Janet de Botton

The European Team Championships drew to a close last week and the most successful country overall was ...England! The doughty Seniors took Gold, the Women took Silver and the Open Team took Bronze. I hardly went out in the ten days of the tournament, so glued was I to BBO and the fortunes of everyone I knew. Well done all who qualified for the Bermuda Bowl next year but especially well done to the three English teams who did us proud. Today’s hand is an example of how things can go wrong at the highest level — but you have to keep on playing. Amazingly, both rooms played the unlikely 4♥, but only Boye Brogeland, playing for Norway against Denmark, got home: West kicked off with ♣10 which Boye won and played a diamond towards dummy’s Jack.

I’m not trying to pretend it will make up for the drubbing England took in the World Cup, but if you want to feel a bit better about our sportsmen and women I suggest you log on to BBO to watch the 52nd European Team Championships in Opatija, Croatia. All three of our teams, Open, Ladies and Seniors, stand a good chance of qualifying for the Bermuda Bowl next year (they have to finish in the top six) and it’s worth repeating that our Ladies are the current holders. At the time of writing this they have just started playing so take a look at a hand from the previous Championship, where Geir Helgemo and Tor Helness, playing for Monaco who deservedly won the Open title, produced this stunning defence. Tor Helness was sitting West and led ♣2.

The final match in the second division of Young Chelsea’s London Super League was as exciting as it gets. Two teams (out of ten) were going to be promoted, and four teams were within a gnat’s whisker of each other. We were narrowly leading and were playing McGuire, lying second. We needed to secure a 16–4 victory to be sure of going up to Div One. When you are under pressure, it’s time to wheel out The Great Malinowski, part illusionist, part con man and part downright genius. Here he is on the very first board of the match, unfazed by the obvious bidding screw-up: First the bidding: Artur thought we played ‘non-leaping Michaels’ meaning that over a Major suit pre-empt 4♣ showed Clubs and Spades.

It is always exciting when a strong new team’s tournament enters the calendar, and the inaugural Balaton Invitational, held outside Budapest at Lake Balaton, looks set to become an annual event. Two members of my team,  Thor-Erik Hoftaniska (Hoffa) and Thomas Charlsen (Charley), played for the Norwegian Open Team (and won the event) and I took as a third pair the brilliant Bulgarian duo Ivan Nanev and Rosen Gunev. Ten teams competed in the round robin and four made it to the semi-finals. Two good things happened to us: we made the play-offs and we beat the Norwegians! Unfortunately, we lost the semi-final to a top-weight Dutch/Norwegian team and finally had to settle for third place and a bronze medal.

The Schapiro Spring Foursomes, held in early May in Stratford-upon-Avon, is one of the great tournaments and this time it attracted more international world stars than ever before. The legendary Lavazza team came for the first time, as did World Champions Tor Helness from Norway and Peter Berteau and Johan Upmark from Sweden, charming everyone who played them. All the illustrious ‘stars’ were unfailingly courteous and friendly ...except one. My team won last year and we were gagging to make it a double but were sadly knocked out in the quarter-final. Oh well — already looking forward to next year!

Somewhere highly intellectual I read that they were bringing back the Generation Game, recalling, in all their excruciating mundanity,  Brucie’s catchphrases. I had to eat my own snootiness at the Easter Championship Pairs, won by Susanna, yes OUR Susanna, playing with England supremo David Gold. ‘Didn’t she do well?’ I shrieked — and indeed she did. The first pair’s event is a two-day, three-session tournament, at the highly demanding matchpoint  scoring, so every trick counts. In other words, there’s no faking it. When you win that event you’ve played proper grown-up bridge. That’s why it’s called the Championship Pairs.

