Scottish Schools Bridge 2025

	CBC locals		+63 IMPs **
1st	High School of Glasgow Seniors (Team Mishap)	Niamh Reid & Rachel Yu Isla Jamieson & Eunice Ooi.	+36 IMPs
3rd	High School of Glasgow Juniors (Team Disaster)	Shiva Viswanathan & Artem Belikov Ashwin Viswanathan + sub	+31 IMPs *
2nd	Hutchesons Seniors		-19 IMPs
	Broughton High		-49 IMPs
	Hutchesons Juniors		-62 IMPs

Our first year at the fantastic new Clyde Bridge Centre. I took seven pupils across on the train. We had five rounds of three boards, with a break for a packed lunch (or a visit to the burger van outside). 

The reason the scores look a bit strange is that teams with adults were ineligible to win.

One highlight was Zac and Lucas (Hutchesons Seniors) bidding 6S from South here:

 

The board below is a good score from HSOG as Niamh & Rachel made 5C from West here. There is only one way to play the trump suit for no losers - lead the Queen. Then if you can draw trumps and set up a Heart trick before the defence take their Spade you've got a chance.

Shiva & Artem and Zac & Lucas made 4S from NS. This needs trump leads from the defence to beat it, else declarer can ruff two Clubs in dummy.

East-West didn’t get very good cards. The best we saw all day was this:

My partner (Ashwin) made 1NT+2 from East. The Clyde Bridge Club locals made 4S here, and 2Dx from North too!

 A few more photos:

The new premises were very spacious and it was great to have Angus MacDonald to help us with the scoring - as we had to fix a few scores when alert players noticed some boards were duplicated wrongly.

 

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Monday #1

It's Monday morning now and we have all safely made it to the airport. I had to knock on a couple of doors this morning of some of the older players. I was relieved when they opened them straightaway fully dressed with suitcases. The Scotland U26 team were up late last night playing some sort of five-handed bridge. I talked with the Welsh and Irish while the precocious English children played Trivial Pursuit well after midnight. But they didn't know how old Adrian Mole was or what the answer was to life, the Universe and everything (I think it was quite an old copy of the game).

The banquet dinner last night was good, and one of the players who is a bar manager agreed the hotel couldn't have done any more. They cleaned up a lot of discarded cups and pieces of paper over the weekend.

After the dinner and short speeches there was a surprise, as the England captain put on some shades and rapped Eminem's Without Me with bridge lyrics. My team were baffled and entertained - it was brilliant. I had nothing to add to this performance.

There was a spare seat when Iris went home

Absolutely stuffed

Looking wonderful

I expect we will take a break from bridge for a little while, or at least I won't be doing evening training sessions any more. This tournament has caused a great improvement in my players in the lead up; not just from those at the event but others who have been attending too.

When someone forgets about an Unusual 2NT I don't mind; I'm glad it came up as it means they will know it for next time - you have to see things happen to remember them. And in fact next match the Unusual 2NT came up twice, and the player who'd forgotten before got it right both times.

It's been a good weekend. The Scotland team were excellent conduct and are very easy to manage - they can be very proud of their performance over the weekend.

 

Next year we will try and finish above Ireland. 

 

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Sunday #4

The team were disappointed with their performance against EBU but bounced back with some really good play against Ireland. 

The North-South pair of Rachel and Niamh, our two most experienced players, bid a series of good games and made them all. The East-West pair of Iris and Isla (playing together for the first time) underbid a couple but immediately identified them, an encouraging sign that they are spotting their own mistakes. 

All that remains tonight is the gala dinner, where I fear I may be required to make a short speech. If I am, I will say that "Myself and the Scotland teams have enjoyed ourselves very much. The hotel was good, the food was good, the bridge was sometimes good too. Next year we look forward to welcoming you to Scotland." 

One of our party (Iris) has already left to get the train back to London, so I think there may be an extra serving at dinner for Timon the meerkat.

Final standings for the Peggy Bayer

In the U26 event the team came a bit closer to Ireland, and in the end did well to hold of Wales to secure third.

Peggy Bayer 2025 - Sunday #3

We scraped a narrow win against Northern Ireland and are now getting hammered by the EBU. 

As I can't see the play or bidding I have given limited feedback to my team. One can only speculate about how we might have got to 4H here:

I am only confident that West would open 1S. After that I would like to see 1NT from East, 3S from West, 4S from East, but who can say what really happened.

Time for a big cup of tea.

We have Ireland next (big match) then the real challenge for me is that dinner isn't until 915.