Pictures of Winners and featuring Herbie Rowley, WBU President, courtesy of Jennifer Wardell who kindly acted as official photographer, together with others by Simon Gottschalk.
From Simon Gottschalk
WELSH SENIORS CONGRESS MAY 2015
The Welsh Seniors congress was held in Llangollen this year. This made the event more accessible to bridge players from North and Mid Wales and there were a few new faces amongst the regulars.
This was the first year I was old enough to play in the Seniors’ event and having been Tournament Organiser for the last years’ event in Newport it was nice just to play!
Having successfully reached 60, it has been suggested that I get out more and see the countryside as I spend too much time sitting in-front of a computer and playing bridge. So I set my “sat-nav” to find the “shortest route” to Llangollen and left a day early! It was 128 miles and a 4.5 hour route that took me away from all sensible A roads and provided stunning views of the Welsh Valleys, the Marches and other parts of Wales that I didn’t know existed. After 75 miles I arrived at the village of Llanddewi (Powys), the centre of operations for the Welsh Bridge Union. I stopped off for a coffee with the WBU CEO Neville Richards and soon found myself in-front of a computer looking at a “software problem”. 3 hours later I proceeded on my way to Llangollen.
Steve, my long suffering bridge partner and friend for the last 41 years had also arrived off the ferry from the Isle of Man, so we had time for a system discussion and a practice session at the Borders bridge club near Shrewsbury. After the customary system changes (this is not recommended the day before an event), we had a good practice session. This reserved most of our bidding accidents to the main event, much to the amusement of the Tournament Director Sarah Amos who was called often to our table!
The Bryn Howell Hotel is in a great location next to the Llangollen canal. Its 1.75 miles to the amazing aqueduct at Trevor and 2.5 miles the other way to Llangollen itself. For cyclists and walkers there is a lot to see and do.
The Welsh Seniors congress is a great event and there were visitors from all over the UK and I look forward to meeting everyone again next year.
Simon Gottschalk
Vale of Glamorgan
Full text including a personal analysis of board 24 WELSH SENIORS CONGRESS MAY 2015