A weekend in Yorkshire

I recently spent a very interesting weekend in Yorkshire. As a devout Southerner I used to think that the North began at Watford Gap if not Watford, but I am more educated these days and went off to see some Junior Bridge in one of the centres that seems to have been successful in encouraging young players to take up the game. Bright and early we set off from the Welsh Borders to travel to Harrogate to visit Harrogate Bridge Club and Cedric Cockcroft.

Cedric at last year's JTI

Cedric has a great history in developing bridge players and nearly all our recent Junior competitions have involved players like the Dessain brothers and Rob Myers that started playing with Cedric. Each week Cedric visits five schools to run lunch-time and after school clubs, mostly with Primary School age children. I cannot begin to calculate the hours he has spent in the last ten years or so, not just teaching bridge but preparing hands and teaching aids. Cedric is very modest about his work, but the deep affection of his protégées speaks volumes. Students who have left the town to go to University or employment elsewhere often come to the club on Saturday morning when they are visiting to lend a hand and join in.

Trying to solve one of Cedric's tricky problems

The central cog in this work is the Saturday morning club in Harrogate Bridge Club. For two hours every week, young players can drop in, play a few hands, receive some teaching and advice and tackle some of the fiendish bidding or playing challenges that Cedric has prepared. The Saturday morning we arrived numbers were somewhat depleted because of other events going on, but two tables were already underway. Sarah and I joined in with some trepidation; it’s always easy to look stupid in these situations. Cedric receives lots of support and he told me that if he ever needs help he can always find volunteers. Yorkshire CBA supports Cedric's work financially paying for refreshments on Saturday mornings and helping with petrol money. Almost any Bridge Club could do something along these lines.

Saturday morning in Harrogate

As the morning comes to the close, more young players arrive from all over the country. Harrogate BC is acting as the host for a training weekend for the U20 Squad. Entry to the squad is open to any youngster who wants to come and the squad is run extremely effectively by the Squad Manager, Michael Byrne. Every six or eight weeks, depending on other events, up to thirty or so young players turn up and undergo a weekend of vigorous training, tuition and card play. The level of commitment is high. This time the Harrogate players can have a lie-in, because the weekend is based in their home town. Others have travelled from the South, from Manchester and even Edinburgh. Michael tends to arrange the weekends where the majority of players live so that accommodation is no problem. Players turn up with sleeping bags expecting to sleep on the floor at the home of one of the other squad members. It's a glamorous life being a junior international player or a wannabe.

There's lots of noise and laughter, even argument sometimes, but it's all very serious. There's quite a lot of variation in the experience and skill of the squad from relatively new players to seasoned internationals. At the moment there is a big prize at stake. The U20 team came fourth in the European Championships in 2007 and as a result have been invited to the Mind Sports Olympiad in Beijing in October. University commitments will mean that not all the leading contenders can play and junior partnerships tend to change on what sometimes seems to be a three monthly cycle so the team is by no means settled yet and Michael and his assistants, Alan Shillitoe and Duncan Happer are assiduously grooming and assessing the young hopefuls.

John Armstrong

This weekend the extremely experienced international player, John Armstrong has agreed to come along and lead the training. Everyone knows that John is one of the nicest people in bridge. (As a TD I must have been present at hundreds of events where John has played and the only time he ever called me, except to ask for a board to play, was because he had made a poor claim) John had prepared hands he himself had played over the last few months, mostly on the theme of competitive bidding, although there were sure to be some tricky play and defensive problems as well.

Ben Paske and Rob Myers take on James Paul and Graeme Robertson

The six tables play eight boards — I wouldn’t say in anything approaching silence, but there is a definite air of concentration, punctuated by the occasional outburst of hysteria. After 50 minutes or so (most juniors don’t hang about), the serious work begins. Each table in turn is asked to reveal the outcome of the board and explain the thought- (or lack of thought-) processes that lead to the contract and tricks won or lost. This is a very daunting procedure, we all know as bridge players how absurdly badly we can play at times, so having to confess all to your peers and friends is not easy. John is a wizard at explaining how he dealt with problems at the table and especially how he tries to understand the way that opponents are thinking and playing. A masterclass in every sense of the word. I especially liked this hand.

