Janet de Botton

Pierre Zimmermann, Monaco’s uber-sponsor, has put another unmissable, thrilling tournament in the calendar. The first European Winter Games gave those who entered the kind of event we no longer get with the World or European Championships. One week of bridge, 60 boards a day, with a BAM (board a match) side event that was terrific. The final of the Zimmermann Cup was between Zimmermann and Andrew (Bertie) Black’s mainly British team, who beat all the top teams easily, played like gods and were narrowly defeated in the final to take the silver medal. Back home, no sooner had we landed at Heathrow than two of my team whizzed up to Birmingham to play the final of the Tollemache Cup — the inter-counties championships.

The Brits have done brilliantly in Icelandair’s annual bridge festival in Reykjavik and this year was no different. The winners of the two-day pairs tournament were the Anglo–Bulgarian partnership of Rumen Trendafilov, who has played many times on the Bulgarian Open team, and Nevena Senior, who has won two World Championships (among many other titles) playing on the English Ladies Team. On today’s deal, Rumen played carefully and accurately to land his spade partscore. West led Ace and another diamond to declarer’s King. East’s double had shown precisely four spades, which cleared up the distribution of the trump suit. At trick three Rumen led a low spade to the ten, losing to the Jack.

The New Year got off to a great start with TGR’s annual auction pairs, the best run tournament I have ever played and one of the most fun. It’s matchpoint scoring, meaning every trick makes a difference — certainly not my forte as the pained face of my partner made clear every time I sloshed away an overtrick. My teammate Nick Sandqvist, playing with his regular partner Tom Townsend, showed how it’s done when he magically led declarer astray on today’s hand: Nick was West and led the ♣7. The start of the play was normal enough: declarer won in hand, led a Heart to the King and another one back, Tom (East) winning the 10 and playing another Club. South won in hand again, and tried a Spade to the King and Ace.

Call me nuts but on 29 December I left lovely, sunny, delicious France for the fairly unlovely Royal National Hotel to play the year end’s last event, the one-day Swiss Teams. God it was fun. I hadn’t played a hand in 12 days (and counting) and we were all in a great mood (unusual), rested (unheard of) and winning our matches big (lovely). We needed only to avoid a massive defeat in the last match and the title was ours. We drew my friend Simon Gillis, playing with Norwegian world champion Erik Saelensminde. Were we complacent? Yes. Were we awful? Yes. And did we lose big? Yes again. Take this disaster: The ♣K was led at both tables and won in dummy. Declarer played a trump to hand — getting the bad news — and a heart to West’s Ace.

2015 leaves many bridge players with mixed emotions. I have played in more wonderful, high-level tournaments than ever before (Iceland, Vilnius, Cavendish Monaco and Lederer to name four) but all of them were overshadowed this August by the greatest cheating scandal in bridge history. Four world-class pairs were outed and banned awaiting trial, three of their teams withdrawing from the Bermuda Bowl as they had qualified with cheats. For my last column of the year I want to pay tribute to possibly the greatest player of all time — USA’s Bob Hamman.

Last weekend saw the qualifying matches for the Tollemache Cup, the inter-county championships for teams of eight. I didn’t play because ...well, because I wasn’t asked. But I’m not bitter — not so you would notice anyhow. Two members of my team, Nick Sandqvist and Tom Townsend, played for London and squeaked into February’s final despite their little disaster on today’s hand. Tom’s 6♣ bid was what Nick describes as ‘a sudden outbreak of optimism’, while the raise to 7♣ looked fairly automatic — to Nick! On West’s trump lead, Nick stared at the dummy for a minute, then laid down the Ace of Spades and claimed one down when the King did not fall.

The EBU’s Premier League takes place over three weekends and decides who will represent England in next year’s Camrose (home nations) Trophy. My team were leading after both the first and second weekends and I was all geared up for the coveted England shirt that says you are a bridge god and play for your country. Sadly, I won’t have to worry about whether they get my size right as we had a dreadful last two days and came absolutely nowhere! The event was won by David Mossop’s squad, which contains one of the nicest (and best) pairs on the circuit — Colin Simpson and David Price. David gave his team a massive boost by bringing home this tricky 6NT.

