Bridge | 17 January 2013

I’m writing this on Monday morning and wow, what a weekend that was. The great and the good of the bridge world flocked to TGRs for its 4th Annual Auction Pairs. It’s the first time I’ve played in the event — and I felt like I’d died and gone to bridge heaven. Everywhere I looked there was a colossus of the game: Romania’s Bogdan Marina, France’s Paul Chemla, Icelanders Adalsteinn Jorgensen and Bjarni Einarsson, Zia Mahmood, Andrew Robson (or Lord Robbo as we call him since his New Year OBE for services to bridge)…

In total, there were 70 pairs, and we were auctioned off for between £300 and £3,500, generating a huge cash pool. In the end, the French father-son partnership of Michel and Thomas Bessis won — although you could argue that the real winner was Janet de Botton, who had bought them for £2,200, thereby netting the biggest share of the pot: £19,500. Now that’s what I call a good bid. Oddly, although players were entitled to buy up to 50 per cent of themselves back, the Bessises hadn’t bought any of themselves back at all.

My partner was Sally Brock, and although we languished below average, Sally’s other half, Barry Myers, provided us with a sense of vicarious victory. Barry had been drafted in at the last minute to play with someone he’d never met — the Turkish player Mustafa Cem Tokay, whose partner had missed his flight. Thrillingly, they hovered near the top throughout, and eventually came third. Barry, who used to be the host at the bridge club Green Street and is now a criminal barrister, never misses the chance to exploit a gullible opponent. On this hand, most declarers made 6♠.