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Status Reports
Status: Bridge (2025 - June)
(Text as at 15/07/2025 10:14:53)
*** 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 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 Chairman, Secretary, Team Captain, Webmaster and an accounts signatory; I can also run the scoring system, though prefer only as a backup.
- For 2025, I’ve decided to play F2F once a week with David P at Mayflower, once a month at Chelmsford with Albert and – very occasionally – with Colin at Mid Essex.
- I also play on-line once a week at a couple of strong clubs: Leighton Buzzard and Milton Keynes.
- Otherwise, I’ll play in the occasional social event and in suitable EBU or 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:
- 41,4696, bagged to date, including 1,298 Blue Points and 119.32 Green Points.
- That makes me a Premier National Master. My next milestone7 will be to achieve Life Master status (60,000 LPs, including 150 GPs) – so quite a long way to go! Achievable as far as GPs are concerned, but I’m not sure where the LPs will come from.
- EBU Grading:
- The quarter was a little bit up and down – David P can’t seem to avoid the occasional disaster as he’s not well. However, I maintained my mid-AC ranking.
- 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 April - June 2025
- I spent 268 hours in 25Q2 on this Project, or related work (604.75 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2024). That's 128.5% of the planned effort (132.5% YTD). Overall, 32.4% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 25.5% YTD) - as against 25.8% planned (18.8% YTD).
- I’d increased my time allocation to 16 hours / week, and spent 30% more than that amount of time, for reasons that will become apparent.
- I’ve been playing twice a week with David P – once on-line and once at Mayflower. Also, occasionally, with Albert. I’ve also played on-line (RealBridge) in National GP competitions. I still prefer F2F, but RealBridge is fine and saves excessive travelling and accommodation costs.
|.|I decided to sign up for "Bridge - Handle" and play daily. Very enjoyable – and educational.
|.|I’ve been reading "EBU - 2024 White Book: Technical Matters" while walking Bertie.
- Highlights of the Quarter were:-
- EBU On-line One Day GP Event (Sunday 11th May 2025, RealBridge): With David P. Pretty good. Came 14 / 52. Won 4 matches, drew 1 and lost 2. 1.13 GPs gained.
- EBU On-line One Day GP Event (Saturday 26th April 2025, RealBridge): With David P. A disaster, though good in parts. Won 2, drew 2 and lost 3 matches, so gained 0.75 GP. Unfortunately we got thrashed 20-0 in the last match of both sessions. David P wasn’t well and couldn’t concentrate. Came 57 / 69. Very bad for my NGS.
- NICKO Plate Round 2 (Wednesday 16th April 2025, RealBridge): With DP (and CS+PO). Sadly lost narrowly to a fairly strong Richmond team. We’d have won if we’d played as we should have.
- Otherwise, I played most weeks at Mayflower (with David P, though a couple of times with Albert), three times at Chelmsford (with Albert) and once at Mid Essex (with Colin). Also, 12 times on-line (with David P on RealBridge – Leighton Buzzard or Milton Keynes; really enjoyable). Mostly OK, though some sessions either extremely good or extremely bad!
- There were three social events: Three lunches with David P, Albert and John McC. All very enjoyable.
- Looking back, I probably still spend too much time enjoying myself reviewing the sessions after the event, important though this is.
- Further details follow:-
Bridge (Total Hours = 268)
- Bridge - Reading / Writing
- Bridge - Admin (Total Hours = 73.75)
- 25Q1 Status Reports (3.5 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Admin" (3.5 hours)
- Admin - Mayflower DBC - Lunch with AK & JMcC (3.25 hours)
- Admin - Mayflower DBC - Lunch with DP, AK & JMcC (5.75 hours)
- Admin - Mayflower DBC - NICKO Organisation (2.75 hours)
- "Admin - Mayflower DBC - Secretarial & Signatory Duties" (42.5 hours)
- Bridge - Emails / Calls to Albert (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - Emails / Calls to David P (6.25 hours)
- Bridge - Emails to Angie (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - Emails to Colin (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Entries to ECBA & EBU Competitions (5.5 hours)
- Bridge - Handle - Emails to Zeb Stocken (2 hours)
- Bridge - Planning EBU Sessions with David P & Albert (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Planning Tournament Entries (0.5 hours)
- Bridge - Set up Milton Keynes BC as Payee (0.25 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Admin" (27.75 hours)
- Bridge - Play (Total Hours = 103.75)
- Bridge - Chelmsford (Albert) (9.75 hours)
- Bridge - EBU OODGP Swiss Pairs - RealBridge (David P) (13.5 hours)
- Bridge - Leighton Buzzard - RealBridge (David P) (18.25 hours)
- Bridge - Mayflower (Albert) (13 hours)
- Bridge - Mayflower (David P) (29.5 hours)
- Bridge - Milton Keynes - RealBridge (David P) (16.5 hours)
- Bridge - NICKO Plate - R2 (RealBridge, David P) (3 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Playing" (103.5 hours)
- Bridge - Systems Review - Colin (0.25 hours)
→ See "Admin - Bridge - Study" (0.25 hours)
- Bridge - Study (Total Hours = 88)
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.
- 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’m now playing regularly – if infrequently – in GP events, I can consider advancing my ranking, though this is fairly meaningless and not worth worrying about.
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- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026