[doktrin]

Almost all of us are attendees of club events as bridge players. It's both a social and competitive. Many of you are playing in a local bridge club either as a member or guest. Besides your "popular" club how many different bridge clubs have you visited in your country and around the world. And what was different than yours as you remember. Share your experiences and good memories if you'd like to.

[helene_t]

let's see ...

Two clubs in Denmark. I opened 1♥ at all red in 3rd against a 60-YO married couple. The woman on my left was trembling when she picked out the four diamonds bidding card. My p bid 4♥, I asked for aces, LHO trembling even more when she bid 5♦. After a DOPI response I bid 6♥ which was easily made.

Her husband was furious. "How could you be so $^£**%% to bid only 4♦ at your first turn, leaving them room to ask for aces?". Later I was told that her GP had told her not to play with her husband because she once had to be taken to the ER after a heart arrest caused by a similar incident.

Two or three in Switzerland, not sure. Extremely friendly atmosphere, at one club the TD announced at the beginning of the session that they were honored with visitors from the Netherlands today and we got an applause.

Two in Mallorca, Spain. Both clubs dominated by expats, mostly from the UK. The service level was not that great - people were expected to bring their own bidding boxes.

One in Sao Miguel, Portugal. Quite similar to an average English club, people spoke good English in general.

One in Belgium. This was a friendly get2gether for our Amsterdam club and a local club. The locals played even more bizare kamikaze-conventions than we did, and got even more to drink.

Three in India. One club could play only in the early afternoon as there were no lights. Most of the packs were composed of cards from different packs with different back colors as cards get replaced when they are worn out. But the atmosphere was extremely relaxed while at the same time offering a quite decent level of play. And a hot meal was served halfway through the session.

One pair, when asked about their CC, said "oh no we just play Vanilla". They appeared to play Bombay Club. Another pair alerted a 1♦ opening. When asked what it meant, we were told that they played Acol so it shows 4+ diamonds! Apparently "Vanilla" is different in India compared to where we came from.

Lost count in UK and Netherlands

[doktrin]

Which clubs impressed you much And what was the reason, ie quality, level of the play, atmosphere

[gwnn]

Approximate numbers: 5 in Romania, 1 in France, 4 in the Netherlands, 1 in the UK, 4 in Iceland, 1 in Slovenia. I guess I liked the ones in Iceland the most, not sure why. Great people with just the ideal combination of taking the game seriously but also friendly chat when they don't bother others.

[hautbois]

Maryland - 6
Delaware - 1
Pennsylvania - 3
Washington - 3
Oregon - 3

Finland - 1

I liked that bidding systems were so diverse in the Finnish club, not just that opponents used a different system than common in the USA but that opponents' systems were so different from each other.

My favorite of the clubs I've played in regularly is Ace of Clubs in Beaverton, OR (suburb of Portland).

[Cascade]

hautbois, on 2014-January-05, 20:01, said:

Finland - 1

I liked that bidding systems were so diverse in the Finnish club, not just that opponents used a different system than common in the USA but that opponents' systems were so different from each other.

Welcome to the real world.

[CamHenry]

Hmm. Three in Cambridge, one in London (Young Chelsea), one in Aylesbury, one in Devon on holiday. Also the Owl in Amsterdam.

All very different clubs: Cambridge BC is serious, quite a good standard, and forgiving of everything including bad manners. North Cambridge is a weaker field, but more serious about the game. University bridge club far less serious, far more variable, and occasionally hilarious: where else do you score 5HXX= for a bottom, when everyone else is in 4SX+3 the same way?

Aylesbury is a weak field, friendly club; 5-card majors and a strong NT are a thrilling deviation from Acol.

In Devon I played in the afternoon sessions; boards are hand-shuffled (badly) such that NS typically average 12+ HCP each. The strong players grab the NS seats early.

Amsterdam was great fun - welcoming, forgiving of my complete lack of Dutch, and people laughed about good and bad results equally easily. The bridge club was easily the best part of a 6-month work trip.

