Janet de Botton

Bridge | 09 September 2023

issue 09 September 2023

The Bermuda Bowl, the most prestigious bridge World Championship, ended last weekend with a riveting final between Switzerland and Norway. Congratulations to Pierre Zimmermann’s team of ‘Swiss’ players: Michal Nowosadzki, Jacek Kalita and Michal Klukowski, Sjoert Brink and Bas Drijver. You would be quite right in thinking they don’t sound very Swiss, but hey – you can’t have everything. They defeated Norway by 68 IMPs over the 96-board final with no-nonsense aggressive bridge, while Norway made a few too many mistakes.

There were of course a number of fantastic moves in the card play – which you expect from a world final – some of which went a bit over the heads of the usually excellent VuGraph commentators (see diagram).

Redouble from East showed 3 Spades, and Helgemo in the South seat jumped to 3♦️.

Drijver, sitting West, obviously started with his singleton Heart, and Brink played K, A and 6 of Hearts for partner to ruff.

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