Janet de Botton

For Christmas this year I am giving you a double-dummy problem. Too generous, I hear you cry — but better than another pair of socks. DD problems are usually found in books: specially constructed deals where you get to see all the cards, and then have to work out how to make your contract against best defence. Occasionally they pop up in real life, like the hand below which occurred in a regular Monday night duplicate at Young Chelsea. Deep Finesse, the program that analyses the deals for the hand records, seemed to think that South could make 3NT but North could not. The first hurdle is to find out why that is so, the second to work out how to succeed from the South hand. If you like puzzles, cover up the solution, pour yourself a festive cuppa and try to solve it. Good luck!

As 2019 draws to a close, it is time to review the year’s achievements and disappointments. My team’s highest achievement was winning the English Premier League, and the less said about the disappointments the better! Looking at the National Grading Scheme (the ranking for British players), I was slightly surprised to see that Mike Bell and Ben Norton were ranked number 1. Surprised, because I didn’t even know they were a partnership. But there they are leading the field and it’s not hard to see why if today’s defence, from the second stage of the European Open Trials, is any indication (See diagram). Against this totally normal contract, West led the normal ♦Jack.

Well, it has taken 12 years, two relegations, one second place and endless ‘nowheres’ playing the Premier League and we have finally won. After three weekends, a triple round robin and 336 boards, the result was decided on the last board, when my partner Artur Mali was put to the test in a delicate 3NT — which ofc he made. That put us a point ahead of Black, making up for Allfrey beating us by one point last year.   Premier League started in its present format in 2008, when Nick Irens’s boys, including Norwegian-born Espen Erichsen, took the trophy and earned the right to represent England in the Camrose (Home Countries Championship).

Erikas Vainikonis and his father Vytas are terrific bridge players and have supported the game very generously. Their brilliant new website, BridgeScanner, gives us all a fuss-free location to get the information we need on tournaments around the world, including live running scores. Their other gift is a five-day mini festival, starting with the Grand Prix of Poland Teams and Pairs and finishing with two days playing the highly prestigious Vilnius Cup. Impeccably organised, super friendly and with a world-class field,  it is held in Vilnius, the beautiful capital of Lithuania. This year’s final saw the two Vainikonis teams facing each other with Erikas’s squad emerging the winner. Many congrats.

A couple of weeks ago two of the most prestigious events in the bridge nutter’s diary took place on the same weekend. The first was the mini-festival in Vilnius, impeccably and generously sponsored and organised by Erikas Vainikonis and his father, Vytas, in which my team played; the second was the Gold Cup semi-final and final, in which my team did not play because we got unceremoniously knocked out in an earlier round. I caught the end of the semis on BBO and it was very exciting: in both matches, the trailing team overtook the leaders on the last board of sixty-four! For team Allfrey, who the next day defeated team Gillis to win the trophy, Tony Forrester and Graham Osbourne bid the spots off today’s hand.

After all the excitement of England making the playoffs in all four events at the World Championships in China, only the Seniors reached the final. They played against Denmark and lost but came home silver medallists. Congratulations to David Kenrick and Trevor Ward, John Holland and Alan Mould and David Muller and Malcolm Pryor. Well played, (old) boys! Of course these guys have decades of experience behind them and know the importance of (keeping) control. Holding the highest card in a suit means you can control who wins the next trick and also who is going to be on lead after the suit is played. Here are Kendrick and Ward playing against one of the less fancied countries in the qualification, who had not read the manual on control.

The World Championships, held in Wuhan, China, came to the end of a gruelling eight days of qualification (eight teams out of 24 go through to the knockout stage) and England made it in all four events: Open, Seniors, Women and Mixed. The Open team was not clear until the very last match when a dramatic board appeared earning them 16 badly needed IMPs. In one room Artur Malinowski made two spades doubled (+670) while at the other table Andrew Robson and Tony Forrester beat four spades doubled by three tricks for +800. In they sailed to claim seventh position.   Unfortunately, I haven’t watched many boards due to the time difference so my hand today features the other end of the spectrum, a really enthusiastic and talented young beginner whom I met recently at a local duplicate.

Not many male bridge players over a certain age (ten) would call themselves feminists. I won’t repeat what the partner of one female European gold medallist said of her (and all women bridge players) at the table, but it wasn’t pretty.   At a recent mixed pairs tournament a married couple — let’s call them Jack and Jill — were playing and Jill was declarer, never a relaxing moment for hubby. It seems she conceded a trick at the end of the hand when in fact, as Jack pointed out, she had the rest.

When did ‘literally’ become, literally, the most annoying word in the English language? Fairly recently I would guess, because ‘like’ as in ‘I was like… seriously?’ or ‘that’s like, so unfair’ was easily winning the title for many years. ‘Like’ has become a filler, taking the place of um and er, and generally making the speaker sound a bit of a moron but literally (used to) have some authority, emphasising the slightly unexpected veracity of whatever. No longer. My summer hols have been spent involuntarily counting how many L words can be crammed into one sentence. The most was four. And while we’re at it, what’s ‘reaching out’ all about? Answers on a postcard please.