Perhaps we should think of it as a declarer problem first.

A 9 7 6 K Q J 10 9 7 — A J 4		J 10 5 4 A 8 4 2 10 6 K 8 7

You are West. There are plenty of different auctions but say South opens 3NT — showing solid(ish) minor. You bid 4. North joins in with 4NT and partner, East, bids 5. This "floats" (Junior Bridgespeak for everyone passes) and you are left to play at a slightly uncomfortable level. The trickiest lead is probably a trump. What's your plan?

How good are you at finessing? You've got to do better than that as North has all three of the missing Black cards and all three finesses will lose. How unlucky is that? Junior Bridge players will tell you that three losing finesses only happens 12.5% of the time, but here that's not right. South's 3NT told you that he only had high cards in a minor suit so it's 100% certain that North will hold the cards he does. The general idea on this sort of hand is that we need to get rid of the non-crucial suits (elimination) and force North to do our dirty work for us and make him lead the crucial suits (end-play). There are several ways of achieving this on this hand but the simplest is something like this. Win the trump lead in dummy, with the Ace, trump a diamond high and draw the last trump with the eight in dummy (note that important part of the plan — you need the 8 to get to dummy, so you cannot now ruff the second diamond). Now North's safe diamond exits are eliminated and if he ever plays that suit we can ruff in one hand and discard our Club loser in the other. Nothing can save North now. Take the spade finesse, North wins and has to lead a black suit. A club or diamond concedes defeat immediately so a spade comes back. Now declarer can win a cheap trick and play the Ace and exit with the fourth spade. North is cooked now and has to concede defeat as he only has the minor suits to lead.

The full hand was:-

	K Q 3 2 6 J 5 3 2 Q 9 6 3
A 9 7 6 K Q J 10 9 7 — A J 4		J 10 5 4 A 8 4 2 10 6 K 8 4
	8 5 3 A K Q 9 8 7 4 10 5 2

If you got this hand right perhaps you should think of joining the U20 Squad (if that is that you were born after 1988). I only just miss out by forty years.

On Sunday we went to the Railway Museum in York. If you haven't ever been there it's a great place, like a giant's toy railway set, wonderful ancient engines like tamed beasts surrounded by all sorts of railway ephemera and bits of railway station signals, royal coaches and the like. The idea was to promote bridge and mini-bridge to visitors to the museum as part of a mind-sports awareness day. The visit was arranged by Matt Betts the EBU's Communications Officer and supported by EBU staff and volunteers from Yorkshire Bridge. Over 100 people young and old sat at a bridge table and had their first "Taste-Bridge" session. We all thought it was a great day. The England Junior Squad took part in an Exhibition match with players from York Bridge Club. Thanks to all of them too. Lots of photographs which really seem to have captured the occasion can be found here.

One interesting feature of the day was that many of the chess-players were quite young, probably as young as six or seven. This led me to think about the best age to teach young people to play bridge. There are very different opinions and I'd be very pleased to hear from you with your opinions either as a player or as a teacher. Email me at mamos@ebu.co.uk.

I had a very interesting conversation recently with Chris Dixon, another extremely experienced international player and the Junior Team NPC, who has been recently appointed as County Youth Officer by Wiltshire. Chris believes strongly that we should target older children around sixteen or so and has ambitious plans for a Summer School in Bath where he aims to teach bridge from scratch in one day. I asked Chris what he thought the differences between bridge and chess were that lead to child prodigies in chess much more commonly than in bridge. Chris said that he thought chess was a purer game, at most levels it is just the player and the board that are involved. Bridge is much more psychological. We need to learn to handle partners and opponents. Chris intends to demonstrate that bridge is a challenging and absorbing competitive activity for young people. Looking back on that Saturday afternoon in Harrogate, I think he may have a point. He's promised to send me details so I’ll let you know how he gets on and how his days go.

