ACES Bridge & Chess Academy
Release 2.19p
Recent Updates
TENERIFE
2nd Feb 2025 15:12 GMT
Home Page
5th Jan 2025 19:12 GMT
Contact Us
15th Oct 2024 13:56 BST
Good News stories
16th Aug 2024 04:58 BST
0 0 0 0 0 0
Pages viewed in 2025
TENERIFE

     

Next sessions

xxxxxxxxx

Next Improvers bridge session

(competition with tuition)

Sundays 2nd and 9th February

at

11h00

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

bridge tournaments

Mondays 3rd & 10th February starting 13h30

Tuesday 4th & 11th February at 14h00

Thursdays 6th & 13th February at 16h00

Sundays 9th & 16th February at 16h00

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

NEW contact details for reservations:

trevorkhruu@gmail.com

(0034) 632 527 631

99 years young

My partner in Paris at the

RACING CLUB DE  FRANCE

24 September 2024

15 tables / 26 boards 

A creditable 41%

BRAVO  IRIS

 

 

Madrid 24 August 2024
Madrid 24 August 2024

Two champions at the Vergara

When I finished not far behind the immortal Paul Hackett,

in one of the biggest INDIVIDUAL competitions in the world

it was like winning the prestigious 

Mutton Cup

14 hours of concentration 

playing 88 boards

with

44 DIFFERENT PARTNERS

ranks it my greatest achievement as a player.

albeit that it took 68 years of practice to get there!

 

 

 

LANZAROTE

2024 - El gran reto

Encontrar y entrenar un equipo de bridge sub 16 para representar a España en el próximo Campeonato de Europa Juvenil.

Apenas unos meses después de que Luis Lantarón y la presidenta de la AEB, Elena Orbegozo, pusieran en marcha el proyecto IMPULSA, ya cuentan con dos fantásticos récords nacionales:

El 2 de septiembre Luis era entrenador del equipo suizo que ganó por primera vez el Bermuda Bowl.

El 9 de diciembre, Elena y Luis estaban jugando un torneo en Lanzarote donde Vincent, de 10 años, batió el récord del jugador más joven en un gran torneo en España.

 

GREAT NEWS for SPAIN

It is only a few months since the Spanish Impulsa project was launched by Luis Lantaron and Elena Orbegozo, but they already have two wonderful records to celebrate:

On 2 September 2023 Luis was coach of the Swiss team that won the Bermuda Bowl for the first time. 

On 9 December 2023, Elena and Luis were both playing in a 3 day tournament in Lanzarote where 10 year old Vincent shattered the record for the youngest player to ever complete a major tournament in Spain.

The news does not get any better than that. 

 

LANZAROTE

Viva España

Los Cristianos, Arona, Tenerife

ESCUELA DEL SÁBADO

clases / lecciones

GRATIS

para niños españoles de 7 a 10 años

Todos los sábados

desde principios de julio de 2024.

Las lecciones también estarán disponibles durante la semana después de la escuela.

Consulte la página de información para conocer los horarios.

 

.

Good news travels Fast

Look who has sent her congratulations:

The world's highest ranked bridge play

From: Kathrine Bertheau 
Date: Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 5:55 PM
Subject: Re: Vincent and Markus
To: Trevor Wilson 

Hi Trevor,

Nice to hear about your project.

Regards Kathrine

WBF Women's Ranking 

WBF Masterpoints to November 2023 

 Rank    Name    NBO  MPs  PPs  
 1    Kathrine  Bertheau  Sweden  2538  27  
 2    Emma  Övelius  Sweden  2151  15  
 3    Jessika  Larsson  Sweden  2043  20  
 4    Sanna  Clementsson  Sweden  1848  10.5  
 5    Wen Fei  Wang  China  1726  48.5  
 6    Janice  Seamon  USA  1718  49  
 7    Nevena  Senior  England  1624  31.5  
 8    Kerri  Sanborn  USA  1609  57  
 9    Ida  Gronkvist  Sweden  1600  11.5  
 10    Yan  Liu  China  1597  14.5  
More than a bridge club
The new ARONA BRIDGE CLUB is...

A SOCIAL Club

where members can chat with friends over

morning coffee, afternoon tea or evening meal

and also play

chess, scrabble, rummicub, cribbage, canasta  

Opening hours from 1st October 2024:

Monday  08h30 to 18h00

Tuesday  11h00 to 21h00 

Wednesday  08h30 to 19h00 

Thursday   16h00 to 21h00

Friday  08h30 to 18h00

Saturday   08h30 to 18h00 

Sunday   10h00 to 21h00

These opening hours may be extended for functions such as evening birthday parties and dinners booked in advance. Sample menus available on request.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Well played DAMON

Roger, a Bristolian, gets beaten by the Cornish champion at the Tenerife backgammon final in Los Cristianos 28 December 2024.

 

More than a bridge club

Félicitations à Régine, Jean Marc, Patrick et Michel du Club Stéphanois pour avoir organisé un si bel événement.

Une chance pour moi de retrouver mes amis français de l'époque où j'enseignais le bridge dans les écoles françaises. 15 ans après le début de ce projet, il existe un nombre incroyable de 560 clubs de bridge enregistrés dans les écoles en France.

Le superbe dîner dansant m'a donné l'occasion de discuter avec Luc, le directeur du tournoi,  comment atteindre en Espagne le succès que nous avons tous deux connu : Luc était entraineur de l'équipe française des moins de 13 ans en même temps que moi. j'étais le coach de l'équipe thaïlandaise des moins de 13 ans!

