Janet de Botton and I decided to spice things up a bit at the Young Chelsea heat of the nationwide Portland Pairs on Sunday by having a small bet about which of us would do better. She was partnering the fiery Thor-Erik Hoftaniska and I was partnering the unflappable Phil King. When Janet began surging ahead, I bemoaned my fate to another of the players — Nicola Smith (multiple world champion). She told me that many years ago, she’d had a similar bet with the bridge writer Alan Hiron. Alan had actually done poorly, but at the end he filled out a new scorecard of perfect scores — and showed it to Nicola. ‘Oh, we won’t beat that,’ she conceded. As he had to dash, he asked her to write him a cheque. When the real results were announced ten minutes later, Nicola saw she had been conned — but too late: for years, her framed cheque was displayed in his home.
Alas, these days results are instantaneous, so I had no choice but to hand Janet a crumpled tenner.
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