Janet de Botton

Easter always zips by if you’re a bridge player and enter the EBU’s Easter Festival. There are four events to choose from and I chose them all. My favourite is the Swiss Teams and we normally do rather well. Not this year unfortunately. In the final match we played Simon Gillis’s team and I rather smugly thought we’d done well. Not so smug when we scored up. They murdered us. Simon was partnered by Norwegian world champion Erik Saelensminde – Silla to his friends – who defended this hand: Erik was West and started with the ♠Jack. Simon gave count with the ♠7 and I won the King. With 14 points in his own hand and 6 in dummy, Silla knew his partner had nothing to help him and the situation looked pretty hopeless for the defence.

There is an audible buzz in the international bridge world and it centres around a few Scandinavian juniors. The youngest is Norway’s Nicolai Heiberg-Evenstad (obvs known as the Kid), who is 16 now but started playing with his father, Stian Evenstad, aged about seven and was quickly noticed as an outstanding talent. When two or three world-class players with egos the size of a mountain tell you that a 14-year-old boy (which he was at the time) could become the best player in the world, while they themselves are still playing, you sit up and take notice. At least I did. He played on my team with Thor Erik Hoftaniska in the Lederer Trophy, at the end of February and they won the Butler. Funny, charming, polite and super confident. And he can play bridge.

A few new sponsors have sprung up lately, which is very exciting for the English bridge scene and means we can send teams to international events that the EBU (and practically every other bridge federation) can’t afford to sponsor. One of the best and most successful is Maggie Knottenbelt who, with her very good team, has just qualified to represent England in the Mixed European Teams in Denmark this June. Here is her team mate Michael Byrne, locked in an epic battle with a super-charged West defending (see diagram). West led the ♠J, East won the Ace and returned the ♠8 to the Queen and King.

‘I haven’t seen this before,’ began a recent email from my friend and frequent contributor Nick Sandqvist. That meant it would be a bit special, and it certainly was. Double game swings are not as rare as you may think: 4♥ making one way and 4♠ the other – usually with a double attached – happens every now and then. Rather more unusual though is that the same contract is bid and made at both tables by the same team! It was the third round of the EBU’s Online Teams League. Most good declarers today are technically highly proficient and play the hands with the odds. It is in the bidding that the big swings occur. This hand was in the third round of the EBU’s Online Teams League (see above diagram).

The Reykjavik Bridge Festival, held annually at the end of January, is one of the great treats of the bridge calendar, and this year it was twice as good: Thomas Charlsen decided to hold his terrific World Bridge Tour (WBT) just preceding it to make it easier for teams who wanted to play both. In a sea of world-class talent, the outstanding performance of young Danish superstar Dennis Bilde was breathtaking. He was not only on the winning team in both events, but also walked away with first place in the pairs. Here he is working his magic to make the opps go wrong (see diagram). Contract 3NT by South Almost all tables were in 3NT, which is an interesting contract: you have to be a bit careful not to set up a long Heart for West, or lose two Diamond tricks.

The London Teams of Four was the first bridge tournament of the new year and was a very close affair. Kevin Castner finally prevailed against the opposition with his team of (partner) Phil King and teammates Sebastian Atisen and Stefano Tommasini – the last newly selected, with his regular partner Ben Norton, to represent England in the Open Teams in the European Championships later this year. Today’s hand features fierce bidding and even fiercer declarer play by Capt Kevin, who pulled off the hand of the day. Take a look at this beauty. Phil King’s 6♦️ may seem a bit of a stretch, but when 1♦️ was known to show at least 5 cards, it makes more sense. West started with the Ace of Clubs – an unfortunate choice – ruffed in dummy.

The one bridge resolution I made years ago was that if you have a 5-4 fit in a suit, play for the drop (i.e. play for the outstanding cards to be 2-2) unless there is a huge reason not to. The one time I deviated from my resolution was in Hungary, in a very strong teams tournament. I bid a rather optimistic grandslam, missing the Queen of trumps, and I froze when drawing trump. Resolutions were forgotten and as I sat there wondering what on earth to do, I didn’t play them to split and I went down! Hero to zero in one card. Obvs I was the only nutter to bid it. A good principle is not to let the opps lead you away from a good plan (see diagram). Pre-empts vary, but with an 8-bagger and an Ace, 4 Spades can’t be too dangerous.