Junior Championships Report

The EBU U25 and U19 Championships were held as part of the Easter Festival of Bridge in London. The Dessain brothers Tom and Mark with their respective partners, Dominic Maloney and Liam Jones pulled off a remarkable double by winning their respective categories.

Tom Dessain Writes

With a double victory for the Dessain brothers looking possible I was delighted to see my brother Mark, and his partner Liam, being presented with the U19s trophy as we proceeded to play the last round of the U25 Championships.

At the end of day 1, Dom and I were just over 50 IMPs clear of second place and with our biggest loss on a single board being 5 IMPs we were quietly confident, but not complacent. We hadn’t played the pair who was lying second and a defeat there might have made things tighter at the top.

The following board came up on the second day which was our only double figure imp loss of the event.

	Q 9 7 6 5 A K J 10 9 10 4 3
K 10 8 3 2 J 10 9 6 5 3 8 2		— Q 8 7 3 2 8 4 2 Q 9 7 6 5
	A J 4 K 5 4 A Q 7 6 A K J

The auction proceeded:

West	North	East	South
Pass	Pass	Pass	2
Pass	2	Pass	2NT
Pass	3	Pass	3
Pass	3NT	Pass	4
Pass	4NT	Pass	5
Pass	6	Pass	Pass
X	AP

Initially 2 was a three-way multi being either weak in a major, strong in a minor or 20-22 balanced, the later of which was shown by the 2NT rebid. I continued by showing my spade suit and once 3NT was converted to 4 I thought I was worth a look at slam and consequently drove to 6 after hearing the required three keycards. This was doubled by West and was passed back round to Dom who had the difficult decision of deciding whether to pass or pull to 6NT. It all depended on what West had doubled on. If he had doubled on spade length it might be best to play in 6NT, if he had doubled on the spade King and an additional feature it’s probably best to stand the double. Dom decided that due to his lack of shape and that the only source of tricks he could envisage was in the spade suit passed. Unfortunately the contract failed by one trick on the 5-0 trump break with 6NT making due to the club Queen lying in a favourable position. This represented 11 imps out as no other pair had bid past game.

Mike Amos comments:
Tom has written about a hand where he and his partner scored badly, but is too modest to comment that in fact they have bid well to a contract which we would all like to be in. Any 3-2 Spade break leads to 12 tricks and declarer can cope with some 4-1 breaks as well. The hand also demonstrates the folly of doubling slams when you know trumps are breaking badly — just sit back and take the plus. Especially at teams or IMP scoring all you stand to gain is a couple of IMPs, but you stand to lose a bucket if the opponents take fright and have a better contract available as here.

I think everyone would agree that Tom and Dom really deserved their win — they took the lead after a few matches and never looked like losing it, playing much more steadily than any of the other pairs.

Mark and Liam are to be congratulated on their win also, achieved in a very different fashion with a storming performance in the second half. At half time Shivam Shah and Tom Rainforth looked to have a decisive lead having scored over 70.24% against Mark and Liam’s 63.89%. In contrast in the second half the ultimate winners topped the 70% mark and when Shivam and Tom could only score in the low fifties the brothers had won their double.

Mike's Update 3

There seems to be lots to report and look forward to.

The Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer tournaments were a great success. These are the Home Internationals competed for annually by England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Junior Camrose is Under 25 and the Peggy Bayer is Under 20. It’s a gruelling contest as both groups play two matches of 12 boards against the other 4 countries. That’s 96 boards in two days and for teams of four that means a very demanding schedule. Many of the teams have six players and so can rotate and enjoy some rest time. There is of course intense rivalry especially between the Scots and the English who have traditionally supplied the strongest teams. It’s a great opportunity to experience international bridge and all the teams acquitted themselves well. After England’s great performance in the Channel Trophy in December, there was a great deal of confidence that a clean sweep could be achieved.

The Scots had other thoughts and the first round of matches left them ahead in both competitions. In the Junior Camrose the Scots narrowly beat England 19-11, and Northern Ireland showed they were no pushover with a battling draw. Perhaps even more of a surprise was the Peggy Bayer, England’s strong and experienced team had been held to a draw by Scotland, while better performance’s against the other teams left Scotland with a small but significant lead. Could England reverse this in the second round of matches? Well in the Peggy Bayer they could not. The crucial head to head match was a repeat of the first round draw and again the pattern was exactly the same — the Scots scored a mighty 73/75 against the other nations and that was enough to ensure that the Peggy Bayer Trophy went north of the border.