[Trinidad]

Only counting the clubs where I am or have been a member:
Two in the USA
Two in the Netherlands
Three in Sweden
One in the Netherlands

The most fun bridgeclub was definitely S:t Erik in Stockholm, Sweden:

• It is huge
  
• The standard is high
  
• They play teams on Mon-Thursday evening
  
• ... at seven (7!) different levels with promotion / degradation
  
• Each team evening they typically have 70-80 tables

(I encountered the most creative problem solving movement in Finland in the Bridgeclub of Tapiola (on the West side of Helsinki): They played pairs in a Mitchell movement, with half of the tables in a place where you could smoke and half where you couldn't. The fanatic smokers and non-smokers were NS and those who didn't care were EW.)

Rik

[PrecisionL]

Nottingham Bridge Club in England: I actually played the Nottingham Club with a local player, delightful!

Paris, France (can't remember the club name): Played with a local player.

Milan, Italy (can't remember the club name): Wanted to play Blue Team Club, everyone was playing SA or 2/1

Played Precision with my wife before No Smoking in clubs. Played E-W and one room was all smoking, yuck had to play there half the game.

Too difficult to remember all the clubs I have played in USA ...

[doktrin]

Great experiences, would like to see some photo links maybe

[Zelandakh]

As a child I wanted to play in a local (Dorset) club but every one only played rubber bridge for "penny a hundred" and it was against my principles to gamble, so I managed to avoid every club.

As a student I played in the university club (Berks), then in a leading London club for a national U25 event. This experience was pretty horrible and put me off going to this kind of club for many years.

I then switched universities and founded a chess and bridge club there (Gtr Manchester).

As a postgrad I went to yet abother university in a new land (Scotland). That university did not have a club but the one across town did so I played there, although meetings were generally in the pub. My partner there got to me to go to one of the local clubs once. Experience was better than London but still not friendly.

As a worker I joined my employer's bridge club.

Next I switched countries again (Germany) and visited the local club. The atmosphere here was quite different from the UK. Gone was the openly superior and sneering manner, replaced by a cold hostility. I stopped going to this club after a particularly bad "club ruling", although to be honest that was only the final straw since the members at this club were extremely unfriendly,to the point where they have managed to wittle one of the best known bridge clubs in the country down to 2 tables or so.
On holiday I have visited 3 other bridge clubs in Germany. One of these (Berlin) suggested we not come back after scoring >70%. It turns out that this was beginners' night. Unfortunately it was the only day where there was a possibility of playing during our stay and we did not know in advance that it was only for real beginners. The opponents themselves did not seem to mind and this was actually one of the friendliest club experiences. The other clubs in this section were also generally friendly.

Another bridge holiday was to a bridge festival, not strictly a club but organised through the local bridge club. That was a particularly unfriendly group with one of the opponents apparently going out of their way to try to rile in addition to the German version of the superior and sneering manner of the UK. After the round, another pair approached us with a similar complaint about the woman concerned.

I also holidayed back in England and visited another well-known London club with my partner. Due to a very tight schedule we arrived late but the club was very accomodating and helpful, with the resulting experience being very positive.

Finally there is the club at which I have most recently played. This is generally good although there are one or two rotten apples. Sadly I find that my own patience has left me over the years and I am likely to react badly to this sort of thing these days rather than just letting it all go as in earlier times. That probably makes me one of the rotten apples too.

So 3 university clubs, 2 (+1 work) in England, 1 in Scotland and 5 (+1 festival) in Germany. Experiences of serious clubs highly mixed; experiences of university and holiday location clubs generally good. That despite the fact that my real preference in face to face bridge is for serious, competitive bridge such as League play.

To the OP's follow-up question in #3, I am impressed by clubs that can maintain a (genuinely) friendly atomosphere despite serious and competitive bridge being played. The standard of play bothers me much less than the playing experience.