This is my last column for 2023 and I thought I would give you the highs and lows of my bridge team over the past year. The high was definitely winning the Gold Cup and almost as good was being one of two teams winning the Camrose for England. The low, by a big margin, was coming in the bottom two in the Premier League and being relegated. I still don’t really know how we managed it. Today’s hand is a partscore, played by moi, which I like to think I played rather well. True the defence didn’t shine, but it’s Christmas and Santa came early. West started with the ♥️J to the King and Ace, and East found the switch of the King of Diamonds and a second diamond.

Both TGRs and Young Chelsea run highly successful League matches on alternate Wednesday evenings. Organised impeccably by Gitte Hecht-Johansen, you play 24 boards against the seven other teams in your division, the two teams coming last getting relegated. It is wonderful practice for players who want to test their bidding skills and declarer play in an informal and relaxed atmosphere. That’s not to say it’s a vicar’s tea party – just nicely in the middle with very tempting prize money to boot. Leading the field at TGRs is John Cox’s team who bid and made a slam on today’s hand. John was playing with his regular partner, Peter Taylor. The first table reached 3NT, but Peter and John saw the potential for greater heights.

I have been bragging incessantly about my team’s success in the Gold Cup. What an extraordinary comeback we made taking 69 imps back in the last eight boards. I may have even mentioned it to the local newsagent. Well – that was then. After three weekends of Premier League not only didn’t we win, we have been relegated. NOT a good look.  The event was won by Andrew Black’s team – many congrats to them. Today’s hand features David Gold showing us the importance of making a plan (see diagram). The contract was the same at all 8 tables in Division 1, as indeed was the lead of the ♣️J, and all except one table made. The hand looks ice cold and it’s hard to see how anything could be of interest; the defence takes four tricks in Clubs, and Declarer has the rest.

If I could play only one international tournament a year it would have to be the World Bridge Tour’s teams event held in mid-October in wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. Organised impeccably by Thomas Charlsen and Boye Brogeland, two of Norway’s finest players, this was the second time we have played in the city – and it ties with Biarritz as my favourite venue. Sixteen extremely good teams competed in a four-day round robin, four going to the finals and 12, including yours truly, playing in a one-day Swiss. The eventual winners, were a world-class Danish team who collected the trophy and the winner’s cheque. Here is a hand I attempted to play like an expert. What a joke!

When do you concede a match? I was considering it when, after 56 boards, we were a vast 48 IMPs down in our Gold Cup semi-final with eight boards to go. Fortunately my team wouldn’t hear of it and in they went with my battle cry of ‘Believe you can do it’ echoing around the room, although to be honest I didn’t think we had a prayer. How wrong I was! The last set (do I need to say I didn’t play?) had six boards that held the possibility of generating huge swings and generate they most certainly did. My Norwegian killer pair had to find a way to beat 3 NT on this last board of the set (see diagram). In the first room, Tom Townsend had received a Club lead against 4H which let the contract in.

The Vilnius Cup – the Grand Prix of Poland – is a highly enjoyable, strong annual tournament, impeccably organised by Erikas Vainikonis. Thirty-two teams played to qualify for the eight-team final which team SUSHI dominated, cruising undefeated through the playoffs to claim the €3,000 prize by a big margin. Congrats to Nathalie Shashou and Nick Sandqvist and their A-list teammates Frederic Wrang and Antonio Palma. Nathalie was on fire all through the final, as shown by the neat little hand above (see diagram). Nathalie’s 2NT showed exactly 6-4 in the minors: with 6-5 or 5-4 she would have bid 3♣, and with 5-5 she would have jumped to 2NT over 1♥. How would you play 3◆ when West leads a Heart to the Jack?