I have always been drawn to a bit of a rogue and I must admit I found the coughing German Doctors, banned by the WBF for cheating, highly amusing. At the 2008 inaugural World Mind Sports in Beijing, they played England in the semi-final, and in the last set went for five huge penalties almost consecutively. Wladow called for the Director mid-set and told him they wished to resign. When the Director told him this was unheard of in a World Championship he said: ‘I am a doctor and I can tell from my partner’s bidding that he is not well!’ Today’s hand came up at Young Chelsea’s Friday IMP game — and many declarers needed a doctor: The pairs in 3NT had no trouble, but there was a string of results showing 4♥ down one. What happened?

Dallas to me was an Eighties TV series with huge shoulder pads until I arrived there to play the American Spring Nationals last week. The American Nationals are bigger, better and  brighter than anything we Brits can imagine — after the first week they had filled over 7,000 tables — and it is organised so that everyone can play in an event of their choice and standard all day and most of the night. The main teams event is The Vanderbilt, where 64 teams compete in knockout format, in matches of 64 boards. The final was between the top two seeds, Monaco and Nickell, won by the tiny margin of two IMPs by Nickell.

A number of young Israelis are taking the International bridge world by storm. All in their twenties, their achievements so far have been impressive and show no signs of slowing down. Their Junior team took Silver in China’s 2012 World Youth Championships. Lotan Fisher and Ron Schwartz won the coveted Cavendish Pairs in Monaco, and four of them have just qualified for Israel’s Open Team in the European Championships in Croatia this June. The two I know best are Lee Rosenthal, a 24-year-old ex-soldier, and Dror Padon, arguably one of the strongest Junior players of all time. Lee now lives in London and Dror is a frequent visitor, often playing for my team and knocking the socks off the opps.

Now and then an event enters the annual bridge calendar and becomes an instant ‘must play’. TGRs Auction Pairs is one and Terry Hewett’s ‘Night of the Stars’ is another. Last week 53 ‘Stars’ were auctioned and played with their sponsors (all the money raised goes to charity) in what must be one of the most worthwhile nights of bridge imaginable. I was lucky enough to be taken by the lovely and talented Natasha Regan, mum to 11-year-old Oscar Selby, who plays every event he can. My money was on Brian Senior — IMHO the best Pairs player in the country. He partnered the highly competent Rangy Rangarajan and neither of them disappointed. ‘What’s the secret, Brian?’ I gushed, naturally thinking of my column.

Bridge players are a generous bunch — both with their expertise and their time. There are many charity events to which they contribute willingly, but the one that has become the most successful is Terry Hewett’s Night of the Stars. This year it is being held on 27 February at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability and the indomitable Terry has auctioned 53 ‘stars’ to play with their sponsors, the proceeds going to four different charities. Last year Italian superstar Fulvio Fantoni came over — at his own expense— and was snapped up by my friend Jonathan Harris. How do great players always seem to put the defence to a guess — playing the hand to conceal the vital information they will need to defeat the contract?

January ended for me with the annual Icelandic Bridge Festival in Reykjavik. There may be a better tournament but I haven’t played it. This year it attracted a record number of entries for the Pairs and Teams — and a record number of Brits. The star for me was the divine Mrs P, playing with the brilliant Brian Senior, known to all as Grumpy. They did very well in the Pairs, but in the Teams, playing with Brian’s wife, multiple World Champion Nevena Senior and Rumen Trendafilov, they were unbeatable, leading virtually from the start and winning with a match to spare. Mrs P — Sandra Penfold — has had a cracking bridge career and despite Grumpy’s withering sarcasm carries on smiling and playing like a pro.

2014 has started with a bang! The second weekend of January saw TGR’s fifth Auction Pairs in which 71 pairs were sold in record time by the world’s most glamorous auctioneer, Ruth Zandberg. This event has become a wild success, with top international players coming from all over the globe. After two days, five pairs could have won in the last session, and up until the last board it was neck-and-neck, but finally the trophy was taken by Californian rubber bridge player Kevin Castner, playing with England’s  golden boy David Gold. On the following hand, David showed his not inconsiderable skills in the card play. West led the ♥K. How would you plan the play?

