London Business Houses
Contract Bridge Association

---

---

---

2008-2009

9-Sep-2009

What happened at the AGM…

Well it was great fun – you should have been there. Actually it was commendably brief and well attended. We welcomed three new teams to the League, KPMG, USA-A Diamondbacks and USA-B Dodgers the last two being from the International American Duplicate Bridge Club.

From the introduction of those two teams you'll gather that the response to the Policy Email on the question of admitting teams from bridge clubs (as opposed to those that work there as is the case with the Young Chelsea Staff who have played for some time) was favourable to their admission. In fact, no-one who expressed an opinion opposed the idea. Likewise the reorganisation of the League into six vertical divisions – as opposed to the 'West-East' structure in the past. This seems to have met with wide approval which is just as well for the die is now cast.

Also adopted were firm recommendations on start times which were enshrined in the Bye-Laws of the association. Those and the Rules were confirmed by the meeting with only a technical change so the copies mailed to captains earlier are acceptable working documents.

One proposition from the Policy Email was put to the meeting; should teams that are slow to start play be censured by a fine in Victory Points? There was a clear majority in favour and from this year, if a team has not played three matches by 31-Dec, it will be docked two VPs per match unplayed below three. The fine is automatic and the committee will waive only in obviously extenuating circumstances.

Lastly the stipulation that only registered players should play was emphasised. This is not a prohibition on substitutes but a requirement to inform the opposing captain that this is happening. Most teams have already responded to the request to list active players and these will be taken as the starting line-ups. It is hoped that some future web development may easily reveal the players each team can field.

That's pretty much it: the new season is active from the left hand menu but for a while I will leave easy access to last year so you can check how your opponents fared last season.

26-Aug-2009

The Leslie Dodds Cup

RAC 'B' beat Stock Exchange 'A' by 57 IMPs to 22. The RAC team was Arun Sury, Tony Scouller, Colin Freeman and Howard Salter captained by Marina Chaning-Pearce.

13-Aug-2009

AGM and Captains' Meeting — Entries for 2009-2010

An email has been sent out to all captains. Attached is an entry-form for 2009-2010. Departing from past arrangements, we do not want you to post payments, we want you to pay at the Captains' Meeting but it is essential that you reply to the email to tell us your intentions for next season.

You can do this by return – there is a cut/paste section of the email for this purpose – it couldn't be easier. There is a copy of the Entry Form [PDF] to read and, if you have Microsoft Word and wish to edit and post, a modifiable version.

The closing date for entries is Friday 28-August

The AGM is on Tuesday 8th September – 6.15pm at IBM South Bank (we have put the time back as the earlier start was unpopular).

If you are reading this as a team member and know your captain is away, on holiday for example, please get in touch and we will forward you the mail.

6-Aug-2009

The Gainsborough Plate

We have a winner! LSE-Imperial Alumni beat IBM 'B' by 74 IMPs to 29. The winning team were Bingyuan Yang, Jon De Souza, Ivo Miller and Songtao Ye with help from James Rogers in earlier rounds.

30-Jul-2009

The Association in the Future

The committee has been considering a number of factors that have impacted on how we play. Most of these are outside our control; principally changes in and employer's expectations for the working day but also reduced funding for social clubs and even the proposed changes within the EBU.

Administrators and players alike cannot make the accommodations for these forces without fairly representing their concerns and so we have written to all the current (2008-9) captains and vice-captains sounding them out on a number of matters.

We are talking about changes to the way the divisions are constructed and imposing a more rigorous schedule of matches on teams - this is important and you should read that letter here and raise your concerns through your captain.

No hard decisions have so far been made and most can be debated at the AGM - Tuesday 8th September – 6.15pm* at IBM South Bank - but some, for example how the league is made-up, clearly need to be decided before.

* – Originally announced as earlier, this has been moved back to 6:15pm.

24-Jul-2009

Finalists

Leslie Dodds Cup

Stock Exchange 'A' v RAC 'B'

Gainsborough Plate

IBM 'B' v LSE-Imperial Alumni

9-Jul-2009

We are delighted to promote events brought to our attention:

8-Jul-2009

We now know the finalists for the Gainsborough Plate:

• IBM 'B' v LSE-Imperial Alumni

4-Jun-2009

We now have two semi-finals in the Gainsborough Plate:

• IBM 'B' v Church Commissioners
• LSE-Imperial Alumni v ICL

1-Jun-2009

Well done Division 1 West! At last we have one complete.

The state in the others is Premier, three unplayed; 1 East, one; 2 East, four; 2 West, two - ten in all. Spare the Pools Panel and get those matches played.

27-May-2009

Summer Individual

Following the success of last year's event, we are holding another Summer Individual Competition on Thursday 18 June 2009 at IBM South Bank. For location, see: http://www-5.ibm.com/uk/locations/sbnk.html.

Entry is £5 per player and includes tea/coffee, as well as a buffet before the event at 6pm (similar to those at the Selfridges Pairs). Play will start promptly at 6.30pm.

There will be prizes for the top 3 players (1st £30; 2nd £20; 3rd £10).

Entries will be limited to 28 players, so book now to avoid disappointment! You do not need to bring a partner - we will make sure that there is an even number. All players will use the same simple system for bidding, so there will be no need for complicated system discussions either. Details of the bidding system will be e-mailed to you with confirmation of entry nearer to the date.