The great Bob Hamman, in his heyday the best player in the world, was once asked what the biggest mistakes of his bridge career had been, and he answered: ‘To gamble on a penalty instead of bidding our own contract.’ The longer I play this game, the more I realise how right he is; defending is hard and full of surprises, and defending doubled contracts – especially part scores – is as unprofitable as it is stressful. We could hardly ask for a better example of this principle than today’s hand from the Bermuda Bowl final between Norway and Switzerland. This was the auction at the first table with Norway N/S. West showed the majors with 2♦️, East gave preference to the suit where he had an honour, and South figured he had good defence and doubled for penalties.

The Bermuda Bowl, the most prestigious bridge World Championship, ended last weekend with a riveting final between Switzerland and Norway. Congratulations to Pierre Zimmermann’s team of ‘Swiss’ players: Michal Nowosadzki, Jacek Kalita and Michal Klukowski, Sjoert Brink and Bas Drijver. You would be quite right in thinking they don’t sound very Swiss, but hey – you can’t have everything. They defeated Norway by 68 IMPs over the 96-board final with no-nonsense aggressive bridge, while Norway made a few too many mistakes. There were of course a number of fantastic moves in the card play – which you expect from a world final – some of which went a bit over the heads of the usually excellent VuGraph commentators (see diagram).

To over-ruff or not to over-ruff? THAT is the question. Terence Reese said: ‘When you’re offered an over-ruff, think twice about it, and then reject it.’ If you have a natural trump trick, it’s usually wrong to waste it on an over-ruff, but when you don’t, it can be hard to resist. Good old Terence was right though (he usually was); it often costs at least one trick, sometimes more… The Chairman’s Cup in Sweden at the end of July was won by a multi-national team led by Gillian Miniter, from the USA, playing with Joe Grue, Tom Paske and – almost inevitably these days – the Rimstedt brothers. Here’s one of them – probably Ola – at the helm in a contract illustrating the point above.

All bridge players who fancy their chances on the international circuit have been deprived of major events since lockdown, until this year. And now, frankly, we’re being inundated: Iceland in late January, the Lederer in February, Camrose in March, the World Bridge Tour in Sopot mid-May, the Open European Championships in Strasbourg in June, the Spingold in Chicago in July, the recent Chairman’s Cup in Sweden. And coming up, the World Transnationals in Marrakech which I’m skipping because, guess what, I’m knackered! Some were played online but that doesn’t carry the same prestige, and prestige is everything in the sporting world. This instructive hand was played by my friend Waseem Naqvi in the European Pairs in Strasbourg (see diagram).

Imagination is often overlooked when discussing what makes a great bridge player. Ofc, being able to count to 13 helps, but imagination is different. It can’t be taught. This hand, from the recent European Open Championships, features one of the most imaginative players around – Sweden’s brilliant but temperamental Peter Fredin – in the East seat. The knockout match was drawing to a close, and Peter’s team needed IMPs. North’s 3♥️ bid was a splinter, and that was all South needed to hear before charging into 6♠️ via Blackwood. When it came around to Peter, he could see that – very likely – the only way to beat the slam would be for him to get a second-round Diamond ruff.

Geir Helgemo, widely considered to be the best player in the world, regularly gets followed around by a posse of devoted fans (myself included) who ask him questions about various points of play. ‘How do you always “guess” where every card is?’ is one that particularly interests me, as the ability to ‘read’ the cards is the major difference between the expert and the amateur. ‘It’s almost never a guess,’ says Geir as the posse gasps, ‘but rather about the absorption of clues from the auction and play to piece together the most likely lay-out.’ Take this hand: You arrive peacefully in 2♠️, and West leads the ♥️2 to East’s Jack. The first thing an expert would do is take a minute or five to consider who’s got what. OK, where’s the Queen of Spades?

Rubber bridge may be poorly but it’s not flatlining yet. TGR’s BC in Paddington provides a game or two every afternoon (and some evenings) and attracts visitors from all over the world who want to experience the unique thrill of playing and defending with and against world-class opposition. It was the battle of the Titans recently. Thor Erik Hoftaniska and Gunnar Hallberg were playing against each other and if you were lucky enough to play with them or kibbitz you would have been as riveted as I was. West led ♣️10 and South won in dummy with the Jack. Hoffa played three rounds of trump, West discarding the ♥️9 on the third round. To increase the pressure on West South cashed a 4th trump, West throwing a low diamond and cleverly hanging on to all his clubs.