When I first learnt bridge, my teacher (not known as bossy boots for nothing) would thump the table when dummy came down and boom: ‘What is your plan?’. I could hardly say I didn’t know I needed one. When I understood what he meant, things became a little clearer, until he introduced ‘Plan B’, reassessing
My friend Ollie Burgess has just made the bold move of quitting his job in Manchester, and moving to London to manage the Young Chelsea Bridge Club. Ollie is a fantastic player, as well as being popular and dynamic — exactly what’s needed. The YC is much loved by its members, but its numbers have
The bridge world has lost some glittering stars this (ghastly) year, the latest being France’s Catherine d’Ovidio — multiple world and European champion. She described herself in a recent interview as a ‘difficult partner, lovely teammate’. I prefer Tony Forrester’s comment on Bridgewinners: ‘She was adorable and a really outstanding card player.’ Today’s deal is
A major pandemic has been sweeping through the bridge world since the game went online — and it’s called cheating. Who would have thought so many people would succumb to temptation, and what does it say about human nature? ‘Self-kibbitzing’ — that weirdly euphemistic term which means logging on under a different name to see
I have not played a single hand of bridge for about a month, neither have I kibitzed online. Ergo I have no bridge stories to tell and no players to tell them about. However, I have been reading a bit and one of my favourite bridge books is Geir Helgemo’s Bridge With Imagination. In most
There are some experts — like my friend Sally Brock — who think Blackwood is an overrated convention, and that slams can be bid just as well without wheeling out 4NT to ask for aces. That’s often true. At the Portland Club, Blackwood isn’t even allowed, and players don’t seem to have much trouble bidding
I am frankly repulsed by the latest cheats, exposed after the online invitational Alt and OCBL tournaments. When F2F bridge became impossible, a few innovative bridge organisers came up with a sensational alternative that enabled world-class players to compete against each other online and the rest of the (bridge) world to watch and learn from
Stuart Wheeler was a true original. I was lucky enough to be a friend (we met playing bridge), and will miss him greatly. He was often referred to as a spread-betting ‘tycoon’ but the word feels quite wrong: he was modest and unassuming, and his fierce intelligence was matched by a childlike guilelessness. While his
Last week I got an email from one of my readers — the other one is possibly away for the summer. His name was Paddy and he wrote as follows: ‘Dear Janet, I love your column [I warmed to him immediately] but I have been rather confused lately. I’m not a good player, and I
Gunnar Hallberg moved to England from Sweden 25 years ago to play professional bridge, and made such a success of it he never went back. Now, at 75, he remains a hero to many younger players, not just because of his outstanding talent, but also because of his passion for sharing his knowledge and helping
The French Online Open, in which 32 teams competed over a marathon two weeks — seven days round robin and seven days playoffs — was won by the only English entry, Team Sushi, made up entirely of London players, and captained by Nick Sandqvist. I was watching a set in one of the semifinals when
What goes through a world-class player’s mind when he or she stops to think for an age during a hand? I always find it slightly humbling: are they calculating probabilities, spotting chances, and creating contingency plans that mere mortals would find hard to grasp? Almost certainly that’s true, but they’re also doing something else: sizing
What do we want? We want to play bridge. But who anticipated Covid-19 was going to close every bridge club in the country — make that the universe — and also cancel (or postpone) every tournament, big or small, world championship or fun. It seemed to take a nanosecond to move everything online and not
I’m not a great fan of online bridge but I must admit, lockdown has provided a real opportunity for players to improve their game. The endless choice of duplicates, and the ease with which they can be played, means many people are playing far more than they used to. That includes the international stars of
I am so useless in defence it’s embarrassing. My partners all say the same thing: slow down and think. I say: ‘I don’t know what to think about.’ In the 2-card ending, I unerringly play the wrong card, which brings on the annoying response: ‘You knew Declarer had a heart and a spade left.’ Well,
Have you ever been at a bridge event and heard someone exclaim: ‘He Grosvenor’d me!’ They are referring to a Grosvenor Coup. Normally, they’ve just realised — too late — that an opponent played an idiotic card in defence that could have enabled them to make their contract. But because it didn’t occur to them
When did we change from being a nation of curtain-twitching old biddies into one of full-on super-snitches? First a retired teacher (male) reported Dominic Cummings to the police (I mean — can you imagine actually doing that?) for getting into his own car with two members of his own household and driving 260 miles to
One of the drawbacks of online bridge is the lack of après-bridge fun — those spontaneous drinking sessions where we go through the hands and laugh at what went wrong. Mind you, it does mean I’m getting to bed earlier; a few of us have a habit of leading each other astray. Perhaps my most
Well, what can I say? I have been nowhere. Seen no one. Done nothing. Unless you count watching damaging amounts of TV, going for a little stroll (not) every day, reading and, ofc, playing bridge online. It’s enough already. I miss normal life — and I don’t just mean hugging the grandchildren (who, btw, loathe
My entertainment last week was watching the NN-Cup, a ‘Goulash’ tournament normally held in Moscow, now played online for the first time. Goulash is a rare form of bridge, typically played at rubber. When a deal has been passed out, everyone places their cards (still sorted) on top of everyone else’s, and they are dealt
