Janet de Botton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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 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,

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

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

This weekend should have been the Schapiro Spring Foursomes, sponsored by Helen S., widow of the legendary Boris. Held in Stratford-upon-Avon, it is my favourite EBU event of the year, with its double-knockout format attracting very good teams from far and wide This is just one of many worldwide tournaments to have been cancelled —

The Alt Invitational is the online tournament that is attracting some of the best players on earth. When the whole world is on lockdown, nothing can take the place of the American nationals or the World Bridge Games, but Paul Street (Canadian sponsor) had an idea: invite eight strong teams to compete over five days,

I think it was Warren Buffett who said: ‘Bridge is such a sensational game that I wouldn’t mind being in jail if I had three cellmates who were decent players.’ It is so endlessly fascinating and surprising that you are rarely bored and never alone. Since the shock of all the bridge clubs closing overnight,