What can be more regrettable than picking up a huge hand and landing in the wrong contract? It happened to me recently in a Hubert Phillips match. I had a 3-3-5-2 twenty-four count, all Aces and Kings, and my left hand opponent opened 3♠ which was raised to game on my right. I gave
It’s so hard not to whinge when you’ve had bad luck at bridge — it’s just one of those things you’ve got to get off your chest. One thing’s for sure, though, if you’re going to be a moaning Minnie, pick an example that proves your point, not one that betrays the limits of your
Not surprisingly, Reykjavik has become a tourist destination again. Delicious restaurants, all those geysers and, if you’re lucky, the Northern Lights come out to play. But for bridge players there is another incentive to get out your warmest parka — possibly my favourite bridge tournament of the year held on the last weekend of January.
You can always tell a beginner, or a poor player, at the bridge table — they’re the ones who start cashing their tricks as soon as dummy comes down. Any reasonable player knows the importance of stopping to think: of counting winners and losers, and working out a strategy. But it’s the mark of a
The Friday night IMPs game at the Young Chelsea is still the best game around. Some of yesterday’s internationals may have been replaced by tomorrow’s, but it remains pure, unadulterated fun! The newest superstar in town is French Junior sensation Christophe Grosset, married to our very own Alice Kaye. On today’s hand, he refused to
There’s a bit of a ruckus going on in the bridge world at the moment; a lot of people are getting very hot under the collar. The issue is this: should the laws of the game always be enforced, or should players sometimes waive them in favour of creating a friendlier, more enjoyable atmosphere? Many
Simon Gillis’s team has had a very successful year. They won the Gold Cup (for the second time), they joined the Premier League in the second division and got promoted, and they won the team’s event in the 2015 London Year End congress. This year the congress went slightly askew for him. His 16-year-old son
There are an awful lot of bridge babies in the world — that is, babies born to mothers so addicted to the game that they’re still playing when they go into labour. I recently learnt that the actor Jack Lemmon was one: his mother Mildred was playing in New York’s Ritz-Carlton hotel when her contractions
Simon Cochemé, whose witty column appears monthly in English Bridge magazine, celebrated his 70th birthday with a knees-up and duplicate at Young Chelsea at the end of November. The hands were ‘prepared’, each containing a problem of one sort or another, some well-known, others less so. The question was, would the players reach the intended
It was the best hand I’d had all year — and what’s more, I picked it up while playing rubber bridge for money at TGRs. The pound signs flashed before my eyes: there was no way I was stopping short of game, and the merest squeak from my partner would get me slamming. Well, you
When I first started playing bridge, in the late Nineties, the Young Chelsea marathon was a continuous 24-hour tournament and the stories that came out of those events are legendary: Richard Selway, late, great host at TGRs, winning and going straight to work afterwards. A Norwegian pair, who had not slept at all the night
Have you ever felt that none of your partners are on the same wavelength as you? Despite regularly partnering the world’s top players, Zia Mahmood often jokingly moans (well, semi-jokingly) that he’s made a subtle or clever bid which has fallen on deaf ears. But that shouldn’t surprise anyone: whether he’s bidding or playing, you
The last three weekends have not been relaxing for those of us playing the Premier League, with all its attendant dreams of promotion and nightmares of relegation. Last year’s winners were relegated to division two and Alexander Allfrey’s excellent team won. Today’s hand features (immodestly) moi and came from the second weekend in Manchester: First
My ten-year-old football-loving son thought I was making some silly joke when I told him last weekend that I was off to Manchester to play in the Premier League. No, I said, I’m serious: that’s what it’s called in bridge too. I’m playing in the Second Division. Three weekends of bridge, and at the end
The Gold Cup Finals were played in London this year and proved to be very exciting but ultimately unsuccessful for my team. We played David Mossop’s squad on Friday in the quarter-finals and had a rather magical match where everything went our way and we won easily. Next day we played Simon Gillis’s band of
I felt like an absolute hypocrite the other week. Sally Brock’s team had just beaten Alexander Allfrey’s in the semi-finals of the Gold Cup. They were due to go face to face against Simon Gillis’s team in the final the next day. I texted Sally: ‘Good luck, hope you win!’ Later that afternoon I bumped
The Hubert Phillips is one of the EBU’s quirkier knockout tournaments. Firstly every team must contain (and play) at least one male and one female, changing partners after each 10 board stanza. And secondly the scoring is by total aggregate, honours counting, meaning a big swing can easily wipe out all the other results in
It often strikes me that learning to bid is just like mastering a language. As you take on new conventions and deepen your understanding of what different bids convey, you can begin to communicate properly. Things are complicated by the fact that there are so many different dialects — how much simpler life would be
TGR’s rubber bridge club is a bit like the set of your favourite soap. You have the regulars, of varying abilities and temperaments. You have the stars. You have the guest appearances, characters who come and go and shake up the cocktail. And then you have the total strangers, who walk in from nowhere and
I’ve been in a bridge bubble in Wroclaw for the past two weeks, playing in the World Bridge Games. I competed in the Mixed Teams then the Mixed Pairs, playing against nations from across the world, each wearing their own distinctive shirts (Japan’s pink and blue gets my vote for the most stylish). I wish
