Chelmsford: Monthly on second Friday, with Albert
→ ECBA Club Teams (Barleylands) - Sunday 27th October 2024 - with Albert
→ Social event (John's): All-play-all (December 2024)
→ NICKO: awaiting the draw, but the first round match for Mayflower - which I'll need to organise and play in, possibly on-line - has to be completed by 10th December 2024.
- Bridge Admin:
→ Website and Secretarial duties for Mayflower Bridge Club.
→ Maintain website for Hutton Union.
→ Maintain my Bridge Page12.
- Study: Re-read Hand-counting papers, focussing on
→ Papers in Counting the Hands13,
→ "Bourke (Tim) & Smith (Marc), Bird (David) - Countdown to Winning Bridge"
→ "Lawrence (Mike) - How to read your opponents' cards: The bridge expert's way to locate missing high cards", and
→ "Lawrence (Mike) - How to Play Card Combinations"
- Read "Kelsey (Hugh) & Glauert (Michael) - Bridge Odds for Practical Players".
- "Reading - Bridge - Magazines".
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.
- I intermitted again from end-July 2023 until the end of the year, again to focus on my research.
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. 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 7:
- I no longer aim to climb the greasy pole, but simply to enjoy the game.
- As I’ve currently little intention of playing in GP events, there’s no point worrying about advancing my ranking, which is fairly meaningless in any case.
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Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026