First up, HNY to one and all and especially my regular reader (no, not you mummy) John Hinde, who wrote me a charming email very politely pointing out the absurdity of one of my columns. I am so with you John — it was ridiculous — but it happened! Secondly, congrats to my good friend Simon, the talented Mr Gillis. Simon has some great Teams wins under his belt — Gold Cup, Iceland twice — but, as he was the first to admit, Pairs tournaments had always eluded him. Until now. He and Espen Erichsen, playing at the London Year End, romped home to take the coveted Open Pairs title. Espen is a terrific player and a lovely partner — but seriously tough on himself.

Autumn 2013 has been the single worst season of my bridge career. Actually, do I have a bridge career? Doesn’t a career suggest some kind of financial gain and status, rather than a substanstial loss and rapid downward spiral? My Autumnus horribilis kicked off with the first of three Premier League weekends, from which we were unceremoniously relegated. Then we jetted off to Monaco for Pierre Zimmermann’s second Monaco Cavendish, in which we did rather well last year and rather badly this time. Then came the Lederer, where we got off to a flying start and a crashing finish. And the final nail (hopefully) in the coffin of disasters was playing Sally Brock’s immensely strong squad in the Hubert Phillips, and getting mullered!

‘Yikes! I’ve been Grosvenored!’ This is a wail you will hear from time to time when a Declarer has been ‘had’ by the dreaded Grosvenor Gambit. It is explained in The Official Encyclopaedia of Bridge as follows: ‘A humorous psychological ploy described by Frederick Turner of Los Angeles in The Bridge World 1973. A defender deliberately makes an error, giving the Declarer an opportunity he refuses because he expects a rational defence. The hope is that the declaring side will be demoralised on later deals.

My plan this week was to write wittily, but modestly, about our rise from the bowels of relegation after the first two disastrous weekends of the Premier League. I was going to tell you how important it is not to give up, to have faith in yourself and your team-mates and to keep on fighting for every small victory. Well that was the plan. The reality is that we have gone far lower than the bowels of relegation — right to the very pits of the sewer, in fact. Guys — we are well and truly relegated! Alexander Allfrey’s National Team led all the way and won easily, so they will represent England in next year’s Camrose. This hand features the pair that won the Butler in comfort, David Bakhshi and Tom Townsend.

I love Bernard Teltscher. In fact, I proposed to him recently, but he politely declined, saying I was too old for him! He is 92 so I could be forgiven for thinking I was in with a chance. Bernard has sponsored the Lederer Memorial Trophy, England’s premier Invitational Teams’ Tournament, for as long as anyone can remember, and this year his own President’s Team won by a country mile. We played at the very posh RAC club, and in his acceptance speech Bernard said that he had played bridge for over 82 years and was still learning. But this hand, featuring a classic Show Up Squeeze, proves he’s still got it: Bernard showed both minors with 3♠, and 6♦ was a great contract — laydown if trumps break 3–2.

The season got off to a very bad start for my team — and continues in much the same vein. The Premier League, which has become the trials for the Camrose, is played over three weekends, this year starting in Manchester. Our first match was against David Mossop’s strong squad and we did rather well! May I boast that I made two 3NT contracts that went down in the other room? OK — moment of glory over. The second weekend in London is finished — and so, it would appear, are we! One more weekend to avoid relegation. Take this hand as an example of when things are not going your way: Both tables in our match bid the touch and go slam, and both received the challenging lead of the ♣J.

I defy anyone, even Tolstoy were he still alive and were he to abandon War and Peace for a bridge column, to avoid a shed load of clichés when describing the final of the Venice Cup in Bali, between the magnificent English Ladies and their American counterparts. Let me make do with heart-stopping. With seven boards to go, England led by two IMPs, rendering the previous 89 boards somewhat insignificant! And what sensational boards they were. One small slam, missed by the Americans, produced a big swing for England. America then claimed a game swing back. Two Grand Slams were missed at both tables and the Americans finally took Gold when three carefully bid and played part scores saw them edge ahead and win by nine IMPS.