Where did you spend Easter? Skiing in some magical snowy wonderland, sipping schnapps and ladling down the fondue? On a gourmet tour somewhere, sampling the local delicacies and washing them down with copious amounts of plonk? Me? I was at the Royal National Hotel in Russell Square playing the Easter Guardian along with hundreds of
The London Metropolitan Bridge Association’s annual Swiss Teams’ Tournament, which attracted 35 teams, was won in style by Roger O’Shea, ably assisted by most of the Hackett family. There are a number of situations in bridge where we can’t afford to hesitate, or we’d give the game away. The only thing to rely on in
Terry Hewett’s annual charity bonanza, Night of the Stars, has become THE charity event of the year and has made Terry the true star. This year she auctioned off 43 bridge stars, raising well over £40,000 for four charities, and gave us all a fabulous evening to boot! This year’s tournament was won by Jeremy
Professional bridge players should not need motivating, but the fact is that sometimes it would appear they are sleepwalking and need a veritable kick up the backside. Our latest Gold Cup match against my friend Jon Vos was a case in point. Jon had been less than compulsive/obsessive about informing his team of the arrangements
Max, my adorable son-in-law, knew early on he was not cut out for a life of academia. Nevertheless he fearlessly sat an A-level, after which, exhausted, he went on holiday. On the day the results were due, he phoned his doting mother and asked her to open the letter when it came and tell him
It took more than total white-out and Heathrow closing its doors to deter 200 avid bridge players from making their way to Hinckley for the National Swiss Teams, probably the most popular event in the EBU calendar. The format is two days playing 13 matches and the best team usually wins. This year the best
Here is my eagerly awaited New Year’s List of the most infuriating things partner can do: 1. Bid ridiculously to game, get doubled, go for a telephone number and say: ‘Sorry, partner, I could have made that.’ 2. Double the opps into game, and when it makes, as it ALWAYS does, say ‘Sorry, partner, I
Up to Solihull again (I might as well move there) to play the Gold Cup finals. We sailed through the semis against Ken Ford’s team to meet Allfrey in the final. They had been 52 down with 16 boards to play in their semi-final match and had won! The writing was on the wall. The
A few years ago I used to play Rubber Bridge from time to time with an elderly gentleman called Leo Halpern. Leo was unfailingly polite, good-humoured and kind. He was also very, very slow. One day, when he was playing a laydown 3NT he thought for ages and one of the other players finally said:
Since the beginning of September I don’t think there has been a single weekend when my team was not away playing in one or another tournament, so when I received an email asking everyone from the first division of the Premier League if they would like to play the Champions Cup in Israel I decided
OK, Guv. It’s a fair cop. I admit it. I’ve been feeling a squidgen smug of late. I’ve been playing rather well — even though I say so myself. My team has been successful. We have prospered. I smiled sympathetically when others told me their tales of woe, thinking, ‘That used to be me.’ I
Somerset Maugham famously called Monte Carlo ‘a sunny place for shady people’. Today über sponsor Pierre Zimmermann has rather unexpectedly turned it into the bridge capital of the world. Last week he achieved another huge win for the principality by moving the world’s biggest money tournament, The Cavendish, from Las Vegas to Monaco for a
Of all the competitions and tournaments available in this country, the one that somehow means the most is the Gold Cup. We have won it twice and the thrill is immeasurable. We have also been knocked out in round one and the worst part was knowing what we would be missing, in terms of matches,
I read recently that bridge today is 70 per cent bidding, 20 per cent defence and 10 per cent play, and if the first weekend of this year’s Premier League is anything to go by that would about sum it up. Most IMPs went out of the window with bidding misunderstandings leading good pairs into
A friend told me (no, honestly — it was a friend) that she had had a dream from which she awoke screaming abuse and practising kick-boxing on her (no longer) boyfriend’s sleeping head. ‘What was the dream?’ I, her awestruck audience, gasped. Well — it turned out that said boyfriend’s ex-wife had told him that
Here I sit, in hot, sunny, glorious France, pretending to be on holiday but feigning lots of headaches so I can nip up to my computer. BBO is showing the second World Mind Games which started last Friday in Lille. In each Group the 16 teams play a complete Round Robin and the top four
No one could have been more of an Olympic moaner than me. The past two-year countdown has left me seething with rage and resentment as we were asked totally to change our lives and basically stay home so that the dignitaries could whisk through London. Then came Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony and it seems the
Some bridge tournaments take everything you’ve got and then some. The emotional output is as extreme as the most demanding, turbulent relationship and you stagger home needing urgent hospital care. Then there are some that are great bridge but not life or death. And then there is Biarritz. A cracking holiday with a bit of
As Susanna reported last week, England’s amazing Ladies Team took Gold in the European Championships having led virtually from the first board. It was Nicola Smith’s seventh title, moving her into third place on the all-time list and a fourth title for Sally Brock and Heather Dhondy. Special mention must go to the ‘youngsters’ —
The 51st European Championships, which are being played in Dublin, started last week, and at the time of writing England are doing brilliantly in all three classes: Open, Ladies and Seniors. Very sadly, Alexander Allfrey and his partner, the incomparable Andrew Robson, one of our pairs in the Open, had to pull out and reserves
