Dubious Logic

National Swiss Teams

There has been a very real worry about the future of bridge for some time. While national interest is stable, for some time it has been a recognisable fact that the player population is getting steadily older. Thus all the organising bodies, at world, country and local levels, are seeking to bring young people into the game. Some of the statistics evidence serious concern; a few years ago, the age of the average player in the United States was increasing by more than a year per year. Numbers were being supported by bringing new players in, but increasingly, those players were from an older generation.

Anecdotally, and locally, we can see similar traits within the county. Suffolk membership is reassuringly up this year but those newcomers under thirty (even with past members) would struggle to field a team in the Winter League. Therefore it was with genuine pleasure, if not actual surprise, that at the National Swiss Teams in Kettering in late January, there seemed to be a host of young people competing. Moreover, the team that won the event were the English Juniors (though some are now just the wrong side of 25).

When our teams met, the younger had not only a considerable advantage in years but also in score as they hadn't yet lost a match. It was an uncompromising seven boards but for once wily experience had the edge:

Jim Gobert's three diamonds caused something of a bidding problem for East-West. With no raise from North, East could be reasonably sure West had diamond length and his double seemed to cater for this. However, East had a hand that seemed to offer better prospects declaring than defending. Four spades was not a success and was down three; chalk that up to South's speculative action.

In the other room, both partnerships were more restrained and a modest two spades was reached. The play is quite tricky but Peter Sutcliffe managed to divine the trump position and bring in eight tricks when the defence could only avoid helping him get to dummy by damaging their club holding. +110 went with +300 for nine IMPs and their first defeat meant the competition became a lot more interesting for the chasing pack - for a while.

Published Saturday 24.Feb.2007