If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same… Well, Kipling obviously never played competitive bridge. Triumph is the only thing that counts: just ask Helen Erichsen and Fiona Brown, who did brilliantly last weekend to win the England women’s trials. You needed to finish in the top
The New Year got off to a great start with TGR’s annual auction pairs, the best run tournament I have ever played and one of the most fun. It’s matchpoint scoring, meaning every trick makes a difference — certainly not my forte as the pained face of my partner made clear every time I sloshed
Forgive me for the outdated, clichéd expression but …GIRL POWER! The surprise winners of last weekend’s TGRs auction pairs were two women internationals, Paula Leslie (Scotland) and Solvi Rehmen (Norway). It was a giant victory — and a small step for womankind. Many of the (male) heavyweights of the bridge world had flown to London
Call me nuts but on 29 December I left lovely, sunny, delicious France for the fairly unlovely Royal National Hotel to play the year end’s last event, the one-day Swiss Teams. God it was fun. I hadn’t played a hand in 12 days (and counting) and we were all in a great mood (unusual), rested
This might be the most beautiful hand I’ve ever seen. I came across it while reading one of the old bridge books in my collection (Test Your Play as Declarer by Paul Lukacs and Jeff Rubens), and was bowled over by the solution: the pure logic of it came as a sort of epiphany. Forgive
2015 leaves many bridge players with mixed emotions. I have played in more wonderful, high-level tournaments than ever before (Iceland, Vilnius, Cavendish Monaco and Lederer to name four) but all of them were overshadowed this August by the greatest cheating scandal in bridge history. Four world-class pairs were outed and banned awaiting trial, three of
If you don’t play bridge, you really should avoid gatherings of bridge players — you’ll find us excruciatingly dull. I’ve never forgotten the time, a few years back, when Sally Brock and I went for dinner with our teammates after a tournament. We got a booth in a restaurant, and began discussing the hands we’d
Last weekend saw the qualifying matches for the Tollemache Cup, the inter-county championships for teams of eight. I didn’t play because …well, because I wasn’t asked. But I’m not bitter — not so you would notice anyhow. Two members of my team, Nick Sandqvist and Tom Townsend, played for London and squeaked into February’s final
Bravissimo! The Italians have won gold yet again at the European Champions Cup. The event was launched in 2002, and since then Italy has won all but twice. England has never won, but as the host nation this year we got to field two teams, and they came third and fifth — not quite so
The EBU’s Premier League takes place over three weekends and decides who will represent England in next year’s Camrose (home nations) Trophy. My team were leading after both the first and second weekends and I was all geared up for the coveted England shirt that says you are a bridge god and play for your
Congratulations to my old pal Lou Hobhouse, who has just been appointed the new editor of the English Bridge Union magazine. I’ve known Lou for 20 years and can vouch for the fact that she’s as devoted to bridge as anyone I’ve ever met. She even played on her wedding night — she and her
If you like extremely high-level Pairs tournaments you would love Pierre Zimmermann’s Cavendish Monaco. Sixty pairs are auctioned off and battle it out over three days against some of the best players in the world. The scoring is IMPs across the field and competition is fierce. The winners this year were Ireland’s Adam Mesbur and
It’s not surprising that so many bridge players feel such a sentimental attachment to The Young Chelsea. The club was founded nearly 50 years ago, and since then has been a home from home for countless lovers of the game, and the breeding ground for many of England’s greatest stars. If you haven’t yet been
Two weeks playing the Bermuda Bowl (world championships) in Chennai ended heartbreakingly for England’s awesome Open Team and their loyal supporters, who watched every board they could on BBO. They had qualified easily to the play-offs and drew USA 1 (the favourites for the gold medal) in the quarter final. After a thrilling match, England
There’s no doubt about it: I’m an addict. A BBO addict. Since the Bermuda Bowl began, nearly a fortnight ago, the first thing I do each morning is log on to Bridge Base Online to follow the action. And I stay logged on until play stops at about 3 p.m. (7.30 p.m. in Chennai). I’m
The 42nd Bermuda Bowl has kicked off in Chennai, and after several weeks of cheat-busting Boye Brogeland (‘The Sheriff’) has kept his promise to give us a clean World Championship. Four European teams qualified with cheats — oh sorry, Mr Smirnov; ‘ethical violations’ on your part — and were replaced by squads from France, Denmark
This has been the most shocking saga in the entire history of bridge. In the face of overwhelming evidence that members of their teams have been cheating, Israel, Monaco and Germany have all withdrawn from the world championships, which begin this week in Chennai. So far the German pair alone has admitted their guilt, but
The cheating scandal rages on. The latest to be accused is the world’s number one-ranked pair, Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes, who play for the mighty Monaco team. Frankly, it’s too depressing to go into and instead I am going to tell you about a local hero called Alan Woo, who has been playing bridge
The bridge world continues to be electrified by the scandal that Janet wrote about last week. Lotan Fisher and Ron Schwartz (‘F-S’), the superstar players accused of cheating, are part of the Israeli team which qualified to play in the world championships held in China later this month. Now, in light of the accusations, Israel
No doubt you have heard about the huge cheating storm that has blown up over the last 10 days. Here are some of the facts: Boye Brogeland, Norwegian Champion and one of the most respected and liked players in the world, announced via the online forum BridgeWinners.com that four members of the Schwartz team, Richie
