’Tis better to give than to receive, the Bible teaches us. Well, not if you were me this Christmas, it isn’t.
One of the local Norwegian bridge clubs organised a big (online obvs) pairs tournament to raise money to train their juniors. To do this they auctioned more than 70 A flight players from all over the world and I was given European and world champion Espen Lindqvist as my Christmas gift! Espen’s regular partner is Boye Brogeland and together they have represented Norway in every major international event for the past decade. The final count was 174 pairs, playing 30 boards at matchpoint scoring, and we came third, with 62 per cent.
Of course we were lucky and were given a few gifts, but often good play and good luck go hand in hand. This 3NT, played by Espen, was a case in point.
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