There have been a lot of frantically close finishes in the big English tournaments recently. In the semi-final of the Gold Cup, the de Botton team edged the Norwegian Tøndel team by just one IMP (and went on to win the event). The Crockford’s Cup was even closer. Nick Irens and his team lost the
David Cameron must long ago have stopped signing off texts to friends with ‘LOL’. In internet slang, of course, it means ‘laughing out loud’, not ‘lots of love’ as he’d thought. Yes, we all scoffed when the story emerged — but how many of the scoffers know that in bridge, LOL means something else entirely:
Before deciding how to tackle a hand, experts don’t just weigh up the odds; they also size up the opponents. That’s why, whenever I present the likes of Zia Mahmood or Andrew Robson with a declarer problem, the first question they ask is: ‘Who am I playing?’ Needless to say, weak opponents are far less
Most of us play bridge with slight tunnel vision; we focus on our own cards, and those in dummy. Experts manage to split their screen, as it were, and see all four hands at the same time. I was reminded of this the other day, when playing with Barry Myers in the London pairs. I
Does life feel a bit flat? Are you bored and listless? Then take up bridge! During the recent Lady Milne (the women’s home internationals) in Edinburgh, these are just some of the emotions I experienced: euphoria, frustration, elation, shame, exhaustion, self-loathing, pride, fear. The one thing I didn’t feel, not even for a second, was
Why is bridge quite so exciting? One of the reasons, surely, is that it involves a power struggle, with each player wanting to assert their supremacy; the very word ‘trump’ derives from ‘triumph’. Call me competitive — but my view is confirmed even more starkly in the writings of the Austrian psychoanalyst Alfred Adler (a
A friend asked me recently whether there are any rules against ‘unethical hesitations’ in bridge: one of his opponents had paused before following low in a suit; as a result, my friend had assumed he held the ace, and put up dummy’s king …whereupon the other opponent won the trick. It’s a murky area: a
Like most children, I was often told: ‘Count the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.’ I was strangely transfixed by the idea — as though, through some strange alchemy, coins could turn into notes all by themselves if you just waited long enough. But I never did; I couldn’t resist spending my pocket
I feel that we in the bridge community (is there one? Am I in it?) haven’t made enough of a song-and-dance about Andrew Robson being awarded an OBE in the Queen’s new year’s honours list. It’s been nearly 20 years since a bridge player was honoured in this way (the last was Nicola Smith in
Once you’ve made a fool of yourself in public often enough, you pretty much stop minding. At least, that’s my experience of playing bridge on Vugraph (which is broadcast online, for all to watch). These days, all major national and international tournaments are shown online, so there’s no getting away from it; but you quickly
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
It’s hard to explain to non-bridge players how much the game means to some of us. It’s not just a pastime; it’s a grand passion. Janet de Botton summed it up well when someone asked her if she really loved the game. ‘I don’t love it,’ she replied, ‘I’m in love with it.’ Ask any
At a dinner party recently, I was asked whether men and women are equally good at bridge. Not at the very highest level, I replied. If you were to name the top 300 players in the world, only one or two — at most — would be women. When I was asked why, I replied
Ever heard of the ‘gum-wrapper coup’? My guess is not — as far as I’m aware, only one person has ever pulled it off, and that was about 80 years ago. I came across it while reading a book about the ‘father of contract bridge’, Ely Culbertson. Ely was a brilliant player but chronically impatient.
Time and again in bridge, when tackling problematic contracts, I miss simple solutions which, it turns out, were staring me in the face. It’s some consolation to know that this sort of temporary blindness is a fairly common condition: bridge clubs are full of people slapping their heads and groaning as they see — too
In this country, Andrew Robson and bridge are practically synonymous: he’s the best known, and probably the best, player we have. His love for the game goes to the very core of him. During our recent bridge week at Stuart Wheeler’s house in Tangier, I asked Andrew about his near-fatal accident in 2001. While walking
I’ve just come back from Tessa and Stuart Wheeler’s stunning house, Dar Sinclair, in Tangier. It’s a lovely time of year to go: the sun was shining, the sea was warm, the souk was beckoning. But this was Stuart’s annual bridge week — so naturally we hardly stepped outdoors. The bridge gang included Andrew Robson
The sad truth is, the length of time you’ve been playing bridge is no indication of how good you are. When I had my first lesson, aged 27, I’d already been playing with friends every week for five or six years. I quickly found out that almost everything we were doing was wrong. I was
You’ve won a national championship by the narrowest of margins. You’re too elated to sleep: you’re going over the hands in your head, when suddenly — argh! — you realise you scored one board incorrectly. If you come clean, your score will drop. What do you do? This is exactly what happened to the American
Here’s a bridge tip you won’t read about in any book — one which the world-class pro Gunnar Hallberg gave me the other evening during a game of social bridge. You’re declarer, and a suit is led. Let’s say dummy has a holding like 8643 in the suit, and you can see at once that
