Scottish Schools Bridge 2026

 

Scottish Schools Bridge (Clyde Bridge Club)
Thursday 4^th June 2026

		1	2	3	4	5
1st	HSOG Seniors (Artem B & Eunice O, Niamh R & Rachel Y)	18	14	6	20	16	74/100 VPs
2nd	Hutchesons A (Andrew & Maoyan, Anya & Subir)	16	17	14	6	3	56 VPs
3rd	HSOG Dream Team (Shiva & Emmett, Eric & Jonny)	2	12	16	4	19	53 VPs
4th	Broughton High (Fiona & Rachel, Max & Zach)	9	3	14	15	4	45 VPs
5th	Hutchesons B (Jenna & Kai, Maekal & Shaazab)	11	8	4	0	17	40 VPs
6th	HSOG Juniors (Fraser & Zhou, Noah & Hanlin)	4	6	16	5	1	32 VPs

Three schools took part, with the key matchup being between HSOG Seniors and Hutchesons A in Round 3. Hutcheson’s won this 14-6 to take the halfway lead, but HSOG came back with big wins in the second half.

So Niamh-Rachel and Eunice retain their title, with Artem collecting his first win. Next year three of the winning team will be away, so there will be new champions…

Action photos (more to come)

      

The format of lots of short teams matches worked well, though next time I might give a bit more instruction for the kids in how to do the scoring (and make sure they don’t leave the table until they’ve agreed the score).

Thanks to the Clyde Bridge Club for hosting in their wonderful venue.

A couple of hands from the event:

Deal 13 From HSOG A vs Broughton

On both tables I watched North opened 3C.    
When South raised to 4C (well bid Eunice) the Broughton West was under pressure but found a 4S bid.

W	N	E	S
	3♣	-	4♣
4♠	-	-	-

On the other table 3C was passed to West. Rachel doubled, Niamh replied 3H, Rachel bid 3S, and Niamh raised to game.

W	N	E	S
	3♣	-	-
x	-	3♥	-
3♠	-	4♠	-
-	-

So West played 4S on both tables. North led a Club, and declarer later had to lose the Ace of trumps too. Declarer does not need a Diamond finesse as they have all those Heart winners. Well played both declarers, 4S+1.

Deal 4 From HSOG Dream Team vs Hutcheson’s A

After West opened a weak 2D the Hutchesons’s team got to 4H from East.

There are four top tricks for the defence (one Spade, one Diamond, two Clubs), but if they don’t take them declarer has a chance.

At the table South took her two Aces then played trumps. Declarer can now make it by discarding dummy’s losing Clubs on her winning Spades, but missed this opportunity and the defence got their four tricks for 4H-1.

At the other table East played 2H. Declarer drew trumps, then kept on playing trumps until there were none left in dummy. That meant he had to lose two Spade tricks, one Diamond and two Clubs, for 2H=.

The three HSOG teams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scottish Schools Minibridge 2026

This year I took 15 pupils with me to Edinburgh, to join challengers from George Heriots and Stockbridge Primary. My pupils were in P7, S1 and S2, so ranging in age from 10-13 years old. Last year our top pair finished 3rd East-West, could they do better this year?

(Read my 2025 report and I also have a 2016 report)

Due to tighter school restrictions about staffing, I wasn't allowed to take all the pupils on my own. Step forward janitor Andy Tierney, who not only offered to accompany us but also provided a minibus, saving the effort of two trains and a bus.

We arrived in good time and drew cards for seating. An adult accompanied each table. I was very impressed by what I saw on the first two boards.

Love all N deal ♠ A 8 5 ♥ Q J 5 4 ♦ 9 2 ♣ K T 9 3 ♠ J 6 2 ♥ A K 2 ♦ K T 5 ♣ A J 6 2

In Minibridge each player first counts their points to determine the declarer, who then chooses the contract. Here with 16 opposite 10 our South, Catriona, chose 3NT. 

West lead the Jack of Diamonds. Declarer won this with her Queen. Let's be generous and assume that at this point declarer counted her tricks. Assuming she did, she would have found 1 + 4 + 1 + 2 = only 8 tricks. Need to find one more.

Declarer took her Heart tricks, then turned to Clubs. She played the King of Clubs then took a finesse, leading to her Jack of Clubs. This lost to West's Queen, but the defence could only two three more Diamonds and declarer had made her ninth trick, getting a third one out of Clubs. Well played!

Making 3NT= was worth 80%. The top score was 3NT+2ne . Otable played 4H-1, and the rest languished in a part score.

NS vul E deal ♠ T 4 2 ♥ 9 3 2 ♦ K Q 9 2 ♣ A K 3 ♠ A K 7 ♥ A K T 8 6 4 ♦ T 5 ♣ 5 2

On the next deal our declarer Evita wisely chose 4H, and correctly drew trumps and remembered that her 9 of Diamonds was a winner. 4H+2 was worth 90%, tying with or beating most pairs who bid game.

