Source: English Bridge Union

Tom writes: Born in 1971, I am single and live in Maida Vale. I picked up bridge at home playing three-handed with my parents, then at Wellington College, the Reading Bridge Club and Cambridge University , where I formed a partnership with Jeffrey Allerton.

We both liked five-card majors but I favoured the weak no trump at the time and Jeffrey preferred strong so we tossed for it and he won. I've never played weak since by choice. We played on the British team in the 1994 Junior European which still ranks as my most exciting experience in bridge. We were second going into the final match against France but well behind Denmark. We bid a hand to 3NT with queen-doubleton facing jack-doubleton spade, one down. Worse, the Hackett twins (Justin & Jason) had conceded 6NT, declining to lead the spade ace. This didn't stop us winning our match handily, and our Norwegian friends had blitzed the Danes. I was stunned - we had won the gold! The same team (the others were Danny Davies, Phil Souter, captain Raymond Brock and coach Phil King) went onto Bali the next year to win the World Junior in some comfort. You can see that the 2004 England team is a partial "Class Of 1995" reunion.

I was now playing and writing about bridge professionally. Naturally drawn to the high-stake rubber bridge clubs in London , I spent most of my late-twenties at TGR's in Marble Arch, including an educational spell as the house player in the "Big Game". Various degenerates at the club introduced me to backgammon and punting on sport and horses, all of which I found of interest.

On the duplicate side I was partnering many partners of varying abilities, most successfully David Mossop (two British Premier Leagues and a Spring Fours) and David Price (two Crockfords, one Camrose trial). Price and I were invited to the last Macallan Pairs in 1999. We didn't win but we did play against Omar Sharif, the only thing non-bridge players need to know about my career. I have also won in Indonesia partnering Les Steel , Malta with Robert Sheehan and China with Phil King and Nick Sandqvist, with whom I became a Mind Sports Grandmaster to add to the EBU version. Like a few other experts the domestic trophy that eludes me is the Gold Cup.

2000 started badly. My team lost the final play-off to go to the Olympiad and Price and Mossop had formed a partnership in an entirely understandable joint bid to avoid partnering me. My bridge was getting stale and other activities were beginning to appeal more. I left for 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, to captain the English juniors. They didn't win but some good came out of it. One of the team clearly had outstanding talent and seemed to share my approach to bridge, so I suggested he partner me in the Four Stars teams at Brighton that August. David Gold and I won that event. We formed a regular partnership which we have been working on since, representing England in six Camrose matches without defeat, winning two Tollemaches, the Brighton Bowl, the IMP pairs in Marbella and coming back from 47 IMPs down in our eight extra boards as undefeated team to reach the final of the Spring Fours.  Our efforts were rewarded when we romped home in the 2003/4 team trials with John Armstrong and Danny Davies, qualifying to represent England in the European and Olympiad.