The late, great Martin Hoffman always claimed he was the unluckiest player in the world. If he was playing rubber, he moaned he never picked up a hand and if he did his partner passed. If he was playing duplicate with a sponsor, finesses never worked for him, suits never split and slams went off.
In general, I don’t like to play bridge just for fun: I prefer the cut-throat atmosphere of a tournament, or the adrenaline rush of high-stake rubber. But a couple of times a year I meet up with old friends at the card table: there’s lots of banter, too much wine, and the bridge gets sillier
The Young Chelsea Bridge Club is moving — literally and figuratively. They are relocating to the Salvation Army building in Hammersmith, which will give them a sensational new space when Covid releases us. Under the auspices of the lovely new manager, Ollie Burgess, the first ever Under-26 online duplicate took place and was a thundering
The American professor Martin Seligman is one of the most influential psychologists in the world. Known as the father of ‘positive psychology’, he has written numerous bestselling books on the power of optimism, arguing it’s something that can be learned, can cure depression, boost your immune system, and help you reach your goals. Seligman is
When bridge moved from actual tables to virtual tables last March, it quickly became clear that cheating was ruining the online game. Boye Brogeland, who was instrumental in exposing the 2015 cheating scandal, became involved in combatting this potentially fatal flaw of Covid bridge in June last year. He became part of the Credentials Advisory
When lockdown began, all those months ago, I remember chatting to a few of England’s top players about the shift to online bridge. They were dubious, to say the least. They didn’t really enjoy it; nor did they think they were much good at it. Other experts shared their concerns. The inferences and clues they
’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
It’s so much easier to play bridge well when luck is on your side. You’ve just doubled your opponents and collected a huge penalty, or made a grand slam on a finesse — and suddenly you start playing like Helgemo, with sharpened wits and perfect judgment. Luck breeds luck, and you don’t have to be
Goodbye 2020 and don’t come back. Worst part for bridge players? All the matches and tournaments have been moved online, which is not ideal as it is too easy to cheat. But for me the worst thing about it is the absence of that indefinable thing called table presence, easily the best part of my
It’s surprising how quickly we adapt to things: nine months ago, most of us had never played bridge online before, yet it feels almost normal now. One slightly surreal side-effect is the way an older generation of players have begun using text-acronyms with the gusto of teenagers: TY, SY, NP and, if anything remotely funny
Many years ago I remember Tor Helness, the great Norwegian champion, going into the semi-final of a world championship saying: ‘Whatever happens I am not going to make a mistake.’ They won (the final too, actually) and I asked him if he had succeeded in playing perfectly. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Nobody plays perfectly and I
Each November, Paula Leslie organises the Young Chelsea Women’s Teams — a fantastic event, attracting many of Europe’s best players to London. It was a shame it had to be held online this year — but I must say there was something rather magical about competing on ‘Realbridge’ with video streaming and sound. How extraordinary
The rubber bridge world has lost one of its best and most flamboyant players; David Herman was an emaciated, elegant American lawyer who made TGRs his second home. If David wasn’t in the club, you knew he was either travelling or sick. I last saw him the day before lockdown in March. He got into
It’s been a busy week of bridge. First came the Lady Milne, the women’s home internationals. As the host nation, England had two teams; my partner Qian Li and I qualified for the second. I’ve played in the Lady Milne quite a few times before, and it felt strange and slightly unreal to be doing
How many times have we had it hammered into us: ‘When dummy goes down, plan the play’? Well, if we are playing with Nick Sandqvist, probably every time we pick up a hand and then again when we floor a frigid game. These days Nick plays mainly with Natalie Shashou, a very talented relative newcomer
I know its only October, but I’ve already found the perfect Christmas present for bridge-lovers: Simon Cochemé’s new book, Bridge With a Twist. It’s full of quirky observations, funny anecdotes, snippets of history and flights of fancy. There are jokes, some old (‘My bridge partner ran off with my wife, and let me tell you,
When (if) the world returns to normal and live bridge tournaments resume, there are two things I will miss after all these months of virtual everything: playing in my onesie and the UNDO button. The UNDO button does what it says on the packet. If you ‘misclick’ you press it and you can correct your
‘I have a wonderful hand to show you,’ Gunnar Hallberg exclaimed when I saw him last week. Gunnar is a world-class professional, now in his early seventies, whose passion for bridge remains undimmed. Since lockdown, there’s scarcely a high-level online tournament he hasn’t competed in, so naturally I assumed the hand came from one of
One of the things that makes bridge so endlessly fascinating is that it is forever changing and growing. At high levels, bidding theory evolves all the time. Slam bidding has become much more accurate, conventions such as Gazzilli are used by many and transfers after a 1♣ opening are almost standard. Most good players know
The Alt Invitational is a prestigious online teams tournament held every fortnight or so, packed with world-class players. It’s not easy to secure a place, but my friend Jonathan Harris managed it for the first time last week. Things didn’t start well for his 11-strong team, and by Thursday morning, after four days of play,
