Susanna Gross

In almost any other sport, it would be unheard of for a parent and child to reach the highest level together, let alone be partners. Apart from anything else, most young people don’t particular want to eat, sleep, compete and socialise with a parent. But bridge appears to be the exception. There are several famous parent-child partnerships. Age is no barrier; there’s no fear of being called a ‘nepo baby’ (if you can’t play, you’re out), and it seems to suit everyone. Two of these well-known pairs are father-and son Jerôme and Leo Rombaut, who play on the French open team, and mother-and-daughter Cathy and Sophia Baldysz, who play for the Polish women.

Recently, at the end of a gruelling bridge tournament, I must have been deliriously tired, because as I was thinking about how hard it is to focus on every aspect of the game, a nursery song popped into my head: ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, Heads, shoulders, knees and toes…’ Actually, I don’t think it was as mad as all that. I’d been momentarily transported back to childhood because my struggle to focus simultaneously on each bid, lead and card, had reminded me of being a toddler trying to coordinate different parts of my body all at once. Back in June, I was watching the Polish Premier League online – always a very tough event – when I saw this contract declared by Michal Kwiecien.

As the old saying goes, you know you’re getting old when policemen start looking young. But you know what makes you feel really old? It’s when bridge players start looking young. The higher the level, the truer that is.  Whenever I go to international tournaments, I’m struck by the number of players in their twenties and early thirties, many of them already world-class. And while they may make those us over 50 feel a little ancient, it’s also a wonderful sight: the future of the game is alive and well. The recent open World Championship held in Denmark was remarkable for having two exceptionally young stars in the final. Finn Kolesnik, playing for the USA, is just 21. When his team eventually won, he became the youngest American ever to do so.

Of all the mistakes we make in defence, few are more embarrassing than revoking. Everyone’s done it: a sudden brain blip convinces us we’re out of the suit that’s been led, and we discard from another. If only we were allowed to pick up the card, apologise and play on. But that never happens, not in a tournament. Declarer knows his rights; he smells blood. He calls the director. The revoke card is now a penalty card. It must lie face-up, like a naughty schoolchild separated from his friends, to be played at the first opportunity – even if it gives declarer the contract. There’s no mercy, and never any upside. At least, I thought there wasn’t, until I got this text from my friend Sebastian Atisen: ‘Have you ever gained three tricks for YOUR side after making a revoke?

After an enjoyable week playing in the European Transnational Championships in Poznan recently (the Mixed Teams), I had time to spare before catching my flight home. The Open Teams had just begun, so I decided to kibitz for a while. I chose to sit behind the iconic Swedish player Peter Fredin, who I’ve been following keenly ever since he opened a strong No Trump against me with nul points many years ago. My partner and I never guessed we were cold for a grand slam. I soon found out that he was famous for his uncanny ability to read both cards and players. Opponents aren’t even safe saying ‘Thank you’ when dummy goes down: he’ll glean some information from the way they say it. He was partnering Artur Malinowski, another player with fantastic imagination and flair.

The city of Poznan in Poland became heaven on earth last month, swarming as it was with hundreds of fellow bridge addicts and most of the world’s top players. It was the 11th European Transnational Championships, and I went to play in the Mixed Teams with a wonderful group: Sebastian Atisen, Andrew McIntosh, Sara Moran, Paula Leslie and Gunn and Fredrik Helness (wife and son of the legendary Tor). We named our team Contract Killers, which we thought was great until we suddenly realised it might sound like we butchered our contracts rather than nailed them. In any case, we did well to get to the round of 32 before being knocked out. I wasn’t there for the second week, but I was glued to the action from home.

At any big international bridge tournament, the chances are you’ll end up playing a star name or two. And while it’s always a privilege, I find it hard to stop my inner voice whispering how incomparably better they are than me; I’m just a sitting duck. I have a mantra, however, which helps: ‘Anyone is beatable.’ So I couldn’t help laughing when I read an interview with the German champion Sabine Auken recently, in which she revealed she has a rather different mantra: ‘Anyone can beat me.’ We’re both right – there’s no place for fear or hubris at the bridge table. Sabine, though, is an unusually tough opponent.

