Visit to Utrecht

'Er indoors (aka She-who-must-be-obeyed) had a couple of weeks off and threatened to go visit family in Canada. I wasn't impressed since I hate flying so she suggested we took a few days out of London over the May weekend. "Let's go somewhere we haven't been", she said. I suggested the Isle of Wight as it involves a 10 minute ferry ride but this was scornfully dismissed. "I've seen pictures of the IoW, and there's nothing there", said she. So I looked round the internet and discovered that the BCO Bridge Club plays on Friday nights in Utrecht, and further research showed that this is in Holland.

The Dutch call it Nederlands, but that's their problem. What do I know about Holland? Well, a boy stuck his finger in the dyke. Gouda and Edam Cheese comes from Holland. There's a nursery rhyme: "The trouble with the grasping Dutch, they offer little, ask too much". They're good at draining marshes. .. and that's about it. Not bad for a Brit.

SWMBO didn't even know that much so we settled on Holland and now came the search for transport. "I'm not going to fly", I said, but eventually I discovered we send raiding parties from Hull to Rotterdam (a sort of reverse Viking invasion) and that furthermore the English trains go as far as Hull. I was a bit frightened that we'd have to travel by ox-cart from Cambridge, which is the last known outpost of civilisation for a Londoner. Finally I established that there are hotels and trains in Europe and so the trip was born.

Train to Hull; Overnight ferry to Rotterdam; book into Hotel; train to Utrecht and what a jewel is the town of Utrecht. We cruised the canals on the guided tour, looking at the little carvings on the walls, passing under antique bridges and soaking up the culture of a city that has as much history as London. Happily the Dutch don't eat frogs or snails so we had some decent food too, and by late afternoon, using the ever-present Dutch trams, found our way to the bridge club.

"Patton scoring" said the host, "I'll find you team-mates" and so she did. One plays Patton much as Teams-of-Four, and it was new to me, we have almost no Patton in the UK. Team-mates were lovely, and to be fair neither partnership had a great evening so we didn't trouble the scorers, but I had one little success. During the last round I tried a non-vul vs vul 3rd seat 1 on KQx Axx Jxx xxxx, heard a 2 overcall and my dear wife bid 2NT (good raise), so I signed off in 3H. Partner had her 10-count with a 4423 and I had a lot of losers. Resigning myself to another poor board, I followed suit, got the trumps drawn and eventually we came down to this end position.

Dummy
Jx
10

Me
Q
xx

Lefthand opponent was on lead with nothing but diamonds and right hand opponent had 10 x Q. I ruffed the diamond lead and RHO was squeezed. If she discards the spade, I unblock my Queen and score 2 spades from dummy, and if she discards the club, I throw a club and use the Queen of Spades as the entry to my winning club. I think it's an "entry-shifting squeeze". When I counted up my tricks I was down 2 and when teammates announced "Plus 90 in 1NT", at least I could say "Push!"

One of the members kindly forewent his post bridge drink and dropped us at the rail station, we caught the last train back to Rotterdam, the last tram to the hotel, and the following day after a quick tour of Rotterdam got back on the boat and so back to London.

I hope this article is a nice way to say "Thank-you" to all the very kind people in Utrecht who made our little trip "Let's play bridge in a European City" so enjoyable.