James Thrower, 18, is from Yorkshire and has been playing bridge for 5 years. He is currently studying for his A levels (Economics, Geography and History… not traditional bridge playing subjects!). He was taught to  play bridge by Yorkshire county youth officer Cedric Cockroft and has not looked back since, winning various junior events such as the Arnott Davidson, U19 schools pairs and the national schools teams of 4. Along with this he has represented England U20 on various occasions, and combined with Tom Rainforth has won the Young Pair of the Year award for 2006.

Apart from bridge James has various hobbies such as listening to music, playing rugby or just meeting friends and can be described as “life and sole of the party” due to his regular night-clubbing exploits! James is probably the loudest of the U20 squad, and also considers himself most humorous (however his judgement has always been suspect!).

His most notable contribution to bidding theory is the “Chucker Raise” which is well known in junior bridge circles, and will certainly become a worldwide trend in the future, whereby you avoid making an obvious raise over an enemy take out double on the grounds that the opponents might screw up and pass the take out double out. (Chucker is James’ nickname derived from his surname). Surprisingly it has yet to catch on with continental players.