The Students National Simultaneous Pairs is open to all bona fide bridge students who are currently having lessons through EBUTA, Bridge for All or any other teaching scheme. These events give students the opportunity of playing in their very first National event, competing against all the other students entering from throughout the country. They are fun to play in, with just the right amount of challenge to make it exciting and interesting!
Entries are made by bridge teachers on behalf of their group. A minimum of one table is all that is needed. The entry fee is just £1 per person.

Events are held in March and December. In addition a students' MiniBridge event is held at the end of October for students who start learning in September - this event is free.
The organiser (normally the teacher), is sent the material they need to set up a heat - obviously the organiser will have full access to the hands, so cannot participate in the event! The pack contains

• The material for making up twelve hands, so these can be prepared in advance
• Booklets containing a commentary on the hands, to be handed to the students when they have finished ... this commentary gives them suggested bidding sequences in the case and then suggests how play might have progressed in order to obtain a good result. Click here for a copy of the 2003 Autumn Pairs booklet

The hands are carefully selected in order to give the students an equal opportunity to bid and play, and to be challenging without being too difficult.

After the event, the travellers can be sent to the EBU for scoring, or alternatively the teacher may use the ECatsBridge scoring program and score his or her own heat, uploading the results to the ECatsBridge site where they are scored across the whole field. The advantage of this is that the students can see their results on the site as soon as they have been uploaded, generating additional interest and excitement. If travellers are sent to the EBU for scoring there is inevitably some delay.

Students should be advised that, as the results come through, their scores on the overall ranking will change, although obviously their local scores will remain the same. They can check their board-by-board results on line and see how they scored on each one. The site has a number of FAQ pages and these will explain why this happens.

One table heats can be scored using a special input routine which can be found by clicking here