Andrew Robson Explained

Andrew Robson OBE
Birth Name:Andrew Michael Robson
Occupation:Bridge player, teacher, club owner
Nationality:British
Period:1988–present (as player)
Subject:Contract bridge instruction

Andrew Michael Robson OBE (born 1964) is an English professional bridge player, writer and teacher. He is a British and English international.[1] Robson is the bridge columnist for The Times and Country Life.[2] He was a member of the Great Britain Juniors team that won the World Youth Team Championship in 1989, and of the Great Britain Open team that won the European Open Teams Championship in 1991.[3] He is from London.

Personal life

Robson attended Abingdon School as a dayboy in Randolph House from 1977 to 1982. He obtained a BSc at the University of Bristol in 1985, and a Cert Ed the following year.[4] In 2001 he suffered serious injuries when he slipped on ice when hill-walking in the Lake District and fell thirty feet. He broke many bones, spent two months in hospital and was in a wheelchair for much longer. Robson was able to return to the bridge table five months after the accident, the speed of his recovery astonishing his doctors. As a result, he received the International Bridge Press Association (IBPA) Sportmanship Award in 2002 "for his spectacular recovery from adversity". He was also the joint winner of the IBPA's Bridge Personality of the Year award in 2013.[5]

He is married and has two daughters.[6]

Bridge career

As well as winning the World Youth Team Championship in 1989 Robson was also a member of the team which won the junior Common Market Championship the same year, on both occasions partnering John Pottage.[6]

On turning 25, later that year, he was no longer eligible for junior events, and Tony Forrester proposed that they should form a partnership. This lasted for seven years and was highly successful. They were part of the team which won the European Open Championship in 1991, and amongst the pairs events which they won were the prestigious Cap Gemini and Sunday Times-Macallan.[6]

After his partnership with Forrester broke up, Robson played on a number of occasions with Zia Mahmood, with whom he won the Cap Gemini two more times. He has also partnered David Bakhshi, with whom he won the Gold Cup in 2002, and Alexander Allfrey, who was a teammate when he won the Gold Cup a second time in 2004. Robson has since had five further wins in 2007, 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2014.[7] He has also played a large amount in the United States, partnering Rita Shugart. In 1998 he was the first Briton, with teammate Forrester, to win a prestigious US Major, the Reisinger, and the same squad won the event a second time the following year.[8]

In 2014 he and Forrester revived their partnership, and played together as part of the England team in that year's European Open Championship. The team finished third, thereby winning the bronze medal and qualifying for the finals of the 2015 World Championships.[9]

As well as his daily column in The Times, Robson writes a column for the weekly magazine Country Life. In the past he has also written for The Oldie, The Spectator and the Express on Sunday.[10]

In addition to the books that Robson has written (see Bibliography below), in 2008 he produced a DVD entitled Play Modern Bridge, and he is also responsible for five instructional CDs.[11] [12]

He opened his own bridge club, The Andrew Robson Bridge Club, in London in 1995.[13]

Robson has put his training as a schoolteacher to good use by heading many instructional seminars around the UK, as well as hosting master classes and charity bridge events and teaching at his club.[6]

He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to bridge and charity. Later the same year he was the joint winner of Personality of the Year at the International Bridge Press Association's annual awards, together with Netherlands' Bauke Muller.[14]

In 2018 he was a winner of the English Bridge Union's Diamond Award, introduced to recognise players "in recognition of excellence and success over a sustained period for England's international teams".[15]

Bridge accomplishments

Wins

Runners-up

Bibliography

Videography

See also

Notes and References

  1. News: Pointers for a Favorite Player, in Books or 365 Days a Year . . Phillip . Alder . 16 December 2009 . 11 July 2011 . 17 March 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140317113432/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/crosswords/bridge/17card.html . live .
  2. News: Pointers for a Favorite Player, in Books or 365 Days a Year . The New York Times . Alan . Truscott . Alan Truscott . 19 March 2001 . 11 July 2011 . 4 November 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141104113910/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/arts/bridge-californians-take-pairs-title-at-nationals.html . live .
  3. http://www.worldbridge.org/people/ World Bridge Federation people finder
  4. http://www.bris.ac.uk/media-library/sites/alumni/documents/nonesuch/nonesuch_spring_2006.pdf Nonsuch, the University of Bristol Magazine, Spring 2006, page 12
  5. http://www.worldbridge.org/Data/Sites/1/media/documents/tourn/13bali/onlinebulletin/IBPAAwards.pdf 2013 IBPA Awards
  6. http://www.ebu.co.uk/general/biographies/players/andrewrobson.htm EBU site profile of Andrew Robson
  7. News: Most Gold Cup Wins . Bridge Great Britain . 16 December 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20141219220957/http://www.bridgewebs.com/bgb/4%20Gold%20Cup%20Wins.pdf . 19 December 2014 .
  8. http://www.acbl.org/nabc/2008/03/bulletins/db8.pdf 81st Fall North American Bridge Championships Daily Bulletin, Number 8, p11.
  9. Daily Telegraph, "Bridge News", 3 July 2014, p28.
  10. http://www.arobson.co.uk/about_ar.php?pid=about About Andy Robson
  11. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Play-Modern-Bridge-Andrew-Robson/dp/B0012YW2CM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312576185&sr=8-1 Amazon UK entry for Play Modern Bridge DVD
  12. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dvideogames&field-keywords=Andrew+Robson&x=16&y=17 Amazon UK entry for Andrew Robson CDs
  13. http://www.arobson.co.uk/about_theclub.php?pid=about Andrew Robson Bridge Club
  14. Daily Telegraph, "Bridge News", 27 September 2013, p34.
  15. English Bridge, February 2019, p36.
  16. Web site: Gold Cup Winners . 31 July 2016 . 7 March 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160307035845/http://www.bridgewebs.com/bgb/Gold%20Cup%20Roll%20of%20Honour.htm . live .
  17. Web site: Mitchell BAM Winners . ACBL . 31 July 2016 . 14 October 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20171014034457/https://web3.acbl.org/nabcwinners?event=Mitchell+Open+Board-a-Match+Teams . live .
  18. Web site: Reisinger Winners . ACBL . 31 July 2016 . 16 June 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180616054045/https://web3.acbl.org/nabcwinners?event=Reisinger+Board-a-Match+Teams . live .
  19. Web site: Mixed BAM Previous Winners . ACBL . 31 July 2016 . 3 June 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160603063126/https://web3.acbl.org/nabcwinners?event=Mixed+BAM+Teams . live .

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