Bridge | 4 December 2021

The 2020 European Championships were an early casualty of lockdown but hopefully 2022 will rectify the count!

It’s going to be a busy year for bridge players with the Bermuda Bowl (World Championships) taking place in spring, the Euros probably in early summer, as well as all the old favourites that we have missed over the past couple of years.

The EBU has just held two four-day trials to select the top three pairs who will make up the England squad — and a very young and energetic squad it is. The oldest (at 50) is my teammate and fellow bridge columnist Tom Townsend, who played with Ben Handley-Pritchard and won the qualification, Ben Green and Stefano Tommasini who came second with Mike Bell and Ben Norton third — average age around 30. Who says bridge isn’t attracting young players?

Today’s hand was defended very thoughtfully by Stefano (see diagram).

Stefano was sitting West and had the obvious lead of the ♣Ace. A bit of arithmetic told him that partner had very little (how right he was) so there could be no point in playing through any of dummy’s tenaces at trick two. But there was still a chance if partner was good enough to hold some intermediates in the trump suit; he continued with the King and another Club. Declarer won in dummy and played a trump to his Queen and Stefano’s Ace, and now came the fourth club which Ben Green ruffed with the ♥10. Declarer could over-ruff, but West’s 8-6 of Hearts had been promoted to provide the setting trick.

Best of luck next summer guys!