Deal of the Week
Ben Franks and Dimmie Fleming
The Ben Franks Pairs event was held on Sunday December 1st at
Bramhall Bridge Club. Before the event started Irene
Davies was presented with her Dimmie Fleming award for her
work over the last fifteen year as tournament secretary,
congress secretary and chair. Alan Mould gave a graceful
speech of thanks and Alec Smalley (MCBA vice-chair) presented
Irene with her award.
Twenty pairs played in the event. At half time last
year's winners Tony Hodgson and Eddie Thornton-Chan had a
small lead over Tom Dessain and Rodney Lighton. In the
second half it was neck and neck between these two pairs with
Tom and Rodney eventually running out as winners by less than
half a percent. In third place were Raymond Semp and
John Hassett with Alec Smalley and Barbara Lewis fourth.
These four qualify for the EBU's Corwen trophy which will be
held online next spring.
Thanks to Alec and Barbara for organising the event, Bramhall
Bridge Club for hosting and Jeff Smith for directing.
Results are on the Manchester Events web site.
Irene Davies with Alec
Smalley
|
Rodney Lighton and Tom
Dessain
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Eddie Thornton-Chan and
Tony Hodgson
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Raymond Semp
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Alec Smalley and Barbara
Lewis
|
Michael at the Nationals
Michael Byrne is playing at the Fall Nationals in Las Vegas
with Maggie Knottenbelt, Stefano Tommasini and Ben
Norton. In the Soloway Knockout Teams they have
qualified for the knockout phase starting Sunday 1st December
by finishing in the top 32 in the Swiss Teams. They beat
Andrew Robson's team narrowly in the round of 32 and won in
the round of 16 on Monday, before their great run came
to an end in the quarter finals on Tuesday. Results are
on the ACBL
web site.
Manchester Congress
Online Weekend
Due to unforeseen problems, the Manchester Congress will not
take place face to face in 2025. However, MCBA will be
running a Manchester online weekend on 4th-5th January 2025 on
Realbridge.
There will be a two session pairs event on the Saturday and a
multiple teams on the Sunday as well as the Kevin Comrie Cup
event for players NGS 9 or below on Sunday. Click here for details.
Premier League
The third and final weekend of this year's EBU Premier League
took place on 23rd-24th November. Manchester players
participating were Andrew Woodcock and John Hassett in the
Sansom team, Michael Byrne in the Knottenbelt team all in
Division 1 and John Holland and Alan Mould in the Penfold team
in Division 2. The Knottenbelt team finished fifth and
the Sansom team sixth in the first division. The Penfold
team were second in the second division. Michael Byrne
was fifth overall in the cross imps in the first
division. Results are on the EBU web site.
Bhim Ruia
Bhim Ruia died on Tuesday 12th November aged 88. He had
recently been diagnosed with leukaemia. Latterly he had
been coming along to Manchester Bridge Club's Tuesday
afternoon sessions happily playing with anyone who was short
of a partner. He was a regular player at the Manchester
and Altrincham clubs.
His greatest achievements at the bridge table were with his
older brother Govind who died suddenly in 1986 aged 54.
Bhim and Govind were a serious partnership playing Precision
Club and able to compete successfully against the UK's top
players. In 1984 they reached the quarter finals of the
Gold Cup. The next year they did even better, reaching
the final and only just losing to the top seeds by a tiny
margin. Without Govind top level bridge never had the
same appeal for Bhim. He was happy to play in club
duplicates and at his golf club and in the two events that
carried his family name - the Ruia Cup Teams at Manchester
Bridge Club and the yearly friendly golf club match Dunham vs
Whitefield. He took great pleasure in becoming Captain
of Dunham Golf Club. His other great love was watching
cricket.
His funeral will be at Southern Cemetery on Saturday 23rd
November at 11am.
Bhim was a lovely guy and will be greatly missed by the
bridge community. Sincere condolences to all his family.
Thanks
to Jeff Morris for this tribute
Newcomers Leagues
With a lot of help from teachers at Bramhall and Cheadle,
Ashton, Manchester and Trafford clubs we have been able to set
up two more league divisions containing an amazing 13
brand new teams as follows:
Eight in the Newcomers A (for Advanced) with maybe
about five years playing experience playing seven 16 board
matches.
Five in the Newcomers B (for Beginners) with under
two years playing experience playing four 12 board matches.
Almost all these players are new to teams play and IMP
scoring and will need a lot of support from their teachers at
first.
It may be too fast too soon for some but other players will
enjoy it and hopefully progress faster.
It will be a good experiment and we will try to involve other
teaching clubs next year.