If I could somehow teach two things to all novice declarers, it would be to count tricks, and to count trumps. If you could do these two simple things you'd win the tournament easily.

For defenders I would start with just one thing. Don't lead unsupported honours, meaning don't lead a high card unless you have a whole block of high cards. Very often I saw defenders lead a stray King or Queen and give declarer gift after gift. 

Anyway, the standard was better this year than last year I think, and the organisation was excellent. The bridge club were extremely accommodating, and even turned the coffee machine back on after the tournament ended so I could have another cup. Fiona Robertson had all the boards and movement worked out, not an easy task when you don't know how many pupils are coming.

The final results are here: New Melville Bridge Club. 

Congratulations to our top pair, Hanlin and Noah, who went two better than last time and were the overall winners this year.

Hamilton Bridge Congress

I didn't attend this event but there were several Scottish Juniors there. I glanced through the results of Shiva & Artem, and one result caught my eye, a 6H-1. Typical overbidding I thought to myself, but perhaps they were a little unlucky. 

You can see that with South having both the missing Heart honours 6H is doomed, and duly went down one. 

However, there is a twist, as 6H was doubled by South. It's a very poor double, as it converts +50 to +100 and so makes virtually no difference to the matchpoint score. The danger is that the double alerts both East and West that Hearts are breaking badly, and gives them a chance to correct to 6NT.

6NT was played on the majority of tables, and usually made 12 tricks. I think declarer should start by playing Hearts, low to the Ten. When North shows out on the second round of Hearts, you are forced to switch to Diamonds and Clubs. They work out very nicely, and you finish with 4+1+4+3 = 12 tricks. 

So doubling 6H could have been costly, but South got away with it here.

The pairs tournament was one by Angus MacDonald and Peter Hodgson, who have both helped out with Junior tournaments in the past. Hutchesons's coach Peter Clarke and Scotland U26 star Prajwal finished fourth. 

We await the results of the teams. Update - the team did not win the teams, and were much closer to the bottom than the top. But from what I hear, they all had a great time. Results here

 

High School of Glasgow Pairs Championship

The school bridge club has a good group of final year S6 pupils and younger S3 pupils - enough to have a short pairs championship. We had three tables playing ten boards, along with a couple of younger groups playing Minibridge.

There were lots of well bid and played boards, including two in a row where every table made 3NT. 

Our more experienced pairs ran into trouble when they overbid to failing games, or just got unlucky with good contracts bid against them. That paved the way for Michael and Eunice to win the event, followed by Sam and Elliot.

Here is one where the winning pair got a bad result which turned out to be a good result:

At every table North opened 2S. Then things diverged. Michael and Eunice got to 4S by North, down five! Losing 500 vulnerable wasn't too bad in the end.

On her table Isla bid the East hand to 3NT and quickly claimed 10 tricks. Niamh and Rachel may have recognised the hand, they played it as part of the HSOG Junior Christmas Party in 2021! They won that event (see here).

The final board proved expensive for some:

Eunice played 4S from the West seat. To make it you need a bit of luck - trumps 3-2, Diamond 3-3, and the defence to not lead trumps. Only out of those three things happened and so she finished down one. On another table Artem played 4Sx-1, doubled by North.

On the final table both sides bid Hearts and in the end Sam played 3Hx from the South seat. This could fail with repeated Spade leads as you lose trump control, but made today for a great score. 

2026 HSOG Pairs champions (in shirts)

 

Scottish Schools Minibridge 2025

I took ten pupils on the train to Edinburgh, to the New Melville Bridge Club, joining pupils from Stockbridge, Broughton High and George Heriots. Altogether there were eight tables.

I was impressed by the composure of all the players (age approx 10-12), who were attentive and helped the event run beautifully on time. 

The youngsters I sat with had learned to draw trumps and they counted them accurately. The next stage (for everyone) is to try and keep track of winners. This means master cards (after the Ace and King have gone the Queen is a winner) and length winners (counting to 13).

I saw some good play, but in the pressure of a match situation it's quite common for new players to cash their eight winners and finish in 3NT-1, because they haven't made a plan for the ninth trick, or even counted that they only have eight tricks.

I think this shows how hard bridge is - it takes a lot of practice before good play, or even standard play, becomes automatic. Enough complaining, here are the results:

Well done the top North-South (Raphael & Charlie from Stockbridge) and top East-West (Max & Zach from Broughton High). These pairs bid and made lots of games, so were worthy winners. These results will later be combined with the heat in Aberdeen for our overall winners.

The top HSOG pair were Hanlin and Noah, who finished 3rd East-West. Well done boys!

Glasgow vs Zimbabwe

When a school from Zimbabwe contacted the SBU looking for a friendly bridge match they were put in touch with me, as the teacher of a school club in Glasgow. I arranged the match on RealBridge, which turned out to be between two schools in Harare, Dominican Convent and St John’s, and The High School of Glasgow representing Scotland.