While it is difficult not to be partisan and it was a shame to all of us that the English team of Tom Rainforth, James Thrower, Jennie Marvin, Liz Roberts, James Paul and Graeme Robertson pictured here with NPC Mike Byrne and resident guru Alan Shillitoe could not catch the Flying Scots, it was hard not to be impressed by the fantastic poise and almost flawless performance of the Scots team. Philip and Frazer were the best pair of the weekend in the Peggy Bayer, but they were closely followed by brother and sister, Yvonne and Ralph. Remember that this was a team of four so the team played all 96 boards — and yes Ralph is twelve. I thought they were fantastic. Well done indeed.

The winners of the Peggy Bayer Trophy — Yvonne Wiseman and Ralph Wiseman, Philip Morrison and Frazer Morgan with NPC David McCrossan

The Junior Camrose was a different story. Northern Ireland showed that it was not just a two-horse race in the second round robin by scaring England before losing by a handful of imps and beating the Scots. They’d left themselves too much to do after the first half of the competition and everyone knew that the England Scotland match might well be decisive. For England Steve Raine and Dave Cropper faced Alex Wilkinson and Andrew Sinclair in the Open Room. Over the weekend Steve and Dave were England’s most high-scoring pair. Alex and Andrew are highly experienced and probably the Scots best pair. In the Closed Room English hopes rested with Fiona Brown and Susan Stockdale against the Ellisons, Myles and Gyles. It was all very tense. 100 or so spectators watched in the vugraph theatre and a thousand or so on the internet. The crucial match was broadcast as 8/10 on BBO. If you want to view the boards but don’t know how to, contact me and I’ll explain how to replay the twelve boards that won the Junior Camrose for England. Board 1 was a bit lucky. England bid to an uncomfortably high 5H but made 11 tricks as Scotland led 1-0. There followed some mixed chances for both sides, but England gained imps steadily and at 20-1 were sitting pretty. Board 20 was perhaps the decider. It was one of those distributional nightmares, where everyone bids a lot and no one knows who can make what. Fiona and Susan should have defended 5 doubled but bid on to 6. When this was doubled and went one off they had a bad score. Could Alex and Andrew do better to rescue the match for the Scots? Alex had:

— A K 9 7 5 A K 8 7 5 3 6 5

and after a couple of rounds of bidding, he knew of a Heart fit and values opposite but his opponents had bid 4. Alex choose to bid 5, which he intended as Exclusion Blackwood, a convention which asked his partner about Aces but ignoring Spades. Steve Raine added pressure by bidding 6 and Andrew doubled after a considerable pause. This was the crucial moment of the 2008 Junior Camrose. Alex knew that his agreement was that this double showed the A, but was also aware that his partner’s hesitation suggested that he might well forgotten this. Ethically we must not profit from information that we gain from hesitations or speed and the like and Alex in what the English team regarded as a highly ethical bid chose to bid 7. When this was doubled and two down his team had lost 7 imps rather than gain a possible 14 and realistically had lost the Junior Camrose Trophy. It wasn’t all over and after a tense match with Northern Ireland, England started their last match against Wales just 3 Vps ahead knowing they had to score well to guarantee the trophy. They managed a maximum win and 25 VPs to finish on top. It had been an exhausting weekend for all concerned.

Alex at the prize-giving being awarded a prize for his ethical approach to the game by Steve Eginton, England’s NPC.

The England Junior Camrose team in happy mood, just before the start of their final match. Alex Morris, Mike Bell, Susan Stockdale, Fiona Brown, Steve Raine and Dave Cropper.

The early date for Easter has meant that lots of events have been crammed into a few weeks and fixture congestion has made it difficult for everyone to get time off school, uni and work. An U25 and an U20 team have been playing in a major junior tournament in Amsterdam this week, and details of their scores can be found here.