If you like extremely high-level Pairs tournaments you would love Pierre Zimmermann’s Cavendish Monaco. Sixty pairs are auctioned off and battle it out over three days against some of the best players in the world. The scoring is IMPs across the field and competition is fierce. The winners this year were Ireland’s Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon, who had a fantastic tournament, leading almost all the way. My teammates Tom Townsend and Nick Sandqvist came eighth — well in the prizes. Check out Tom’s cute defence here: 2♣ was an inverted raise, and 3♣ the weakest rebid available.

Two weeks playing the Bermuda Bowl (world championships) in Chennai ended heartbreakingly for England’s awesome Open Team and their loyal supporters, who watched every board they could on BBO. They had qualified easily to the play-offs and drew USA 1 (the favourites for the gold medal) in the quarter final. After a thrilling match, England emerged victorious and the crowd (well, me and my pet budgie) went mad. They drew Poland in the semi-final, which turned out to be the most exciting match I can remember. Ninety-six boards were played, and England took the lead for the first time after board 90 — having been over 40 IMPs down at one stage. This is the very last hand of the semi-final and England were up 4.

The 42nd Bermuda Bowl has kicked off in Chennai, and after several weeks of cheat-busting Boye Brogeland (‘The Sheriff’) has kept his promise to give us a clean World Championship. Four European teams qualified with cheats — oh sorry, Mr Smirnov; ‘ethical violations’ on your part — and were replaced by squads from France, Denmark and Sweden, while Poland lost its most experienced pair, Balicki/Zmudzinski, and is playing a team of four. The only Euro teams that survived with their reputations intact are England and Bulgaria. Geir Helgemo, probably the greatest player in the world, and his partner Tor Helness pulled out when their teammates were exposed as cheats.

The cheating scandal rages on. The latest to be accused is the world’s number one-ranked pair, Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes, who play for the mighty Monaco team. Frankly, it’s too depressing to go into and instead I am going to tell you about a local hero called Alan Woo, who has been playing bridge for longer than most of the cheats have been alive. Alan is a seriously class player who mostly partners his wife Olivia at Young Chelsea duplicates and occasionally comes up with a solution that would not occur to most of us — and, need I add, by fair means, not foul. Look at the stunning defence he produced on this hand. Alan was East and opened 1♥. After West’s pre-emptive raise, North had an impossible bidding problem and probably wished he had opened.

No doubt you have heard about the huge cheating storm that has blown up over the last 10 days. Here are some of the facts: Boye Brogeland, Norwegian Champion and one of the most respected and liked players in the world, announced via the online forum BridgeWinners.com that four members of the Schwartz team, Richie Schwartz (sponsor and captain), Allan Graves, Espen Lindqvist and he have decided to give up the three American National titles they won in 2014-2015, the Spingold Trophy, the Reisinger Trophy and the Jacoby Swiss. Brogeland, who initiated the unprecedented action, accused their third pair, Israeli Champions Lotan Fisher and Ron Schwartz, of cheating.

I have great respect for top French bridge players but I think it’s fair to say they don’t go in for dazzling displays of bravado and brilliance; neither do they crash in disaster. They are great card players and great, straightforward bidders. Calmly and steadily they do their best on every hand and it really pays off. In the last two months Philippe Cronier and Sylvie Willard took gold in the European Mixed Pairs in Tromso, Thomas Bessis and Frederic Volcker won the Open Pairs in the same event and Jean-Christophe Quantin and Cedric Lorenzini have just won the hugely prestigious Life Master Pairs in the Chicago Summer National. They must be doing something right. Thomas Bessis made this contract in Tromso when some of the best players in the world went off.

