Imagine you are on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. You have just won £500,000 and cannot go home with less than £120,000. You use your last lifeline (50/50) leaving you a straight guess to become a millionaire or drop £380K. Even though it’s mathematically correct to guess, most people would take the money.
Jonathan Harris is a man of principle. He and his wife Jenny had each entered a team for the Venice International Festival of Bridge earlier this month. Five days of Pairs and Teams in a wonderful setting: beats working. Then came the news that Fulvio Fantoni, who had been found guilty of cheating by the
When did International Women’s Day become an official fixture? I have never been aware of it before this year and I fumed noisily thinking how patronising it was, ranting on that men don’t have a special day as every day celebrates their importance. Wrong again. There is an International Men’s Day and, if you want
Susanna and I don’t play on the same team very often, but once a year Fiona Hutchison puts together a squad of eight to play the Garden Cities Qualifier — I’m not exactly sure what we were qualifying for but I think it’s possibly a second qualifier. It’s a lovely, fun, stress-free evening of bridge
James Vogl excelled at poker and backgammon and thought, like many of us, that when he took up bridge about a dozen years ago, it wouldn’t be long before he excelled at that too. Always interested in the theoretical side of the game, he took as a mentor an American professional, Ron Von der Porten,
The winter ‘season’ of terrific bridge competitions came to a close last weekend with the Lederer Trophy held at the RAC Club in London. Generously sponsored by Simon Gillis and faultlessly organised by Ian Payn and Kath Stynes, it really is a pleasure for the ten teams lucky enough to be invited to play in
Two of the best (and most enjoyable) Pairs and Teams tournaments of the year have just finished, and I miss them already. Iceland Air’s Reykjavik Bridge Festival, where my teammates Thor-Erik Hoftaniska and Espen Erichsen won the Pairs, and immediately following it, Pierre Zimmermann’s Cavendish Monaco. The Cavendish Teams was won by the French foursome
The Norwegian Bridge Press Association’s annual prize for the best-played hand was a particularly hard-fought contest in 2018. Boye Brogeland and Geo Tislevoll (both Norwegian although Tislevoll now lives and plays in New Zealand) had already won the International Best Played and Best Defended titles, which made it likely that one of them would take
2018 ended on a very sweet note for my team. We played the London Year End one-day teams tournament — and won! Highly enjoyable and highly satisfying. The perfect warm-up for the first weekend of the Camrose Trophy in Mold, North Wales, where I got my second England cap playing against the home countries. We
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! I have made a resolution to make some bridge resolutions. Here they are: 1. When declaring, I will never again play to the first trick in a nanosecond. I will explain to the opps, in an insufferably smug tone, that I always take at least two minutes to plan
This is my last column before Christmas (I know… I’ll miss you too) and as 2018 rolls to an end the only tournament left for me to play is the Year End Congress in London. I could have gone to Hawaii to play the Reisinger, main event of the American Fall National, but it’s too
DO NOT DOUBLE PARTSCORES WHEN PLAYING TEAMS. Here is Geir Helgemo somehow fooling his expert opponents into defending like total muppets… The bidding was only the beginning of Geir’s wizardry. He managed to bid not one but both of his three-card suits, North giving desperate preference to 2♥. The opps were then led a very
This autumn has been the busiest (bridge-wise) I can remember. It started with the Crockfords final at the beginning of September (we came second), then there was the World Championships in Orlando (we came nowhere) and the Pairs and Teams Grand Prix of Poland in Vilnius (we came second in both). We have just played
Vytas and Erikas Vainikonis, father and son bridge enthusiasts, are the generous hosts of one of the best five days of championship-level bridge in the calendar. Held in Vilnius (capital of Lithuania for my fellow geography dunces), it starts with 12 invited teams competing for the highly prestigious Vilnius Cup and follows on with the
Good news for bridge if the Open World Championships in Orlando are anything to go by. Far from dying, it is spawning and nurturing young players who are making their mark spectacularly. In the first two tournaments (Open Teams and Open Pairs) Michal Klukowski (22) won his fifth world title on the Zimmermann team and
I think my regular reader(s) would agree that I have been rather low-key about my bridge abilities of late. Defence for me became like a cataract-smitten eye trying to read the fine print — so much so that I began to bitterly judge myself Worst Defender in the Room every time I played. But that
All the best players today are technically excellent in card play. They know all the odds and end plays to bring home their contract or thwart the opposition so the important differences are often in the bidding. Finding the best game, slam or partscore, played from the right hand, is vital. But there is another
When I was first married, there were no satnavs to hold our hands; we relied on maps (if there was one handy) or trial and error. Whenever my husband wasn’t sure whether to go left or right he would ask me. ‘Left,’ I might say. He immediately turned right — and he was never wrong.
It’s that time of year again — summer and its attendant holidays. No bridge for me for a month, unless you count the odd tournament online or playing my favourite computer programme, Bridge Baron. I love the Baron, not only for the squillions of hands it throws up but also because you can play a
Last Friday, merrily on my way to Young Chelsea (still the best IMPs duplicate in town), I couldn’t know that my very dull outfit would cause offence. I found a seat, and was sitting with my back to the room getting settled when the lovely new manager, Louisa, beckoned me over. There had been a
