To celebrate our year together on Monday evenings we are holding an inaugural inter-club competition between Clare & Swindon on Monday 2nd December @ 7pm on BBO (instead of the usual duplicate pairs).  Pairs from both clubs will be formed into Teams of 4 and the format will be Swiss.

Cumulative points from the top 3 teams from each club will decide the winner of the "Advent Challenge Trophy". The individual winning team will win £40.00. Please enter as usual via the Swindon website by midnight on Sunday 1st, either as a pair or a team. We hope to make this an annual event.

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We are delighted to announce that Andrew Robson will be giving a Masterclass on Friday 7th February 2025, 10:30 am - 4 pm in Lavenham Village Hall. He will be covering the following topics:

The Fulsome Fourth Partnership bid
 The Cash-Out defence
 When to delay drawing trumps

Cost: £40.00 per head, to include a delicious lunch.

To enter, please sign up on the website or complete the application form in the flyer and return it to the club treasurer, Gerry Ford

The Club committee has explored the possibility of combining our on-line play on Monday evenings with other clubs, and following a successful trial we are delighted to be joining forces with Swindon Bridge Club. Apart from increasing the number of tables, which were getting quite low, there are a number of other benefits. The most significant one would be that we can employ an EBU director, thus freeing up our club members who, up until now, have not been able to play.

The face-to-face sessions at Clare are unaffected and continue as normal.

Registering to play

If you haven't previously played online with Clare, please register using this form.

Registering for a session

This is a change from Clare practice: it will NOT be possible to join on the day. Instead you MUST register in advance every week, before 6pm on the preceding Sunday (ideally the preceding Saturday).

You do this on the Swindon Bridge Club website (click here): scroll down to find the event and enter your name and BBO ID, and your partner's name and BBO ID.

Joining the session

Log in to BBO as usual, and search for "Swindon" under "Competitive" / "All Tournaments".

It's as easy as that!

Clare Bridge Club runs 3 sessions every week

On Monday evenings you can play face-to-face at the Old School Hall in Clare, at 6:45 for 7:00
or online on BBO with Swindon Bridge Club: see above

To join us in person at Clare just turn up! You can be sure of a warm welcome
To play online please register by clicking on the "Register for Clare Online" button at the top right

On Friday afternoons you can play "Gentle Duplicate" at Lavenham Village Hall
at 1:45 (please be prompt!) for a 2pm start, finishing by 5pm

These relaxed bridge sessions are an opportunity for players who have never experienced duplicate bridge or for club members who would like to play face-to-face in a relaxed environment.
You are most welcome to come either with or without a partner.

The EBU announcing and alerting rules have been amended. Click here to see the EBU ‘Announcing and Alerting Summary’ which describes all the announcing and alerting rules including the changes.

The first group of changes expands what to do over a transfer.

The second group of changes adds responses to one of a suit.

• If your suit responses to one of a suit are natural you do nothing.
• If your responses to one of a suit has another meaning, such as another suit or denies a four card major, you ‘alert’ or ‘announce’ as shown in the ‘Announcing and Alerting Summary’
• If your 1NT response to one of a suit is the normal one showing up to 10 points you do nothing.
• If your 1NT response to one of a suit is different, such as more than 10 points or is forcing, you ‘alert’ or ‘announce’ as shown in the ‘Announcing and Alerting Summary’

The link in the 'Playing Bridge at Clare' document to help on cut and paste on BBO is not working.

♠ ♠ You can access the help here.♠ ♠ 

OLD NEWS ITEMS CAN BE READ BY CLICKING ON CLUB NEWS ARCHIVE ON THE LEFT