The Junior Bridge Challenge is going on at Loughborough this weekend also and results and photos will be on the website next week.

There is still time to enter the U25 pairs in London over the Easter weekend. Entry forms can be found here.

The entry fee is only a fiver for a two day Butler Pairs Tournament and brings with it free entry for Sunday’s Swiss Teams. There is a great atmosphere and stiff competition. Do contact me if you want more details: mamos@ebu.co.uk

Mike's Update 2

There seems to be quite a lot going on in Junior Bridge at the EBU all of a sudden.

I suppose the biggest news — exciting this one — is that a new Youth Committee has been set up. "Wow!" you say, but then you add "What good will that do?" I’d better try and explain.

The EBU has lots of individuals, staff, officers and members who are working hard to try to encourage young people to take up bridge and to encourage and support those who already play. It’s not so easy for them all to link up and find out what’s going on in other places. It’s not so easy to find out which initiatives work and how to run successful recruiting or training. Everyone wants to help. So we have to co-ordinate and communicate. It may not sound very exciting, but I really think it’s going to work. Click here for a list of the Youth Committee.

It’s easy to focus on the superstars of Junior Bridge who get to play international tournaments, but first I’d like to start with what I think is a fantastic example of a success story. The North East Bridge Association held a Congress on 9th-11th November and some schools events took place alongside the main Congress on Saturday. Seven teams of four played bridge and six more played minibridge. That’s over 50 young players! The winning school for the bridge was Yarm School and for minibridge, Polham Hall Junior School. More details and photographs can be found on the NEBA’s excellent website by clicking here. Lots of girls as well as lads played which is great to see and Polham Hall was an all-girl team. Well done to all those who took part, especially the winners.

A heat of the U19 Pairs took place in London at the Young Chelsea Club in Earls Court last weekend as well. The winners — who finished with an incredible 70.24% — were Robert Sassoon and Philip Railing. Eight pairs took part and five qualified to play in the final which will be in London, as part of the EBU’s Easter Festival. Full results can be found by clicking here.

Three teams have been picked to play in an international tournament in Utrecht at the headquarters of the Dutch equivalent of the EBU. This will be held just before Christmas on December 21st to 23rd and is known as the Channel Trophy, a fourway competition involving the Netherlands, France, Belgium and ourselves. There will be three competitions — Under-25 and Under-20 and for the first time a U25 Women’s competition.

The first two teams are very much changed from the teams that represented us in the European Championships in the summer.

For the U25s Alex Morris and Mike Bell are a very experienced pair who won the trials held in October. Alex is the son of EBU Board member, Jeff Morris and has played bridge since he was twelve. He is a former Young Player of the year and has already reached the final of the Gold Cup. Mike is a system "nut" always searching for the perfect transfer or relay sequence. They are both sure to feature in future Junior and maybe Open Teams. Ed Jones and Ben Paske were members of the U20 team in the European Championships in Jesolo, who only failed by 1VP and on the very last board to secure the bronze medal. Playing now in a new partnership, they impressed all who watched them in the trials and led the competition until the final stages. The third pair John Atthey and Chris Owen have both been very much involved in University and starting professional careers of late, so to some extent bridge has taken a bit of a back seat, but after John’s success last month in the Great Northern Swiss Pairs, Chris has shown that he is in good form as he was the winner of both the major events at the NEBA Congress mentioned above. All three of these pairs are available for this season and next and are central in the selectors’ plans for the next European Championships.

In the U20s team there are also new faces as well as a couple of old ones. Rob Myers has renewed his partnership with Dan McIntosh. This is another pair with lots of transfers and relays. If Dan sits still long enough to play a hand it will be a miracle, but they are a promising pair for the future. Tom Paske has moved on from terrorising his big brother Ben, to a new partner in Adam Hickman. Graeme Robertson and James Paul are the third pair from Bedford School and Reading School respectively. All three of these pairs are taking part in a training weekend at the Welsh Bridge Union’s Congress in Llangollen this weekend so look out for their results.

