I can say now, that it is “traditional”, being New Year’s day tomorrow, for me to give you a heads up on the highlights of this year’s articles here at iBridge Player.
I suppose I have to admit that I was a little surprised how popular posts about new products were. I reviewed some great ones including Pianola (club membership management), BridgeBig (oneline tournament prize Bridge), and PlayBridgeDealer4 (the dealing machine for clubs and tournaments). I think that this coming year will be the year of the Bridge App… I will ignore the drab ones but will definitely want to bring your attention to any exceptional app releases.
Also, there was much more interest in my Bridge & Business series than I anticipated… (Take for example ‘Bridge & Business Pt2 – The 6 essential steps to thwarting the silent Bridge Club Killer‘) – Club organisers and business really want to find solutions to help them boost membership and income, and to promote Bridge in their areas.
But here are my chosen 5 Best Postings of this year:
1. First off has to be A Baptism of Fire “and” (at) the Bridge Club. It was only whilst looking back at this post that I realised the error in the title (Ahhhh! – ‘and’ instead of ‘at’). Why didn’t anyone pick me up on it? Anyway, on the subject of the post it would seem that there is quite a barrier to those wishing to play at Duplicate clubs for the first time. Clubs generally do not make allowances for novice players and some do not know how to deal with bad table behaviour, which newbies find so intimidating. This post created some interesting comment feedback.
2. How to Empower ‘The Reluctant Bridge Club Director’. One of the difficulties club directors are forced to face too often, is poor behaviour. A lot of club directors have enough on their plate organising tables, timing play, playing hands with un-partnered players, staying on to tidy up and collate the travellers etc, after everyone has charged off. Does your club make it clear what its policies are regarding habitually aggressive and rude players? Do you know what your club’s disciplinary procedures are? Do you support your director at the table when he/she needs reinforcements to upholding club rules?
3. Tips to dramatically improve your Bridge card play memory. This blog is the first in a series on improving memory in Bridge card play. I know people memorise and apply thought in different ways, so in this blog I try to give some pointers to get you thinking afresh.
4. What tips do you really need, to learn contract bridge fast?. Most experienced players will tell you that the most important thing to focus on as a beginner is your card play. The tendency is to become obsessed with the complexities of bidding and conventions. The most important thing though, is a good solid foundation in card play awareness.
5. Bridge and Business Part 1 – Ignore Social Media at your peril. I know to my cost, that having a fantastic product but no means of getting out there so that people know about it, is a recipe for disappointment. This posting is about the importance of Social Media to Bridge product launches and notably, to clubs! The main asset of Bridge clubs is its membership. Social Media can be used locally to grow a club significantly.
That’s my Best 5 posts of iBridge Player 2011.
To finish off, I want to say a big thank you to comments contributors:
First off we have Dave who always haves something of interest to add. Maggy Simony runs her own blog at Bridgetable.net – She understands that the blogging community is all about support and helping each other. Kevin Larsen is the most IT and business savvy person I know in Bridge so his comments are always worth following. Joe Ridyard is another regular with lots of great Bridge anecdotes. And then we have Janey Stevens who, as a club director herself, livened up the discussions in the year. There were lots of others… can’t list them all, but thank you all.
These individuals definitely deserve free access to my new membership site for Bridge players which will be launched this year at iBridgeVillage.com. You may peek, but note… it’s not ready yet?
As always I love to hear your feedback. Tell me which blogs you enjoyed and why.
Cheers!
Happy New Year and happy Bridging 
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