Bridge | 9 April 2015 | The Spectator

Bridge has always been a game of highs and lows, but what happened to Janet de Botton and her partner Artur Malinowski at the Easter Championship Pairs was more like being strapped to a rollercoaster. It started when everyone was staring at the computer screen waiting for the final results. The top three pairs — Janet included — were within a hair’s breath of each other, and with each new score their positions kept switching. Then the last score came in — Janet and Artur had won! Off they went for a celebratory bottle of champagne. Later came a message: sorry, a score was wrongly entered, they were second. Utter deflation. An hour later, another text came: mistake, she had come first. Elation! But the following morning, she was told: ‘Er, it’s not actually a certainty.’ Good grief. By lunchtime, they were declared winners again. By then, she was too drained even to raise a smile.