Gunnar Hallberg is a tall, big-boned Viking of a player, who, three decades ago, decided to cross the North Sea to raid the high-stake bridge clubs of England. He’s lived here ever since, and Sweden’s loss, it turns out, has been our gain. He’s gone on to represent England numerous times in European and world championships (twice winning gold in the Seniors), and is a popular figure who’s always willing to lend his time and expertise to lesser players. Now aged 80 (you’d never guess it), he’s still going strong, still playing for the England seniors and still a fearsome opponent at the rubber bridge table. You can find him at TGRs in London most weeks, and the game is always more fun when he’s in it.

Everyone has moments of tiredness during bridge tournaments. But it’s a merciless game. Taking your eye off the ball for a second – even missing something as small as a spot-card – can lead to disaster. At the recent Spring Fours in Bristol, on a team with Sebastian Atisen, Alice Coptcoat and Ollie Burgess, I found myself defending this hand: Sitting North, I led a spade to dummy’s ♠️10. Sebastian (South) played low, and declarer overtook with the ♠️Q. Next, he led a low diamond. I played the ♦️Q, he ducked, I pondered dummy, turned the trick over and – disaster! I couldn’t recall which diamond Sebastian had played. The ♦️6 maybe? The ♦️4? It would have been a suit-preference signal – this was no time for count – and now I had to guess.

Let’s face it, part-score contracts can be a bit of a yawn. When browsing through bridge books or bulletins, I always skim over part-scores to read about games and slams – that’s when my adrenalin gets going. And I must admit, it’s the same at the table: the higher the contract, the more alive I feel. Big mistake! After all, whether you’re playing pairs or teams, a single IMP can spell victory or defeat. Part-scores deserve our sweat and blood too. l was reminded of this (and gave myself a salutary kicking) while reading Marc Smith’s fascinating interview with the Polish star Michal Klukowski. At just 28, Michal is widely regarded as the best player in the world. When asked for one of his  all-time favourite hands, Michal chose this, from the 2022 US Nationals in Phoenix.

A few years ago, Sally Brock – women’s world champion many times over – told me she’d like some coaching in declarer-play from Artur Malinowski. Artur, she said, just seems to make more contracts than other people. And it’s true: he has extraordinary table presence. He relies on ‘reading’ his opponents as much as he does on playing the odds. I was reminded of this during a recent TGRs Super League match: West led the ♥️8. The obvious line is to cash the ♥️KQ, play the ♦️A, ruff a diamond, draw the last trump, play a spade to the ♠️A and cash the ♦️K. If the ♦️Q falls, you claim. If not, you ruff again, cross to the ♠️K, pitch a second club on your last diamond, and play up to the ♣️KJ, hoping to get it right.

Just like having a natural aptitude for drawing or music, some lucky people seem to be born with a gift for bridge. My friend Oliver Burgess is one of them. He plays with effortless elegance, visualising end-plays or spotting chances to false-card while most of us are still struggling to marshal our thoughts. Ollie’s gifts were obvious early on – but I hadn’t realised quite how early until I came across this hand from the Junior European Championships 22 years ago. Ollie (West) was just 18: North’s 4♦️ showed a raise to 4♠️ with six good diamonds. 6♣️ showed two keycards and a void. South’s 6♥️ asked for the trump queen. At the other table, Ollie’s teammate, a young David Gold, was also in 7♠️.

I was taken aback by the letter that accompanied my daughter’s school report last week. ‘Traditionally, reports have been written by teachers,’ it stated. But to save teachers time, ‘the school has moved to an AI-supported system where the teachers enter bullet points and the AI crafts suitable prose… We hope that you won’t notice the difference’. Call me a Luddite, but I don’t want AI-generated prose. Imagine if I approached my bridge columns this way. I was going to write about Michael Gove’s love of bridge, but by way of an experiment, here’s ChatGPT: ‘Michael Gove has a reputation for juggling high-profile roles, but it’s at the bridge table where his true passion lies. He treats every hand like a high-stakes negotiation.

It can be hard to recover your morale when you have a bad start in a tournament. You came in all positive and then need to claw your way back to average. Not everyone feels that way, though. I recently went to Bath with Sebastian Atisen, a regular partner, to play in the Wiltshire Congress Swiss Teams with my old friends Lou and Robert Hobhouse (who run the wonderful Hobhouse Bridge Holidays). As we were about to start, they told us they had a strategy. It’s important, they said, to lose the first match: it takes the pressure off. Lou and Robert often have a wonderfully eccentric take on things, so I wasn’t quite as startled as Sebastian, who had only just met them. But mad though it sounded, it did have a peculiarly calming effect. I really think they’re on to something.

