“ONLINE BRIDGE IS HELPING THE CBF BUILD COMMUNITY ACROSS OUR LARGE COUNTRY…”

As President of the CBF, an organization that spans a country that is physically large but not densely populated, one of my goals is engaging players across the country and facilitating Bridge opportunities for players of all levels.  This year, we have harnessed online Bridge opportunities to allow us to be more far-reaching in including players from all areas of the country, and somewhat negating the effects of financial limitations for players.

RealBridge

Our platform of choice is RealBridge, which uses video and audio such that you are interacting with those at your table in a manner similar to playing face to face.

  1. We ran the Round Robin phase of our Championships on RealBridge, which allows developing players to test themselves against top players, without necessitating them to invest an inordinate amount of time and money for this valuable opportunity to compete at a high level.
  2. This year we ran our Canadian Open Pairs on RealBridge. We had to combine the Open and B Flight players, but most everyone who played had an enjoyable time.  It was a wonderful experience to play against some of Canada’s best, and my congratulations go to John Carruthers and Joey Silver who came in first in the two day event. Special thanks go to Katie Thorpe who made the effort to get John and Joey signed up for this online platform 😊!
  3. Maple Leaf Friday games 7:00 ET. Every Friday we run a stratified Open game on RealBridge.
    This initiative was put in place to build community and help the Clubs financially by sharing the profits.  We are working hard to build up the game so that there are profits to share (!), and we need your support by playing in this game as often as possible.
    Please note that anyone from across the globe are welcome to participate.  The fee is $8 Canadian (or equivalent if in another currency).

Penticton Regional

  1. We are holding the finals of all our Canadian Bridge Championships in conjunction with the Penticton Regional, being held June 15-21.  Not only are we running our Open, Mixed, Women’s and Senior’s finals, but we are running the B Flight playoffs (<3,500 MPs) and C Flight playoffs (<1,000 MPs) as well.
  2. We will be setting up a booth in the lobby of the Convention Centre as an opportunity to share information, and for players to meet our Executive Administrator Sondra, and our Zonal and at Large Board members.
    We will be at the booth Wednesday during the Welcome Event and at other times, so please watch for us. I encourage you to pick up an information pamphlet, find out what playing opportunities there are, and see how you might get involved in helping the CBF build this great game.

In recent months we have focused our efforts on the Developing players, and we offer many events and learning opportunities for these B and C players.

I will be in Penticton all week, so please feel free to say hi, share your ideas, and offer any constructive feedback.  The other Board members who will be in attendance are:

Zone 1 – Allan Callard
Zone 2 – Xavier Combey
Zone 3 Director at Large – Paul Janicki
Zone 4 – Marielle Brentnall
Zone 5 – Lois Matton
Zone 6 – Shelley Burns

Sincerely,

Shelley Burns
CBF President

“Building community, one card at a time.”