Madeira Bridge Festival with Andrea

Andrea Nilsson is a Swedish player and a member of Team Funbridge. She won World and European titles.

The Madeira Bridge Festival has become a key date in the calendar for bridge players of all levels around the world, from casual enthusiasts to professionals. The 2024 schedule included a three-day teams tournament, a three-day pairs tournament, as well as a variety of events like IMP, matchpoint and warm-up pairs. This year a new record for the largest number of participants was set, which comes as no surprise to me. With such a well-organised festival, a perfect programme and an incomparable location, it attracts many players.

The location

Never play with an empty glass

I started the week by playing one of the IMP pairs, a pairs tournament of 26 boards. I had no choice but to play with Mikael Rimstedt… unfortunately. We started with quite normal boards and took a gin tonic each halfway through and then the Rimstedt bridge started. I’m sitting East, Mikael is in West.

North led the unexpected king of diamonds and switched to the ace of clubs and the queen, which Mikael won with the king. Mikael then played a low diamond from dummy and won with the queen. He finessed a heart, a spade to the ace, one more finesse and a spade to the king. He ruffed the third diamond in dummy and cashed the ace of hearts, pitching a club. 8 tricks were made and after this board I realised that Mikael’s luck is much greater than his bridge skills.

Mikael and I also played the warm-up pairs, a tournament where playing bridge and partying become best friends. This event can only be explained with three words: joy, happiness and loudness.

A winning strategy

Mikael’s strategy and mine from the start was to never have an empty glass, this seemed to be a winning strategy as we ended up in second place with 64%. Even though we had some Rimstedt luck, I managed to create some points too. I was on lead against 2NT in the last board: (2NT) – All pass.

What do you lead?

I quickly decided not to lead a heart, nor a club, which forced me to lead either a spade or a diamond. After some thinking I put the jack of diamonds on the table. Here is the full hand:

We scored 8 tricks in defence for +300.

Tournaments can be unpredictable

As mentioned before, this tournament can be a little bit unpredictable, so I would like to share some fun bidding by my friends:

West was very proud to put down the dummy until he realised that they were cold for 6 spades.

Bridge after-party

After the game you can either go out for a nice dinner in Funchal or at the hotel restaurant. Madeira has really good fish for those who like it. I often went out to dinner with my friends or to organised dinners with other bridge players. After dinner a lot of people meet at “Hole in one”, a local bar 20 meters from the playing area, where you can dance, sing or just hang out.

The three-day pairs tournament

The bridge party was now over and everyone started to prepare for the three-day pairs tournament. I was playing with my regular partner Maya Lo Björk Heed. All pairs are divided into groups of 13 tables. If you are E/W, you play two boards against all N/S pairs in your group and if you are N/S, it is the other way around. Ola Rimstedt and Antonio Palma won among a total of 292 pairs.

The teams event

After three days of pairs, the teams event was now on the schedule. 129 teams participated, I was playing with friends from my hometown and we did average, but a team that did far from average was “Janet de Botton”. They were in the lead for almost the whole tournament and ended up winning with 189.47 points.

An interesting board from the teams event

One board from the teams event that caught my interest was Antonio Palmas declaring in 2 spades doubled:

Declarer received the lead of the 6 of clubs to the king followed by a switch to the 3 of diamonds.

Opponents were playing 3rd and 5th leads.

Declarer knows that the rounded suits are 4/3 with the opener being 4/4 in hearts and clubs. So, to get more information about the diamonds he played a diamond from dummy at trick 3 and opener followed with the 2.

Now declarer knows that RHO is 1444, so his only chance of losing 1 spade is if he has the queen or the 10 stiff.

The defence took the second diamond trick and played 2 more rounds. Declarer ruffed low and now cashed the ace of spades. When he saw RHO follow with the deuce, he played the 9 of spades from hand, creating a problem for West who didn’t know the shape yet. West was playing for his partner to have Kx or Jx in spades and declarer with an honour in hearts, so he played a low spade, allowing declarer to take 6 spade tricks and the ace of diamonds.

Closing dinner

After the teams competition was decided, a lot of people went to the organised dinner at the VidaMar Hotel. The food was great, but the company was even better. After the dinner and the prize-winning ceremony, everyone danced and enjoyed the last day of the Madeira Festival.

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