After the inevitable connection difficulties and general confusion (“you can leave the ID number blank!”) it looked like we had maybe seven or eight tables. Given that it’s always better to have substitutes than empty spaces, I reduced it to six tables and combined some teams. After four rounds of two boards each, these were the top three:

Glasgow #2	Niamh R & Rachel Y, Kevin R & Michael K	61 VPs
Dominican #1	Tinashe Z & Daniel R, Nomalangu N & Vongai T	52 VPs
St John’s #2	Susannah P & Gabriella B, Taona Z & Ngavatendwe N	48 VPs

It’s no coincidence that all of the top teams had at least one pair that bid and made games (and Glasgow had two). Bidding and making games is the key to success in Teams matches.

Overall it was quite a chaotic hour of bridge, but I enjoyed seeing all the youngsters play and hope to do it again soon. Most of them had never used RealBridge before, but that didn’t seem to matter much and they picked it up very quickly. There were a few skipped boards for slow play, one unusual 4♦x-8, but also some good play and plenty of potential for the future.

Below I’ve chosen three hands to write about, where there are some good teaching points to pass on to the mostly beginners who were playing. As it’s the most important part of the game, in each case I’m going to focus on declarer play.

In this deal two East-West pairs got to 3NT. Will it succeed?

I encourage my pupils to count top tricks in NT contracts. A quick count reveals that this is one of those happy deals where we’ve been dealt enough top tricks to make the contract (1 Spade + 0 Hearts + 6 Diamonds +2 Clubs = 9). In practice we might get an extra Heart too, but certainly there are nine tricks there for the taking, and indeed both declarers in 3NT made the game easily.

Here 4♥ from North-South was a popular contract, but it didn’t succeed as often as it should have.

For the 3NT contract above we counted sure winners, for this high-level suit contract we instead count expected losers in each suit.

In Diamonds there are two certain losers (but only two, as we can ruff the third and subsequent rounds).

In all of Spades, Hearts, and Clubs we count ½ a loser – meaning that sometimes we will lose 0 tricks and sometimes 1 trick, depending on if a finesse in that suit succeeds. So depending on our luck with finesses we will lose 2, 3 or 4 tricks

The correct way to play the hand is therefore to draw trumps with a finesse, take the Spade finesse, then decide how to play Clubs.

In practice most declarer’s instead failed because they didn’t draw trumps, and West got a ruff with the Ten of Hearts - the message being to draw trumps straight away unless you have good reason not to.

This last deal shows a useful technique, where we don't draw trumps straight away.

Suppose we are sitting South as declarer in 2♠. We have four trumps in each hand, plus a short suit in both our hand and dummy. The fact that we have these shortages means our plan should be to cross-ruff the hand. That means not drawing trumps at all, but instead going from side-to-side ruffing everything we can.

On this deal cross-ruffing makes a lot of tricks. We can make four Diamond tricks (Ace and three ruffs in dummy), four Heart tricks (Ace-King and two ruffs in your hand), plus the Ace of Spades and Ace of Clubs. That makes ten tricks total.

Well done St John’s declarer Emmanuel M who followed a similar plan to make 1♠+2.              

HighSchoolOfGlasgow vs Lithgae Players

Last night my team of ex-school pupils suffered another loss in Division 1 of the SBU Bronze League.

This was surely the unluckiest board:

Defending 4♥ West made the normal looking lead of the Queen of Clubs. This caught his partner's ten, and declarer was then able to pick up the Clubs and make the contract. On another lead there are at least five losers.

Conceding 4♥= was a doubly bad result as East-West have an easy Spade game. I've encouraged East to bid more next time and weigh in with 3♠.

On the other table our North-South pair did well not to push too hard and wisely sold out to 3♠, which made with two overtricks.

Overall we lost the match 24-53 IMPs which translates to about 4-16 I'd guess.

Christmas Tournament

There were 11 pupils for the school Christmas party. We played matchpoint scoring with boards that had already been played at the Buchanan, meaning I could instantly generate a score even for boards that were only played once.

For the three younger pupils, who had no experience of bidding (or even playing in suit contracts), I bypassed the auction and fixed the contracts. When this led to the most Junior pair leading the field there were accusations this method was unfair, but actually the scores all evened out and I would suggest the final result was somewhat random.

Not to take anything away from the winning pair of Claire and Parveen, with 56%, assisted by Sarah when Parveen had to leave early. Sarah also had the distinction of being in the lowest ranked pair, on 43%, partnered with me.

The best play award goes to Niamh, for this

l North was put in a contract of 1NT, and received a Spade lead. West took his ♠AK, ♦A then tried the Jack of Hearts. Declarer won in hand, then crossed to dummy and took the marked Heart finesse, collecting five Heart tricks in total and finishing on 1NT+2.

While this might not have been the hardest play to find, it was a good achievement given the general noise in the room, Michael Buble Christmas songs and sweets around the place.

Next year we'll all be bidding.