Sweden’s flagship event is the brilliantly well organised Chairman’s Cup held in Orebro, attracting great players from all over Europe.  Unfortunately I couldn’t go so I had to content myself with watching on BBO. The final was riveting — a Swedish team of Juniors, plus the Dutch champion Marion Michielsen, eventually succumbing in the last set to a team of Polish Juniors. On this hand, Piotr Zatorski claimed a huge swing for his side by finding a way to nine tricks in a no-play 3NT. North probably wasn’t worth more than 2NT at his second go, but juniors are juniors, and they love overbidding. West led a fourth best Heart, won in dummy.

Moving house is traumatic but moving bridge club is worse. Young Chelsea left Barkston Gardens, its home for over 30 years, exactly two years ago, and since then we have all been living a nomadic existence, relying on the kindness of others. Well — last Friday manager Nick Sandqvist kept his promise and opened the doors of the new, expanded YC in Goldhawk Road, right opposite the Tube station. And what an opening it was. The famous Friday night IMPs duplicate kicked off with 66 pairs jost-ling for a seat, and some sadly arriving too late to find one. It was FANTASTIC. Well worth the wait and heaven to see all the old regulars again plus lots of new faces. Mike Scoltock and Nick Wilkinson won.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. The European Championships in Tromso kicked off with a week of Mixed and by the end there was no disguising the contempt of some of the men for their partners. We had the full range, from withering sarcasm to screaming abuse. Clearly bridge is the last bastion of legal misogyny. To add to the fun, it was freezing cold and the loos were outside. Frankly, if I was up for a Portaloo I would have gone camping. But just when I was ready to pack it all in, we squeaked into the Mixed Teams’ playoff by 0.01 of a victory point (only the top 16 teams get through) and a week later, against all odds, leapt from 60th place to 11th to make the playoffs in the Open teams. It’s amazing what you can get used to when the cards go in your favour.

A feast of bridge is looming! Tromso in Norway is host to the Open European Championships starting on Saturday, and wild horses couldn’t stop me going. We kick off with mixed teams and pairs and I will bring you the news next time. Meanwhile congratulations to Willie Coyle and Graham Orsmond who won the third 2 session Sunday pairs duplicate arranged by the London-based Israeli duo, Lee Rosenthal and Yaniv Vax. Look at this hand where they maximised a bad layout for declarer by expert communication: Graham was West and led ♥3 against the standard, but doomed, 3 NT.

Andrew (Bertie) Black started his bridge life many moons ago but stopped to found Betfair, which became the world’s largest internet betting exchange. Well now, some 15 years later, and clearly not one to do things by halves, he’s back with a mighty strong team behind him, plays every tournament on the circuit and they have just claimed their first trophy — Young Chelsea’s London Super League. Today’s hand was much discussed in the customary post mortem after the match. It was played by Phil King and certainly contributed to the Black team’s victory: West led ♠4 and Phil tried the Jack from dummy, covered by East’s Queen. He ducked two rounds of spades and took the third.

If you live in or around London you can play a pairs duplicate every night (or day) of the week to suit your standard. Teams is another story. Until the London Super League started about six years ago, there was no duplicate to accommodate teams who wanted to play regularly and competitively. Now we have two great leagues — the LSL at Young Chelsea and TGR’s Superleague. There are two divisions in both so anyone can join without feeling intimidated. Last Wednesday saw the final match at TGRs and, as always, the top three teams were very close. My team squeaked a win which — as we were facing relegation at one point last season — was worth celebrating! This hand is from our last match against David Muller’s team, played (and made) by Alan Mayo.

The best EBU tournament of the year is, IMHO, the Schapiro Spring Foursomes, held at the beginning of May in lovely Stratford-upon-Avon. The format is double knockout with one team emerging undefeated on Monday afternoon. For the second year running that team has been Frances Hinden’s squad of four (almost all the other teams field six), which is a serious achievement in itself. Last year they were ousted in the semi-finals but this year they beat everyone, including the number one seed Allfrey (with most of the England Open team on it), to win the coveted trophy. It was an outstanding performance — many congratulations. Frances played with her regular partner Graham Osborne and together they produced perhaps the defence of the tournament on this board.