For me, bridge is often a game of ‘If only…’. When it comes to complex hands, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve let myself down. And yet, however frustrating it is to know that I’ll never play with the brilliance and clarity of my heroes, I’m constantly motivated to keep trying – and that’s what I love. As Robert Browning wrote: ‘Ah but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?’ This deal, played by the young Australian Justin Mill, exceeds the grasp of most of us, and was a worthy winner of the Independent Bridge Press Association’s best played hand of 2024: 4NT was RCKB, 5♠️ showed two plus the ♠️Q, 5NT confirmed all keycards, 6♦️ showed the ♦️K, 6♥️ was a last try for grand slam. East led the ♣️K.

If you don’t like highly artificial bidding systems, then the auction below – awarded Best Bid Hand of 2024 by the International Bridge Press Association – isn’t for you. But you can’t deny it’s pretty impressive. With a combined 32 points, balanced hands and no 8-card fit, Linlin Hu (East) and Yinghao Liu (West) were the only pair in a top-flight Chinese tournament to bid slam on a 4-3 fit. All those in 6NT went down. Most players try to steer clear of Moysian fits, as they’re known – after all, 64 per cent of the time one opponent has as many or more trumps than you. But sometimes they’re the perfect spot: 1♣️ = 16+ any shape. 1NT = 12+ balanced. 3♦️ = 16-17 balanced with a 4-card major. 3♠️ = 4 hearts. 3NT = four spades. 4♦️ = 4 diamonds.

I wish I’d been at the teams event held last week by the World Bridge Tour in Reykjavik. The sights, I’m told, were amazing. No, not the snow-capped mountains or hot springs. I mean the famous faces at every table – Bas Drijver, Michal Klukowski, Boye Brogeland, Sabine Auken, the Rimstedt twins…it was a bridge player’s paradise. The venue wasn’t too shabby, either: Reykjavik’s iconic Harpa Concert Hall (though all I really want when I play is a well-lit room, a water dispenser and a nearby loo). I followed the action as much as I could from home. I particularly enjoyed this deal, from a match between two of the leading teams: EW were the top American players Vincent Demuy and John Hurd. South led the ♣️6.

It’s the last hurrah of the bridge year: the London Year End Congress, which I never miss (although my husband thinks it sounds like a Communist party convention). What better way to spend the days between Christmas and the new year, when most of us feel slothful from over-indulgence, than in the adrenalin-fuelled atmosphere of a bridge tournament? I played in the Mixed Pairs with one of my favourite partners, Sebastian Atisen, and then we joined up with Marcia Green and Claire Robinson for the Teams, which turned out to be even more fun.

Last year, my new year’s resolution was to make fewer careless mistakes at the bridge table. Easier, surely, than cutting down on chocolate. Alas, not: I’ve spent as much time as ever banging my head in frustration. So I’m making a different resolution this year: I’m going to embrace my careless mistakes. After all, even the best players err. As Dennis Bilde once said: ‘It’s inevitable. We aren’t computers, we’re humans.’ When I’ve done something foolish, I’ll bear in mind these reassurances from the stars. Jeff Meckstroth: ‘What you do on any one hand doesn’t mean anything, because everyone’s liable to do stupid stuff.’ Roy Welland: ‘If you don’t accept that you’re going to play badly sometimes, you probably shouldn’t play.

Belated congratulations to Simon Gillis and his team, who recently won the Gold Cup for the third time. Simon always invites his gang of bridge superstars (and good friends) to big tournaments; they bring a dose of glamour and a distinctly Scandinavian flavour to his team. Admittedly, one, Zia Mahmood, couldn’t look less Nordic if he tried, but the rest have full Viking blood: Boye Brogeland, Christian Bakke and Odin Svendsen are Norwegian, Dennis Bilde is Danish. And they are all exceptionally nice. Dennis, in particular, is hugely popular. Always smiling, always friendly, he’s known as ‘everyone’s favourite partner’. Now 34, he was born on a farm ‘in the middle of nowhere’ – a place called Ballebo, which consisted of just five houses.