Know thy opponents — experts make a point of it. When you’re at the bridge table, it’s just as important as knowing your partner, or indeed yourself. Strong players, after all, are far more likely to duck tricks, or play false-cards; weak players are altogether more predictable. An interesting declarer problem came up during
Being on lead against a grand slam is bad for your blood pressure. So much is at stake (not least, having to face the self-satisfaction of your opponents). Luckily, there is a rule of thumb which obviates the need to stress too much: always lead a trump. This is sensible advice: it’s normally the best
I spent last weekend glued to Bridge Base Online, watching the 16th European Champions Cup taking place in Latvia, and waving my little St George’s flag. England’s Allfrey team produced some spellbinding bridge, and after 11 rounds they topped the round-robin. Unfortunately, they went on to lose the semi-final to Norway, and ended up coming
Call me middle-aged, but the days when I enjoyed playing bridge all night are long gone — which is why I opted out of last weekend’s 24-hour marathon at the Young Chelsea Bridge Club. Thankfully, 27 brave pairs did play, starting at midday on Saturday, and ending at midday on Sunday (without a break). By
Bridge is a partnership game — but haven’t you sometimes wished you could file for a quick divorce mid-rubber? The problem is that however maddening your partner, if you try to give him a taste of his own medicine — by overbidding wildly, for instance, or ignoring his suit-preference signals — it would be like
Twenty-five years ago, Zia Mahmood offered a £1 million bet that no team of his choosing could ever be beaten by computers. A mere four years later, he withdrew the bet: robots were already exceeding expectations, and who knew how rapidly things would progress? In fact, computer bridge still hasn’t reached world-class levels (unlike computer
I’m writing this from Stuart Wheeler’s beautiful villa in Tangier, in the hills just above the bay, where for a week every September he hosts a high-stake rubber bridge game. There are sometimes one or two new faces, but usually it’s the lucky old regulars who return, like Patrick Lawrence, Alexander Allfrey, and none other
Aren’t the Irish supposed to be lucky? The Irish open team are having no luck at all at the moment. They’re such a funny and talented bunch, but they seem doomed to fall at the final hurdle. I recently saw them at the Spring Fours in Stratford-on-Avon — they reached the final, only to be
The ‘Lightner double’ is perfectly named: a bolt out of the blue which strikes fear into your heart. There you are, having bid confidently to slam, when suddenly one of your opponents pulls out the red card. Eek! It’s a Lightner double, which means they want their partner to make an unusual lead: either the
The Andrew Robson Bridge Club in Parsons Green deserves its huge success. The standard may not be as high as at some other London clubs, but the atmosphere is always great. It is the place to learn bridge: the staff are friendly and fun; the rooms are large, airy and bright; the daily duplicates are
This is a great time to be a bridge professional — not just for the world’s top players, who have their pick of super-rich sponsors, but also for those a good few notches below them. In London, there seems to be an ever-growing list of clients willing to spend £100 or more for a game
Here’s one of my favourite hands from the European Open Championships — although it caused David Gold to spend the next hour kicking himself. David is a world-class player, but even Homer nods, and after days competing in a sweltering tent in the Tuscan countryside, he made a small error which led him to go
I’ve just returned from two weeks playing in the European Open Championships in Montecatini in Italy, and I’m so whacked I can hardly get out of bed. Playing pressurised bridge for nearly ten hours a day is exhausting, but try doing it under the relentless heat of the Tuscan sun, in a huge tent with
How is it possible to be assigned four ‘away’ matches on the trot? Strange, but that’s how it was for my Young Chelsea team, competing in the National Inter-Club Knockout: lots of driving down country lanes in Essex or Buckinghamshire in the gloaming, seeking out our opponents’ houses. At last, when it came to Round
It’s the funniest bridge story I’ve heard in ages. At the recent Lady Milne championship (the women’s Home Internationals), one of the English pairs was fined a point for slow play during their match against Ireland. The pair insisted that they hadn’t been particularly slow — indeed they’d bid to a grand slam rather quickly
Long after my own team had been knocked out of this year’s Spring Fours in Stratford-on-Avon (the most prestigious and enjoyable tournament of the year), I was still glued to the action. And even more so when the two teams who made it to the final turned out to be two I normally root for
Janet likes to tease me that whenever it’s my turn to write this column, it ought to be renamed The David Gold Experience. Well, maybe I do write about him a lot, but then again, he is one of the best players in the world. Anyway, this week I’ve decided to give David’s regular partner
Not many people can say they’ve partnered David Gold and been the better player — but I’m one of them. Admittedly, it was 20 years ago. He was 17 and had been playing for about a month when he decided to test his skill in the pound game at St John’s Wood bridge club. I’d
We all know how important it is to stop and think when defending a hand. There’s just one problem with that advice: sometimes it’s equally important not to stop and think. Every hesitation gives something away — and although it often doesn’t cost you anything, it can prove fatal. I regularly find myself having to
Everyone knows him, but hardly anyone can pronounce his name — which is why Jacek Pszczola is universally called Pepsi. He’s Polish, of course, but lives in the US, and is one of the world’s most successful — and popular — bridge pros. He does, however, have one very disconcerting habit. As soon as he’s
