Budapest 2016 - and future European events......

This is a picture of Laura and Gilly relaxing outside the venue in the beautiful city of Budapest.

We went to the 2016 European Championships under our own steam, with no WBU support (in fact to begin with it felt like quite the opposite) and had great fun playing in the Women’s Pairs. I’m only writing this because next time more people should definitely go. There was one Scottish pair and 11 Irish pairs and this was the first time ever that one of their pairs managed to get through the qualifying heat to the A Final. A few English pairs entered who were the only others to qualify and came 6th & 11th I think.
Two sessions before the end, we were just out of the running lying a place or two below the magic number of 25 – so we went for it and plummeted. One of my barking ideas was to stay in No Trumps with AKQ10xx of spades! (We needed tops to have any chance folks, but why I ever thought….) - I think they took the first nine tricks in diamonds and clubs. Ah well.
So that was two long days of a qualifier and then there was one full day playing in the B Final. As we were now more relaxed and getting back towards our old form, we did quite well winning a set or two and finishing 4th overall. We could easily have come 2nd but not caught the Italian winners.
Laura alerted me to this event and I can’t believe I haven’t gone before. Out of nearly 60 open teams there were only five women and not many more in the Seniors, where I am pleased to say we were represented by Di Kurbalija.
If anyone knows of events like this , please share them on our Facebook page or on the website. You merely have to have “standing” and be rubber stamped to play in this. No heavy uniforms. No criticisms. Just women.  Some people were quite awful, but the vast majority were a delight to play against and it opens your eyes to bridge in other countries and a few interesting systems. Everyone learns something.