The Spring Foursomes - What a Weekend for Welsh Bridge!!
This recent event in Stratford (30 April to 4 May) is perhaps the EBU's flagship event of the year, attracting strong teams from all over Europe as well as the top British teams. The format has 32 board knockout matches, where a team is only eliminated when it has lost twice. Nearly everyone goes home on Monday, but the last four play the semi-final and final on Tuesday with thousands watching on BBO.
It proved to be a fantastic event for the Welsh teams. The Welsh squad for the Open in the Europeans ("Denning"), and the Jourdain team each won six times to reach the semi-finals, where they each faced very strong opposition. Wonderfully, Wales won both these matches, so it was an all-Wales final. Having trailed for much of the final, the Denning team won 6 imps on the last board to win by just ONE imp.
So hearty congratulations to the winners: Patrick Shields, Paul Denning, Peter Goodman, Adrian Thomas, Gary Jones and Dafydd Jones. And congratulations also to the losers: Patrick Jourdain, Tony Ratcliff, John Salisbury and Mike Tedd. It's a great omen for the Europeans in June.
The ten players who made the final an all-Welsh event.