Bridge | 11 March 2023

The Camrose Trophy is the championship between the five home countries, held over two weekends, with the host country fielding a second team to ‘make up the numbers’. My team qualified to represent England for one of those weekends – Andrew Black’s strong squad played the other – and between us we won! And yes – before you ask, I did play!

One of England’s brightest ever stars (and one of the nicest) was Tony Priday who died, aged 92, a few years ago. He played in the Camrose almost continuously from 1956 to 1986 and came out of retirement to play one more in the mid-1990s – which ofc his team won. Tony had two of the most essential qualities a great bridge player needs: technical ability and experience. Here he demonstrates he had a double dose of both (see diagram).

A good auction landed Tony in 4♠ when the partnership appeared to lack a Heart control.

West led the ♥K for count, then also cashed the Ace before exiting with a trump.

Tony took three rounds of those, unblocked the Ace of Clubs, and played Ace of Diamonds and… a small Diamond!

Clearly, if Diamonds are 3-2 it’s claim-time, but if they go 4-1, the defender winning the second Diamond just got endplayed; he has to return the suit or let dummy in with its two winners.

Perhaps ‘experience’ can be explained as a mixture of having seen positions before, and the ability to stop and think rather than just charge ahead. Whatever it is, Tony Priday had it in Spades.