Richmond Bridge Association

The RBA will host the Flight B&C North American Open Pairs (NAOP) finals, Saturday and Sunday, September 23-24 at the Clarion Hotel. Flight B (0-2500) will have a two-session qualifier on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. with approximately half the field qualifying for Sunday’s two-session final. Flight C (0-500 NLM) will have a two-session final on Sunday only.

But first, you have to qualify. The Bridge Center ran qualifying games in June and July and Friendly Bridge ran two games in July. If you haven’t qualified, check the schedule for additional qualifying games in August. Entry deadline is September 15, and the cost is $50.00 a pair for both sessions. Winners qualify for the Nationals in Philadelphia in March 2018. You and your partner can earn up to $700 each for expense money. AND, you can win Gold and/or Red points.

Qualification to the National Level: The top 3 pairs in the Open Flight and the top 4 pairs in the 0-2500 and NLM Flights will qualify for the National Finals. The top 2 pairs will be subsidized by the ACBL: the first place pairs receiving $700 per person, and the second place pairs receiving $300 per person. District 6 will subsidize the second, third and fourth place pairs as follows: The second place pairs will receive $200 per person in addition to the ACBL subsidy. Third place pairs will receive $300 per person. Fourth place in the 0-2500 and NLM will receives $200 per person. The order of qualification in the split site NLM and 0-2500 Flights will be determined as follows: If one site has more than 70% of the total field, the top three finishers at that site get first, third and fourth place and the top finisher at the smaller site gets second place. If one site has more than 60% but less than 70% of the total field, the top finisher at the larger site will receive first place; the top finisher at the smaller site gets second. The second place pair at the larger site gets third place. Fourth place will be determined by the next highest percentage game regardless of site. If neither site has over 60% of the total field, 2 pairs from each site will qualify. The top finisher at the larger site receives first place, the second finisher at that site gets third. The top finisher at the smaller site gets second place and the second finisher gets fourth.

The changes have been serialized in the Ruling the Game section of the Bridge Bulletin from July through November. Two of the ones that are easy to explain are:

1. As of Jan 1, 2018 the stop card will no longer be in the bidding box at tournaments. ACBL has suggested we eliminate them at the club level as well. The opponent to the left of the bidder who makes a skip bid is still required to wait before he makes his bid.
2. If no dealing machine is used, in dealing the cards manually, no two consecutive cards from the deck can be placed in the same hand. So deal them out one at a time in four consecutive piles as though you were dealing at the party bridge table. Since dealing five piles and combining the first and last piles puts the 5th card in the same hand as the 6th card, this also cannot be done.

More information coming soon.

The Laws of Duplicate Bridge
Effective Sept 25, 2017

The new Friendly Bridge class for newcomers begins again on Sunday, October 1, 2017. No registration required. Just show up at the Bridge Center (1911 Bishop Road, behind Krispy Kreme just west of Staples Mill and Broad) on Sunday between 5:30 and 5:45. The lessons are from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm. You will receive a FREE BOOK, and the first 4 lessons are FREE! At week 5, you will pay $4.00 per week. Please come and try bridge out. You will learn a new skill while meeting some very nice folks. It might be the best decision you ever made!

Flyer