 

Latest News from FRANCE

La VIE est BELLE

Date: 23/9/23

Venue: Ste Esteve, South West France

Event: Tournoi du Roussillon

71 Tables - 284 players

Latest News from FRANCE
Club Stéphanois

A few days after the tournament ended, I visited the local club's premises where I was able to personally thank them for their organisation. I was told that, for the 2024 edition of the Tournoi de Roussillon end September, the number of tables will be limited to 80 = 320 players. You therefore need to book your place well in advance if you want to join the party. 

What a great day that was!

Club Stéphanois
Winning Chang Rai under 16 team
Winning Chang Rai under 16 team

At the end of the Thai National under 16 championships, the winners invited some of my (slightly shorter) youngsters competing in the same event to join them for the photo call.

Chang Rai was where the 12 cave boys and their teacher were dramatically rescued in 2018. Some of those boys trapped underground for a week in a flooded cave were bridge players!   

Bridge Club SOAP

The one and only official 

BRIDGE CLUB SOAP OPERA

 

From the beginning of July when the inauguration of the new Aces Academy takes place, there will be a report each month from a club in at least six different countries. Germany, France, England, Spain, Scotland and Thailand. Anyone else who wants to join in the fun – especially the Scandinavians – is welcome to contribute. By reporting, in their native language, any incident of special interest that occurred in a tournament where they played.

I have enough reports to fill a book on my own, but I will tell just one for now. To give contributors an idea of what we would like:

About thirty years ago I was partnering a lady on a bridge weekend at the Beach Hotel in Worthing. She was a few months older than my mother. I had taught her to play golf and she subsequently became Somerset (senior) ladies golf captain. To repay me for encouraging her to start a successful and fulfilling golf career as late in life as fifty, she understandably thought it a good idea to offer me bridge lessons that I didn`t need. I understandably was forced to agree to the offer to placate her.

As is often the case with my female partners, she gave me a lesson after every hand every time we played. Raised eyebrows from my partner were not uncommon either. Especially on the innumerable occasions where I had apparently asked her to play the wrong card from dummy.

Around the same time,  I happened to play in an EBU simultaneous event at the Birchfield Hotel in Weston. With a different partner. But one who likewise tested all my virtues of patience, tact and subservience to the limit.

My couldn`t care less attitude on this occasion did at least enable us to end up somewhere in the middle of about 2000 pairs nationally. I was more than happy with that result. But my partner wasn`t. She wanted to do better next time. At this point, with the tournament over and me clearly being a much better player than my partner, I then made the mistake of suggesting to the lady that she should let someone with a modern approach to the game give her a lesson. This provoked such an outburst that nowadays it would merit at least a yellow card - if not a red card - for insulting behaviour on bridge club premises. 

 

You`ve probably guessed already.

The lady in Worthing was my mother-in-law and the one in Weston super Mare was my mum.

 

End of part one of this soap. Episode two to follow early in July.

 

Note that all the reports will be in the respective languages of the contributing countries - English, Spanish, German, etc. - as well as in English.

Trevor 15/3/19       

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Once again, one story leads to another. As I have to wait three months before putting someone else`s tale on this page, I thought I would use up the space by recounting a bridge incident that I had forgotten about until writing that article about Mum. Because I had mentioned it once when lecturing her fellow TG members on the matter of fair play.

 

Trevor`s one and only claim to fame

 

It relates to an opening bid I made that got me into the record books at the Ste Maxime club in the Var in the south of France in the Spring of 2006. When I mentioned it to Philippe Soulet a few months later whilst he was on his annual pilgrimage to the club to run competitions for his faithful fans, even he was impressed with my opening bid. If this story is good enough to interest a former double world bridge champion, it must be worth telling you about it here. Not that I would ever boast. Not when it is possibly the only decent bid I have made in the 21st century. 

So what would be your first bid with this hand containing 27 honour points:

Spades: A, K, Q, J, 10, 8

Hearts A, Q

Diamonds A

Clubs: A, K, 4, 2

More to the point, what do you think my opening bid was? The one that led me to being the only person in the tournament to arrive at 7NT. The equivalent of a 147 break at snooker, dare I boast for once. Assuming I make it, of course. Which I did.

All the others ended up in 5 or 6 spades. And all those that were in six spades went off by one.

I understand the hand is still archived in FFB records. It was dealt at the table. We were playing the first round of the afternoon. It was the second board (of two) played in the round

To help you try and work out what my opening bid might have been, here is the information upon which it was based at the time I chose the bid:

  1. It was inconceivable that it be classed as a psychic bid.
  2. All the other players in the room were of a similar standard to me and playing the same system (standard francais). All the usual weak preemptive openers plus strong 1NT, 2NT and long suited minor 3NT plus the strong 2C (22/23 points or 8 tricks), but also the strong 2 diamond as explained below. 
  3. All those with that hand would normally open 2D  (2 carreaux fort indetermines convention)= strong 2 diamonds. It is game forcing and shows either minimum 24 points or 10 playing tricks
  4. If I opened two diamonds, the only two conceivable responses from partner would have been either 2H showing less than 8 points or 2NT showing 8 points and two kings. (The other 4 conventional responses in France would be impossible because 2S, 3C, 3D show one Ace and 3NT shows two Aces)
  5. I was playing in north. Dealer was west and there had been three passes when the bidding reached me in fourth position. We were vulnerable. E/W were non vulnerable.
  6. I knew that the opponents were very good players. And that their defence would be based on their own logical thinking about the reason why I made that opening bid.   

So what do you think my opening bid was?

The one that led to all the other pairs in the room to ask me at the end how we reached the magical contract of 7NT when everyone else ended up in Spades. When I explained the logical thinking behind my opening bid, they all congratulated me. They even magnanimously conceded that an Englishman had, for the first time in two centuries, got one over on all his French foes.