Camrose 2024 - Second weekend

Venue

The event will be held at the Best Western Cresta Court Hotel, Church St, Altrincham WA14 4DP - (google maps). 

The first weekend of the Camrose Trophy was hosted by the Welsh Bridge Union in Newport. As joint hosts England have two teams in the event, England Team and EBU Team.

Kibitz

Spectators are very welcome to attend, please see the Event programme for details. There will be a vugraph on RealBridge for kibitzing online.

Results

• Results page
• Full Results from the first weekend

Event Programme

• Event programme

Teams

Second Weekend Teams

England	NPC: Peter Hasenson	Andrew Black	David Gold
		Peter Crouch	Simon Cope
		Tom Paske	Andrew McIntosh
Ireland	NPC: Gráinne Barton	Mark Moran	John Carroll
		Tom Hanlon	Conor Boland
		Ciarán Coyne	David Walsh
Northern Ireland	NPC: Michael McFaul	Ian Hamilton	Ian Lindsay
		David Greenwood	Rex Anderson
		Sam Hall	Hastings Campbell
Scotland	NPC: Alex Adamson	Martin Bateman	Callum McKail
	Assistant NPC: Robert Ferrari	Paul Barton	Jun Nakamaru-Pinder
		Brian Spears	Barnet Shenkin
Wales	NPC: Ceri Pierce	Tony Ratcliff	Julian Pottage
		Tim Rees	John Salisbury
		Mia Deschepper	Richard Plackett
EBU Team	NPC: Paul Barden	Tim Leslie	Mike Bell
		Stefano Tommasini	Ben Norton
		Sarah Bell

Schedule

Officials

EBU Vugraph Team

Acknowledgements

The English Bridge Union is very grateful to everyone who has assisted in the staging of the event.

First weekend results

The EBU team finished the weekend in first place with a score of 69.13, and the England team finished in second place with 59.83 VPs. In third place were the Irish team with a score of 57.81.

England team for the first weekend were - John Atthey, Neil Rosen, Graham Osborne, Frances Hinden, Chris Jagger, Derek Patterson (NPC: David Burn) (pictured)

EBU team for the first weekend were - Maggie Knottenbelt, Michael Byrne, Ben Handley-Pritchard, Kieran Dyke, Tom Townsend (PC) (pictured)

• Full Results from the first weekend
• First weekend event programme
• Welsh Bridge Union  
• Bridge Great Britain
• Wikipedia

Regulations

The full regulations are available on the Bridge Great Britain website.

Event history

From the BGB website The Home Bridge Internationals for England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (then called the Irish Free State) was launched in 1937. Lord Camrose, at that time proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, donated the trophy in 1938. The original trophy has been lost, but a replacement is competed for annually. The 1939 series was not completed due to war. The Camrose re-started in 1946. The 2016 series was the 73rd which makes the Camrose the most-played international bridge series in the world, for the European Championships that began in 1932 has recently only been played in alternate years. The South of Ireland dropped out in 1951 but re-joined as the Republic of Ireland in December 1998. The format from then until 2005 was head-to-head matches played over five weekends, with a different country sitting out each weekend, as in the former Five Nations Rugby. Each weekend was divided into three stanzas of 30 boards victory-pointed separately. From January 2005 the format was changed to match the Lady Milne but over two weekends. All five countries met at the same venue playing a full round robin each weekend with two matches in play at a time and one country sitting out each stanza. The Republic of Ireland won under the new format in both 2005 and 2006. The sit-out combined with six-player teams meant some players sat out half the weekend and led to calls for a sixth team to be added. This was done for the first time in January 2007. The sixth team was called “The holders” which meant the Federation winning in 2006 fielded two teams in 2007. The holders (by chance, the same six players who represented Republic of Ireland throughout 2006) won again for the Republic of Ireland. So the Republic again fielded two teams in 2008. This time the trophy went to England who thereby would have two teams in 2009, when by chance England was host for the second weekend. The idea for the sixth team was changed to be “the host for the second weekend fields two teams on both weekends”. One team is called by the name of the country and the other by the name of the Federation (e.g. England and EBU). As the right to have two horses in the race would rotate round the countries in a five-year cycle both could be given the right to win the trophy for their Federation. And, in 2009, it was the EBU team that won the trophy. In 2011 Wales fielded two teams and it was the “A” team called Wales that won the trophy for the first time for the Principality. The totals over 73 years are as follows:

• England has won the trophy 51 times (of which one was its second team, EBU, in 2009) most recently in 2016
• Scotland has won 12 times (most recently in 1998)
• England and Scotland have drawn three times (in 1961, 1972 and 1973)
• The Republic of Ireland has won 6 times (most recently in 2015)
• Wales has won once (in 2011)
• Northern Ireland has yet to win the trophy.

The Camrose Trophy is awarded to the country with the most victory points over the 10 matches played. All head-to-head encounters have their own individual trophy. Where a country is fielding two teams it is the aggregate score over the four matches (two each weekend) that determines the trophy winner.