Congratulations to the England U21s who have won their age group of the EBL European Youth Online Teams.
A report from Charlie Bucknell (squad captain) is below:
England U21 qualified in the Round Robin stages in 5th place with 173.27VPs out of a possible 280. They were then thrown straight into the Quarter finals where they managed to defeat Czech Republic by 10 IMPs in a very close affair. Next up were Estonia, who had unfortunately delivered to us an unpleasant stuffing in the Round Robin but we were keen for vengeance and justice was quickly served with a 27 IMP win.
Continuing on such a winning streak put us in good stead for the final match against Poland, who are a notoriously strong bridge playing country, and we sat down on April 3rd for the first half, a little on edge but eager to crack on. When the dust settled, we had secured a 6IMP lead at half time. The final set took place on April 15th and nerves were high, adrenaline coursing through the U21s veins. Despite some highly competitive sequences, the first 12 boards led to only one additional IMP for the English tally, meaning we had 7IMPs in our pocket with 12 boards to play.
Coach Stephen Kennedy was able to check the score with 4 boards to go and the writing was on the wall. For Poland! England had sped away with a 33IMP lead, surely it couldn’t go wrong now? Board 21 rolled in and we lost 10 IMPs, some panic started to arise, could Poland pull off a comeback? Board 22 was flat (phew!) and board 23 we lost 2 IMPs. Relatively speaking, that was completely fine! It meant we had a 21IMP buffer for one board. Alas, the Poles had a double game swing in, but fortunately that was only 14 IMPs, not enough and a hard earned, well deserved European Championship gold medal for the U21 England team.
David Sargent + Thibault Crosnier
Jamie Fegarty + Thomas Gardner
Tom Furness + Venetia Anoyrkatis
Holden Clark + Dina Bennett
Charlotte Bedford + Thomas Bradkin
Here is an example of how positive English bridge scored successfully to bring home the final in style.
David opened with a normal 1S bid and Thibault correctly responded with 1NT. Some players may have been tempted to rebid those gorgeous spades on David’s hand but it is always better to show more cards if you can, so 2H is called for. Thibault gives preference to 2S and David jumps to 4S! That’s positivity and a healthy dose of optimism, but let’s test that theory. If we give West as little as
Kx
Kxx
Xxxx
Xxxx
Game only needs hearts to come in, or spades 3-2 and a non trump lead. It’s easy to see why David was tempted to jump to 4, and when dummy came down he may have felt a little disappointed. Fortunately though, David did extremely well to correctly guess the diamond suit by playing one to the king, eschewing the finesse and that was enough to bring home 10IMPs! Well done.
April 16, 2025