[uday]

 20131231_222658.jpg (600.24K)
Number of downloads: 9I live in Manhattan ( New York City ) and we're down to about 3 clubs, each a full time commercial enterprise but none offering 14 sessions a week ( i think ).

Nowadays most of my bridge is played online, but i venture out to the Cavendish Bridge Club about once a month - at night, the games have been small but the upside is that everyone is familiar to each other and it is very relaxing. Standards are generally moderate, with maybe two experts in the field and most of the field competent but not stellar. A dinner buffet is offered ( this is standard in NYC, as is the approx 20$ card fee ) along with wine & coffee & soft drinks. This club is owned by Bjorn Fallenius ( once from Sweden ) and his wife Kathy. It is the smallest of the three NYC clubs. I've attached a recent picture ( taken with my cell phone so I don't know about the quality...) from a recent New Year's Eve game. Bjorn is grabbing something to eat, Kathy is at the computer in the far corner.

I played heavily at the Manhattan Bridge Club when I was younger. We were all seemingly in our twenties and thirties (not really true but many of us were), and the game was usually just an on-ramp to the bar afterwards. I have really fond memories of this time tho maybe it's just bec. all of us were a lot younger. I directed there for a while and at that time there were about 850 regulars and semi-regulars, if memory serves me. We had a lot of "characters" who also showed up regularly. One guy drove a cab, another wore a reverend's collar, several dated back to bad times in Europe in the forties, but the thing that i remember the most was how the club was almost a community center. Most of my friends date back to this period and most of my coupled acquaintances met at this club ( this is where i first ran into my wife-to-be ). When I got involved in a startup, naturally this is where I found most of our early staff. Nowadays it is a more sedate place to me, but Jesus Arias ( who owns/operates the place along with Jeff Bayone ) and who's been around since those days, tells me it is much the same, just with different people.

The third club is Honors and I've only poked my nose in there a few times. To me, it's the "East side club" where you find a zillion pros and the people are wealthier, more mainstream, less, well, "west side." The bridge is probably tightest here but I speak less from knowledge than from suspicion. This is run by Gail Greenberg, and along with the Manhattan, is one of the busiest clubs in the USA.

The Manhattan and Honors are rumoured to be merging one of these months.

[awm]

Elianna and I had a very good time playing an evening club game in Tel Aviv. There were a number of things different from the typical club night in the US:

1. The movement was swiss pairs, which we rarely see here.
2. The field was much younger than in the states, including some young people in military uniforms (military service is compulsory in Israel, usually just before college).
3. There was a cash prize for winning (which I'm happy to say we came away with).
4. Some of the players spoke English, but not all; Elianna got to explain all our side's alerts (she speaks Hebrew fluently; I don't speak it at all).

Transitioning from Los Angeles to Northern California was also quite a big change for us. In LA, each of the main clubs has either an owner or a board running things, and the directors are employees of the ownership. This has a number of advantages (for example it makes getting "substitute directors" quite a bit easier if the primary director is out of town). The biggest games were all during the day, with the field consisting mostly of retired folks in their 80s. In fact Elianna directed a number of games where her mother was the youngest player in the field! Up here in north CA, the directors all run their own games (even where there is a central club location) which makes it quite a bit harder to get into directing (Elianna used to direct regularly for Beverly Hills Club but found it quite daunting to consider starting her own game from scratch up here and never bothered to try it). The field is quite a bit younger (although there are still some retirees, we see a lot of folks in their 30s, 40s, and 50s and a few juniors are around too), and the best/biggest games are at night.

[blackshoe]

awm, on 2014-January-11, 19:47, said:

we see a lot of folks in their 30s, 40s, and 50s and a few juniors are around too), and the best/biggest games are at night.

I've heard or seen that about other places, too. Not a surprising correlation, I suppose.

One of our local clubs is trying to rejuvenate their one (down from two) night game. There's going to be an individual next week.

