It’s surprising how many perfectly good bridge players lack confidence when it comes to squeeze plays. They seem to think a squeeze is some sort of dark art which experts alone can master — a view no doubt reinforced by all that technical jargon about ‘rectifying the count’ and ‘isolating the menace’. But the truth
Pierre Zimmermann, captain of the hugely successful Monaco team, plays with Franck Multon and they are probably the best sponsor/professional partnership in the world. Franck occasionally partners a somewhat less gifted lady who, after he opened a minor, bid 3NT. He put dummy down and left the table. When he returned, she had gone one
I witnessed utter carnage at the bridge table the other week. I was watching the European Champions Cup online when a brilliantly imaginative bid by one of France’s top players, Philippe Cronier, backfired horribly (always fun to see disaster befall a professional). When the dust had settled, Cronier had gone for one of the largest
Last weekend saw the start of the Tollemache qualifier, the inter-county teams of eight championship. Thirty-five teams competed in four groups, the top two in each group going through to the final in February. Four members of my team were picked to represent two different counties: London and Middlesex. One of them (too grand for
It’s one of the burning political issues of the day: why don’t more MPs play bridge? Two weeks ago, the 40th annual bridge match between the House of Lords and the House of Commons took place, and while the captain of the Lords, Baroness Henig, had no problem getting seven fellow peers to make up
It’s always good to know where you draw the line and my line, drawn in thick black ink, was going to China to play the World Championships. I last went to the Far East in 1997 and I’m still not fully over the jet lag. As Victor Silverstone told me in slightly less exotic Peterborough,
To get good results at bridge, it’s not enough to play well — your opponents need to play badly; and if they won’t oblige, you’ll need to help them along. Some players do this the unethical way: they try to intimidate their opponents with officious behaviour, or else create a whirlwind of jollity designed to
Every obituary written about Tony Priday, who died recently aged 92, said what a class act he was. I would like to add my tuppence to that observation. When I first started playing, around 15 years ago, I played against Tony and his wife Vivian at a Young Chelsea duplicate. I was keen as mustard
Forget the 5-2 diet. To lose weight the easy way, why not take up competitive bridge? I’ve just come back from the Autumn Congress, held over three days at the Holiday Inn in Peterborough. Despite devouring double helpings of banoffee pie from the hotel buffet each night, to my astonishment I’ve come back two pounds
The EBU’s Premier League is upon us again, the pain of relegation ever-present as my team battles it out in the second division to try to finish in the top two and earn promotion. After two of the three rather endless weekends (a triple round-robin if you please) we are lying well and… let’s hope
Has Zia Mahmood cried wolf one too many times? He’s still the undisputed master of the ‘psyche’ — he has an uncanny ability to know exactly how and when to make deceptive bids without running into large penalties like the rest of us. But he’s done it so often that many players are wary of
I don’t know about the only gay in the village but I am starting to feel like the last woman standing. In the two most recent events I have played, the Cavendish Pairs in Monaco and the superb Vilnius Cup, I was the only female playing and frankly, ladies, I missed you. Vytas and Erikas
There aren’t many instantly recognisable stars in the bridge world, but Andrew Robson is definitely one — as he was made only too aware on a flight to Tangier recently when a group of Club Med passengers in the surrounding seats got very excited and made him discuss bridge for hours. Andrew goes to Tangier
Many top bridge players are also keen poker fans, and when a poker star infiltrates their backyard there is a definite ripple of excitement. So it was at the hugely prestigious Euro Cavendish, held last week in Monaco, when Poker Champion Gus (the Great Dane) Hansen turned up to play. No one was more excited
Unlike poker, there’s not much money to be made from bridge tournaments (consider yourself lucky if you win £40 in vouchers). There is one event, however, where big bucks — actually, euros — are at stake. The invitation-only Cavendish Pairs attracts top players from all over the world; they are auctioned off (they can buy
One person who lets out a whoop of delight when I am on holiday is my saintly partner, Artur Malinowski. He gets a holiday too — from me and my daft mistakes — and can play proper bridge with some of the greats who are dying to partner him. This time it was the turn
I was talking to the brilliant 27-year old Israeli player Alon Birman at the recent Brighton Congress, when suddenly there was a loud crash: a pane of glass had fallen to the floor. No one was hurt, and as everyone carried on chatting, Alon quipped: ‘It’s obvious none of you live in Israel.’ Alon is
It’s August — that time of year again — and I am in France, as usual, on my annual holiday. Hot sun, delicious food and drink, yet still the bitter shadow of envy casting its pall. I am missing Brighton and the two-week congress that everyone I know is playing. Many congratulations to my teammate,
Some bridge hands are so sad that they make you want to cry. At least, that’s how my friend Lou Hobhouse put it when she phoned to tell me about her disastrous duplicate game the previous evening. I should explain that Lou is a bridge teacher in Somerset; she’s hugely popular with her students and
Two very exciting tournaments drew to a close last week. The first was the Spingold, the main teams event in the Las Vegas Summer National, the final of which saw two top Norwegian pairs opposing each other. In the end the slight underdogs, Richard Schwartz’s team, prevailed over mighty Monaco. Closer to home, there’s no