I’m not sure how politically correct it is, but inevitably the U25 Women’s Team gets called the "Girls’ Team". This is the first time that there has been a "girls’" event at the Channel Trophy and everyone is very excited about it. The Netherlands may well be able to field a strong team, but nothing is known about our Belgian or French opponents who did not take part in the European event in July. We are fortunate to be able to select five of the six players from those Championships. Fiona Brown is playing with Susan Stockdale instead of Nicola Macdougall. Susan is easily the most experienced Junior U25 Woman, she has already played for England’s Ladies’ Team and was part of the U25 squad in Jesolo. She and Fiona have been selected for the Junior Camrose and are intending to play in the England Women’s Trials. Fiona is living in Harrogate, but is Australian and has played in bridge tournaments all over the world. She finished fourth in the World Mixed Pairs in Verona in 2006 with her Irish international partner Hugh McGann.

The other two pairs, Laura Macdougall and Alice Kaye and Jenny Marvin and Elizabeth Roberts both played in Jesolo, so we hope the experience they gained there will stand them in good stead in this new event. Some of this event will be broadcast on BBO.

But as I said at the start Youth Bridge is not just about internationals and the best players. I heard some more good pieces of news this week.

The first concerns work that Dave Muller and Ron Adams have been doing. They are County Youth Officers for London and Middlesex respectively. Dave got in contact with a project called Trans-Age. The idea is to increase contact between different generations and through the project, minibridge is being taught in three schools. Let’s hope that one of those learning will be a future Junior and maybe Open International. For more details contact me or Dave.

The second piece of good news was that Reading School have received funding from the Youth Opportunities Fund. This has enabled them to purchase a duplimate machine which will help to teach and improve the skills of their players. There are lots of ways that Bridge Clubs and players can support Junior Bridge.

Finally advance notice — the EBU is hosting the Junior Camrose event in Manchester on 16th-17th February. Teams will be coming from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. We are hoping to make a big splash of this with maximum publicity for bridge and its juniors and I will be working with Matt Betts on this. We plan an exhibition of minibridge and hope for lots of visitors. There will be a vugraph presentation where the bridge will be displayed on a large screen with commentary. Why not plan a visit from your Bridge Club to encourage our young players? Further details can be obtained from me or Matt.

Please let me know of your events and competitions so I can mention them here.

Mike's Update 1

These are busy times in Junior Bridge...

The Under 25 Trials will take place in Loughborough this weekend, October 13th and 14th. Junior Bridge in Europe runs on a two yearly cycle which recently came to an end with the European Youth Teams in Jesolo, Italy in July. Our U25 team which took part in that event are mostly too old for the next projected championships in 2009, so it is a time for new hopefuls and old wannabees to come forward and stake their claims. There are places up for grabs in the Channel Trophy — an annual four nation tournament between England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands in December and in the Junior Camrose Trophy (the Home International Weekend) in February.

Three of last year’s team, Ben Green, Duncan Happer and Simon Cope have moved on from Junior Bridge, whereas the other three members of the 2007 team, Susan Stockdale, Dave Cropper and Stuart Haring are taking part with new partners. Two of the most exciting and talented players from last year's Under 20s squad, Ed Jones and Ben Paske are playing and expected to give their older rivals a run for their money. Rob Myers and Dan McIntosh are another younger partnership that hopes to make an impact. There are at least three other partnerships with players of considerable experience, John Atthey and Chris Owen, Joe Mela and Tom Dessain, and Mike Bell and Alex Morris. The results are sure to be close.

Several Junior players took place in the Great Northern Swiss Pairs in Warrington last weekend. Pride of place must go to John Atthey (How can he still be a Junior??, he seems to have been a better player than me for about ten years already). John playing with Clive Owen (Chris’s dad) won the event ahead of a strong field with U20 squad manager Mike Byrne and Andrew Woodcock, both under thirty in 2nd place. Mike Bell was 3rd and Joe Mela and Tom Dessain 7th. Two other U20 pairs, Dan MacIntosh and Rob Myers and Tom Paske and Adam Hickman were in the top 30 (out of almost 100 pairs).