Congratulations!

Congratulations to Poland – winners of the Bermuda Bowl! They played great bridge all tournament and despite a huge comeback by Sweden in the penultimate set, Poland played a great final set to win the World Championships. Well done to Sweden who came so close.

Also Congratulations to France, winners of the Venice Cup and USA1, winner of the D’orsi Seniors Bowl.

I am tired, hurting and ready to go home but I fly straight to Bulgaria for some bridge with my friends there, hosted by Tony Rusev. I will partner Jonathan Harris and team up with Stefan Scorchev and Steve Root. I had a lovely time last year and very much looking forward to it.

A small crumb to cheer some of us up is that Myself, Jason and Justin Hackett have been promoted to World Life Masters.

We will keep working and win a worldchampionship someday…

Six minutes twenty seconds

Please check out David’s interview explaining the ruling in set 5 of the semi-final against Poland.

This is the hand in question:

The bidding:

Please share and comment!

Fighting for the bronze

After a long and difficult day both England teams lost in their semifinals.

Now we have to fight for the bronze against USA2 in the Bermuda Bowl and the Netherlands in the Venice Cup.

We’ve got this!!

In the Bermuda Bowl we had a bit of a shaky start in the semi-final against Poland, but recovered well by the end of the first day.

Our Ladies are a bit behind in the match against France so will have to go strong today.

Open semifinals.

Ladies semifinals.

2/3 advance to the Semis

England Open and Ladies teams both won their quarterfinal matches against USA1.

Unfortunately the Seniors lost to Poland.

Quarterfinal results for the Open teams.

Ladies quarterfinals.

Seniors quarterfinals.

The semifinals will be played over the next two days (6 sets of 16 boards). England Ladies are playing against France and England Open has Poland.

We’re very grateful for all the support and good wishes, it really helps out game and team spirit. So don’t be shy and comment below.

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Board of the day is from set 4.

Davids were defending 3NT on a ♥9 lead from DG. DB took the ace and found the killing ♠J switch. Declared ducked twice, took the third spade and started playing diamonds. He played the ♦A, ♦K (saw diamonds are not breaking) and ♦Q. Then he cashed the ♣A and ♣K, playing for clubs to break and for N to have the ♣Q so he would be endplayed.

DB saw through that plan and cleverly unblocked the ♣Q, hoping for his partner’s Jxx to serve as an entry to cash the two setting tricks for-2.

In the closed room,  Eric Rodwell also found the ♠J switch at trick 2 but the contract only went one off, 2 IMPs for England.

Quarterfinals Day 1

Go England!!!

Open team in the Bermuda Bowl.

Ladies team in the Venice Cup.

Seniors team in the d’Orsi Trophy.

Bermuda Bowl Day 7

The Qualifications are over and all three English teams got to the Quarterfinals in their fields.

Final Round Robin results:

Round Robin results for the Bermuda Bowl, England Open team in 4th place.

Round Robin results in the Venice Cup, England Ladies in 5th place.

Round Robin results in the d’Orsi Trophy, England Seniors in 5th place.

Board of the day 

Today’s board is a Zia masterpiece, from match 20 (board 21).

Great bidding to a good grand slam, well done Zia!

 In our match against Poland it went a bit differently since North at both tables opened a club. Robson just simply jumped to 6♦ after a 2♦ overcall from Forrester and the Poles stopped in 4♠.

The Quarterfinals start today and last until tomorrow, we’re playing against the USA1. All of it will be on BBO and don’t forget to cheer!

Bermuda Bowl Day 6

The penultimate day of the Qualifications started well with Open Team’s wins against United Arab Emirates by 58 and China by 7IMPs. Unfortunately we lost by 17 IMPs to Japan and finished the day in 4th place.

BB standings after 15 matches (3 to go).

The Ladies had a huge day scoring over 53 VPs (of available 60) and are back in qualifying position and Seniors are lying 7th.

Board of the day:

Board 12 from the match vs China.

After a straightforward auctiom, Tony Forrester led his singleton diamond against a doubled heart game. It seems natural to take the ace and give partner a ruff, but that doesn’t defeat the contract. Andrew Robson switched to his own singleton and after winning the ace of trumps, both him and his partner scored a ruff each for -1 and 13 IMPs to England.

You can rewatch the whole match here.

We’re again on BBO today for the big second match against Poland at 14:30 local time (10am England, 11h Europe). 

Today is the last day of Qualifications, top 8 teams advance to the Quarterfinals, with top 3 teams choosing their opponents.

Thanks to everyone for watching, following the blog and our results. Please post any questions, comments and suggestions below and cheer for England!

Bermuda Bowl Day 5

Another great day for England Open with three wins against USA 1 (+22), Jordan (+30) and New Zealand (+15).

Unfortunately the Ladies and Seniors had a few tough matches and are currently in 9th (Venice Cup) and 8th place (d’Orsi Trophy). There are 6 matches left to go in the qualifying stage which gives us plenty of time for all three teams to secure our spots in the knock-outs.

We’re on BBO the second match at 14:30 (10am England, 11h Europe).

Thank you all for the support! You’re welcome to post comments and cheer!

England Master Solvers

Take a minute and get some advice from our English Master Solvers 🙂