Any member of a bridge club or company affiliated to LBHCBA is eligible to enter. However, for security reasons pre-booking is essential (and photo-ID will be required at the door). Names of all players must be notified to me by 15 June at the absolute latest. Entry fees will be collected on the night. Entries and queries should be emailed to .

10-May-2009

Congratulations to Carmel Wood & Stuart Nelson, winners of this year's Selfridges Pairs:

1. Carmel Wood & Stuart Nelson – 59.23%
2. Roy Giggs & Arthur Dyson – 55.95%
3. Norman Wraight & Martin Isham – 55.65%
4. Philip Watson & Chris Wright – 55.06%
5. Ivo Miller & Jo de Souza – 54.76%
6. Michael Galgut & Tom Tomlin – 54.46%

You can see the full results (PDF).

26-Mar-2009

Selfridges Pairs - change of date

Unfortunately, we are going to have to postpone the Selfridges Pairs event from 2nd April to 7th May (still at IBM) due to IBM security concerns in the light of possible protests associated with the G20 summit.

Carol Regulski will e-mail all captains and entrants.

18-Mar-2009

Well done LSE 'B' and captain Miu Suan Wong - the first to finish all their matches and in a 12-fixture division too.

17-Mar-2009

I've enhanced the Web-form. It now sends a copy of the result to the captains of both teams.

I've gone to some lengths to avoid email addresses appearing anywhere in plain view so as not to attract the unwelcome attention of spammers and their cronies who harvest them from the web. I have used a home-grown technique (though modelled on others I've seen) and there is no reason to doubt its security but if you have any evidence of problems, or any comments on the new facility, please get in touch.

25-Feb-2009

Well done - Web-form results continue to come in - ten (!) today. As an incentive, I've been doing daily updates and I've created a banner line (above) which gives the date and time of last update.

24-Feb-2009

And six more…

19-Feb-2009

Eight or so more results put up.

13-Feb-2009

I have now put all the outstanding league results onto the site. If any result does not appear you will have to resubmit it. Please use the web-form (link to left as well).

Knock-outs: the next round of the Leslie Dodds Cup and the Gainsborough Plate show your next round opponents. The First Round is still available for easy view.

I hope to be reissuing the directory of contact info in the next day or so.

3-Feb-2009

Working again! The league scorer is back. A security enhancement that checks for the insertion of malicious code was taking exception to the characters in the formatted mail I had inserted to improve readability. So I took them out and it's OK again.

I'm hoping to hand back to Graham to respond to your emails and process the handwritten results.

Chris

30-Jan-2009

League Results Updated Shock!

Well, all the results sent via the web form - 29, just over half. I've also re-ordered all the players so this year's team-members will be listed first. That unfortunately, is as good as the news gets…

The web form is not working. This is because of a security update on the server, perhaps another repercussion of the changes that resulted in the problem below. However, it doesn't seem as easy to fix and our host is looking into it. The web form is much easier to process so if you have a result, wait a day or so until there's news.

In case you've noticed a certain familiarity of tone, the old guard has returned.

28-Jan-2009

Some pages on the website have been off-line for a few days with 'Page not found' errors appearing.

All those pages with the left-hand menu - like this one - became unknown to the server. This was a slip following an upgrade by ECats who host the site. For techies, only pages with the extension 'shtm' were affected, the league tables being 'htm' files were still served so bookmarks direct to those pages would have been unaffected.

There have been no results updates, but hey, who knows? We might see some in a few days.

1-Nov-2008 some time later

Greetings! Please be gentle with me - Graham.

1-Nov-2008

End of an Era! Today Graham Cunningham takes over and I step down. I have left a few recent results for today's hand-over so that I can show him the full range of duties. Any complaints - go straight to him.

As a last gesture I will continue to accept the printed results postcards. In fact, I am more than happy to distribute the ones we already have - so if you want some, just ask.

So from me, Chris Chambers, farewell - it's been a pleasure.

15-Oct-2008

The first draft of the Captains' detail - as it turned out - elicited a number of corrections and updates. A revised copy of the document has been sent to all captains.

09-Oct-2008

The Cup Draw is out! Available from the link to the Leslie Dodds on the left, the first round of the knock-out should be played by the end of November. There are no byes - 28 teams are taking part.

All captains should have received a copy of the details file by email. If this is not the case, get in touch as soon as possible. As mentioned at the AGM, it is no longer possible to link to the PDF file on this site.

We have seen the first (but not, I suspect, the last) repercussion of the current 'interesting' financial times: Livesey have had to withdraw from division One East. They have a player who is heavily involved in seeing what remains of Lehmann Brothers. That division is therefore back to six teams.

24-Sep-2008

The layout for the new season is now on the site. I'll leave links for the old season up for a while. The draw for the knock-out will be made shortly.

23-Sep-2008

AGM! Good coverage from teams, I hope that bodes well for the new season, two items of news emerged:

Formtex won the Leslie Dodds Cup; they beat CMS Cameron McKenna 38-35 in the final. Congratulations to 'Stan' and his team; Z S Siemaszkiewicz, E Wojtowicz, J Zusin and J Deszberg.

Secondly, another league result is rumoured to exist, which together with one other discovered earlier brings the level of last year's completion to all-but-one. Not bad at all.