Wiltshire Contract Bridge Associaiton is affliated to the EBU and is the umbrella organisation for clubs in Wiltshire, supporting, developing and promoting bridge in the County.

A cafe bridge event was held in Devizes on Wednesday 17th April 2024. The event took place at the Bear Hotel, Pepper Mill cafe and Condado Lounge and all the participants enjoyed playing bridge in relaxed surroundings. The winners were Alastair Spence and Gary Stevens, Ian Roach and Richard Freeman, Wendy Powney and Katie Langman. Over £260 was raised for Dorothy House Hospice. If you would like to know more about cafe bridge in general, please click here. Below are a few photos of the event. For the results, please click here.

The Wiltshire CBA Annual General Meeting took place on Sunday 14th April at Nursteed Centre, Nursteed Road, Devizes. It was followed by the Chairman's Bowl - a handicapped event. The winners before the handicapping was applied were Richard Samter and Andrew Parkes, closely followed by Hugh Gross and Philip Bennett in second place. However, after the handicapping was applied, the winners of the Chairman's Bowl were Ray and Cath Elms - many congratulations to Ray and Cath.

In order to see both the main ranking and the results after handicapping has been applied, make sure you are viewing the results in the 2022 edition of the webpage - there is a link at the top of the results page.

With the final matches played, the winners of League One for 2023-2024 are the Hodgson team - Bob Bannister, Pat Davies, Roy France, Katharine Hodgson, Sam Sloan and Keith Williamson. They nearly completed a clean sweep of wins against every team, only drawing one match against the Hands team.

The convincing winners of League Two were the Dunlop team - James Dunlop, Susie Gall, Chris Jones, Trevor Purchas and John Treble. Congratulations to all members of the winning teams and hopefully more players will take part in the league next year.

Alongside the main Wiltshire league, a novice teams league took place with 9 teams playing 5 rounds. There was a tie for first place, and after the tie-breaker had been applied, the winning novice team were Sulis 4 - Ann, Jackie, Neil and Yash, the second place team were Dark Horses - Jacqui, Jane, Mike and Phil. Many congratulations to all who took part and hopefully this will encourage more players to try their hand at team matches.

Congratulations to Garry Towns and Evelyne Thomas who won the Championship Pairs qualifier on Sunday 17th March. In second place were Susie Hands and Georgie Dalton, and third place went to Elaine Taylor and James Dunlop. For the full results of the qualifier, please click here. These three pairs will represent Wiltshire in the Corwen Trophy, to be played on 15th and 16th June, at Stone, Staffordshire. For more information on the Corwen, please click here. The Wiltshire committee wishes all the players good luck in representing our county.

Wiltshire B and Wiltshire C had convincing wins over their opponents, East Wales B and C, in the match played on Saturday 13th January. Wiltshire B won 14VP to 6PV and are now sitting in second place with 3 matches to go. Wiltshire C won 17VP to 3VP and have moved up to 3rd place in the C division with a good gap to the 4th placed team, Herefordshire. Unfortunately Wiltshire A were unable to complete a winning trio, losing their match 5VP to 15VP, despite Stuart Bridge and Richard Samter coming 3rd out of 48 pairs in the cross-imps. For the full results and to see the hands, please click here.

Despite the weather putting a small spanner in the works at the last minute by snowing on Saturday morning, everyone arrived safely at Bath University for the Swiss Pairs and the Swiss Teams on Sunday. The number of pairs and teams entering were upon last year, a positive move for Wiltshire. The winners of the Swiss Pairs on Saturday were Jack Armorgie and Alastair Catchpole, picture below with Lucy Cross, Chair, Wilshire Bridge Association. The Wiltshire pair, Andrew Parkes and Richard Samter came equal second with Sandra Nicholson and Krys Kazmierczak, from Oxford. A special mention to Alan and Vivienne Day who, at their very first congress, came equal 16th. Well done to all the players who took part. For full results, please click here.

The Swiss Teams was a close run event until the last set of boards when the winning team, Warner Solomon, Ian Walsh, Stefan Lindfors and Rob Lawy pulled ahead and won with a total of 100VPs. Wiltshire teams took 3rd and 4th places out of 29 teams. For full results, click here. Below is the winning team, with Lucy Cross.

With the new academic year fast approaching, there are many opportunities to learning bridge in Wiltshire. For more details of the courses and locations, please click here.

Have you considered becoming a bridge teacher in Wiltshire? EBED, the education arm of the EBU, are re-starting face-to-face training in September and there are courses on offer In Aylesbury, Yeovil and Solihull. Each EBU affiliated cub may apply for one free place every two years, and anyone applying via an affiliated EBU club (who will be paying the invoice), will be entitled to a 20% discount. This discount is funded by the EBU.

For more information about the course and details on how to book, please click here.