Provide a variety of sessions
Variety for enjoyment
Bridge is bridge, right! How much variety can there be?
The answer is lots. Not every alternative session will thrill all your members, but there are members for whom the variety steps up their enjoyment. In other words don’t have a variety of sessions just because you can; work with your members to find out what they enjoy. But remember if you asked people before the car was invented what they wanted they would have said faster horses. Give your members the chance to experience these alternatives. We’ve broken this into three sections, variety in club sessions, special sessions and fun days.
Variety in club sessions
We love duplicate bridge because we take an element of luck out of it and compare ourselves to a group of partnerships playing the same cards. When it is a small number of tables we have all the movement of a Howell, while for bigger sessions we’ll play a version of a Mitchell or a Web Mitchell with over nine tables.
The first way you can add variety is simply to have random seating days. When everyone habitually goes to the same seats you don’t get the experience of playing against, or being compared to, the whole club. In bigger clubs you can have a split field giving the bottom half of your club a chance to finish on top.
More radically you can change the scoring. You can score any ordinary duplicate session using International Match Points (IMPs) instead of the usual matchpoints. This is a good introduction to play where making over-tricks is less important than in ordinary pla, as is bidding and making game or slam.
Stepping up again you can play a single session bidirectional Swiss Pairs. North-South stay in their places and East-West only get moved. This is a format that has a NS and an EW winner. You can also play single session teams events using the New England or Whist movements.
Moving up from there you can run multi-session events. The simplest is multi-session pairs events. These can be run as one winner events using arrow switched Mitchell movements. Finally there are multi-session teams events.
Resources to help Directors with all these variances are availble on the Directing section of the website.
Special sessions
There are two main types of special sessions that you can play in your club. The first are the first stage of multi-stage events, the second are events held across multiple clubs with shared deal files.
First stage of multi-stage events
There are currently four events for which the first stage can be a club qualifying event, Grand National Open Teams (GNOT) and the State Mixed Pairs, Open Pairs and Open Teams Championships.
The GNOT is a gold point event run by the ABF, but the first two rounds are organised by jurisdictions, that is, in our case Bridge NSW. Details can be found on the GNOT page of this site.
The State Mixed Pairs (SMP), Open Pairs (SOP) and Open Teams (SOT) are all State Championships run by Bridge NSW. They can be collectively found in the State Championship column on the Bridge NSW events page. Through that page you can navigate to the individual pages or you can follow these links for each Championship.
Events held across clubs
These events are played using deal files that are used across all clubs for a session played in the same week. There are four Australia-Wide Pairs events (Nationwide Pairs and three grades of Australia-wide Pairs) and two that are NSW specific (State-wide Pairs and the Under 100 Masterpoints (UHMP) Championship). For all these events clubs award green master points as usual, and pairs can earn additional red masterpoints for how well they performed across the whole (national or state) field.
The Nationwide Pairs is played each fortnight, at the club level you just play an ordinary duplicate pairs but use the deal files provided. Clubs register fortnight by fortnight – some clubs participate in only a few, others that run multiple sessions a week participate in all or mostly all and distribute them across different sessions in different fortnights. Full details are available at the Nationwide pairs website.
The Australia-Wide Pairs is run by Australian Bridge Magazine and is played annnually in three divisions on run every year on 25-31 May (Novice), 25-31 August (Open), and 25-31 October (Restricted). Once again these just require the club to use the provided deal files for an ordinary duplicate session and submit results online. Full details are available at the Australia-Wide Pairs website.
The State-Wide Pairs and the UHMP are both Bridge NSW events and can be collectively found in the State Championship column on the Bridge NSW events page. Through this page you will be able to navigate to the separate pages for each event. However, as Bridge NSW has just appointed a new Tournament Organiser for these events these pages have not yet been created.
Fun days
As the majority of bridge players join a club for social interaction, it is important to provide a variety of fun activities for these members.
Listed below are events that are currently occurring at clubs across NSW designed to stimulate and engage your players. You can copy them directly or change them around. Frequency and specific days mentioned are just the way the proposing club runs the session, change it as you wish.
If you have other suggestions for Fun Days or think we should add more detail about any of the above, please email them to office@bridgensw.com.au.
Monthly Teams Event
Five board matches lessen the impact of experienced teams hammering novice teams and shares the distribution of points.
Tops and Bottoms
Also called Hi-Lo – once a month match a beginner player with an experienced player stipulating that the “top” player can only give one piece of advice during the session. Make the event enjoyable with a break for morning tea.
Rookie Rivalry
A monthly event open to players with fewer that 15 master points. A great way to encourage newer players to participate in club events. (Can be run as a separate section on an ordinary session if you have enough pairs).
Social Wednesdays
An evening session either weekly or monthly where wine and nibbles are supplied.
Slam Saturday
Make up hands from previously dealt hands that either play as a slam or look like a slam but are impossible to make slam. (If the hands are not randomly dealt, points cannot be awarded for this event. If rather than making-up hands you grab a selection of hands already used Law 6D2 would seem to apply).
Draw for Partner
Use animal cards (or similar) from a children’s memory game for members to draw for a partner. Players need to find the matching animal to find their partner. Used for Christmas parties etc it mixes up established partnerships and provides opportunities for interaction. (You can just use ordinary cards and match on number and colour).
Inter-Club Teams Day
Contact your neighbouring club/s and organise a team’s day. The New England Relay is a good movement, playing 1 round in the morning and a second round after lunch. (Note that red masterpoints can be awarded for Interclub events if you apply to the State Masterpoints Secretary).
Dress Up Days
These days provide lots of discussion and happy interaction. Suggested days are Christmas in July, Melbourne Cup Day, Christmas Party (have a theme – Christmas decorations) King’s Birthday, Football Grand Final and Valentine’s Day.
You can add prizes for certain occurences during play. One list we know of includes:
- Trumping partner’s ace.
- Bidding and making exactly 4NT
- Winning the last trick with the seven of diamonds, with diamonds not trumps.
- Winning any trick with the two of clubs.
Individual Event
Each round every player plays three new players until there is one ultimate winner.
Teams of 3
One experienced player (the captain) and three less experienced players play over three matches where each less experienced player plays one match as the captain’s partner. This works well as a teaching/learning experience. (Can also be set up with a captain and vice captain and just two inexperienced players – preferably a partnership – played over four rounds – each inexperienced player plays two rounds with the captain and two with the vice captain).
Dinner Bridge
A great way to get people into club Bridge. 24 boards need to be in play to award points and it is best to play bridge before dinner ( which can be catered or cooked by members,) and drinks are served.
Goulash
This is a style of playing bridge without boards in which the cards are not thoroughly shuffled between consecutive deals. At lease a game must be bid in the goulash deal otherwise the cards are re dealt. Bidding principles are adjusted to accommodate the wildness of the deal – conventions are reduced, preemptive bids are forbidden and doubles behind a bidder are for penalties. (Designed for rubber bridge, but can be adapted for duplicate by having the cards dealt at the first table and redealt until a game is bid – this will not get the same wild variations as a true Goulash).