Janet de Botton

Bridge | 20 November 2021

issue 20 November 2021

The Champion’s Cup is an annual competition for the national champions from 12 European countries. As my team won the Premier League in 2019, two years later we found ourselves on the way to Pezinok in Slovakia to take on 11 other strong teams. My regular team mates Thor Erik Hoftaniska and Thomas Charlsen, playing for Norway, won the event on the last board and we missed the play-offs by 1VP! Typical! Italy fielded a squad without any of the big names, but the killer instinct is in their DNA, which makes them very dangerous. Just look at what they did against the favourites from Switzerland:

Tiziano Di Febo for Italy, in the South seat, might very well have considered passing out 3♥X with everyone vulnerable, but then it wouldn’t have been much of a story.

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