Of the five night games that were available when I first started playing here, two are gone, one is faltering, and two I won't play in - one because the director/owner is incompetent, and the other because it's a half hour (at least) drive.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2014-January-11, 20:07, said:

and the other because it's a half hour (at least) drive.

You are lucky. I can't get to the nearest club in under 35 minutes on the Tube, and I and others do not consider an hour an unreasonable journey time.

Others spend even longer to get to bridge clubs; I know several people whose journey involves a train.

Most clubs do not hold daytime games.

[Elianna]

Adding to Adam's post, I don't think that finding substitute directors was harder up here, but BEING ABLE to substitute direct seems harder. (I got into directing as a substitute director.)

I also wanted to add about a poor club experience in Israel:

One of the local clubs (in a small city, I won't mention it), seemed to have an advanced section, and a more beginners' section. That's all well and good, we have that here, but visitors HAD to play in the beginners' section (and I was playing with someone who represented Israel in international competition). This was rather silly, so when Adam and I were visiting my home village, I never suggested going to that club, even though it had A LOT of tables, and we stuck to the Tel Aviv clubs.

I also played in my grandparent's club in Netanya. It was okay, and most people spoke English, but my grandparents liked playing in this beginner's game in the morning, so I can't really speak to the overall level of play in that club, either.

[Antrax]

awm, on 2014-January-11, 19:47, said:

Elianna and I had a very good time playing an evening club game in Tel Aviv.
2. The field was much younger than in the states, including some young people in military uniforms

What? Which club was that? Because when I play in Avivim I'm still the youngest one around.

[Vampyr]

Elianna, on 2014-January-11, 23:53, said:

One of the local clubs (in a small city, I won't mention it), seemed to have an advanced section, and a more beginners' section. That's all well and good, we have that here, but visitors HAD to play in the beginners' section (and I was playing with someone who represented Israel in international competition).

LOL. You remind me of a time many years ago when my partner went to a club in the Midlands where he thought there would be a duplicate. It turned out that there was a beginners' lesson followed by a duplicate.

My partner was friends with the teacher, so they decided to play to fill in a half table.

They ended up with 95%, which is pretty embarrassing, so the teacher tore off their names before posting the scores on the wall.

"A very low scoring night", one of the players commented. "Nobody even got up to average."

[blackshoe]

Vampyr, on 2014-January-11, 21:17, said:

You are lucky. I can't get to the nearest club in under 35 minutes on the Tube, and I and others do not consider an hour an unreasonable journey time.

Others spend even longer to get to bridge clubs; I know several people whose journey involves a train.

Most clubs do not hold daytime games.

Was a time when a 35 minute drive both ways, probably getting me home a bit before midnight, wouldn't have bothered me much. That was then, this is now.

From what club owners here have said to me, they figure it's hold daytime games or give it up. The few evening games are a plus, for thus who like to play then. Well, the one that's 35 minutes away is the only game in that town, and meets once a week. So they have it worse than I do, I suppose. Still, don't see many folks from there at games here.

When I lived in England, the game was a twenty minute walk from my flat. I'm spoiled, I guess.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2014-January-12, 02:58, said:

From what club owners here have said to me, they figure it's hold daytime games or give it up.

Do you find that proprietary clubs have a detrimental effect on the availability of duplicate sessions? There are two effects that immediately spring to mind:

a. Any funds retained as profit will not be used to invest in new technology or in benefits to the members (such as subsidising their entries into a special ACBL event at the club or paying their entries to events where they are representing the club, putting on free events etc); and

b. The sessions will be discontinued if the tables are sufficient only to break even (or just a little better) financially.

Of course there are other things, such as the fact that the director and the management often seem to be one and the same, so there is no recourse if you are dissatisfied with some aspect of the directing or the way the club is run.

There are some proprietary clubs in London, but they have to compete with membership organisations, so they generally provide the same level of service as the latter.

I don't know if you've considered this, but if you and others want more opportunity to play in the evening, you could join (or start, if necessary) a local league with matches played privately.