Patrick D. JOURDAIN |
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Nato il primo novembre del 1942 a Woking una città del Surrey circa 50 km a sud ovest di Londra, amministratore, scrittore, commentatore, giornalista, buon giocatore professionista, Patrick Jourdain ha studiato presso la St. Edwards School di Oxford dove fondò nel suo ultimo anno di permanenza la sezione bridge.
Vinta una borsa di studio in Fisica e Scienze Naturali a Cambridge, è stato il Segretario del locale Bridge Club.
Per il suo primo impiego subito dopo la laurea si trasferì a Cardiff divenendo una figura di riferimento del bridge gallese ed una colonna della nazionale per oltre 60 anni.
Scapolo, per oltre 20 anni Direttore della Scuola di Bridge di Cardiff, dal 1981 al 2002 ha redatto il Bollettino della IBPA che lo ha eletto "Uomo dell'anno" nel 2002 ed è corrispondente del London Daily Telegraph.
Presidente della British Bridge League dal 1995 al 1997 e della Wells Bridge Union nel 1984/85, da oltre dieci anni siede nei Senior Committee della EBL e della WBF.
Commentatore in vu graph delle principali manifestazioni bridgistiche degli ultimi anni, nel 2000 è stata anche capitano non giocatore della Squadra gallese che ha partecipato alle Olimpiadi.
Come giocatore ha partecipato a 7 Campionati del Mondo ed a 3 Campionati Europei, ha vinto diversi titoli gallesi, la Gold Cup nel 1976 ed ha partecipato una settantina di volte al Camrose Trophy (2 per la Scozia); in questa gara è l'unico giocatore che può vantarsi di aver battuto almeno una volta tutte e 5 le Nazioni partecipanti.
Ha anche conquistato un bronzo per la Gran Bretagna nel MEC Seniores a Squadre del 1993 e l'oro nella stessa Categoria alle Olimpiadi IMSA del 2004.
Si è spento il 28 luglio del 2016 dopo una breve battaglia
con un tumore al pancreas.
Patrick David Jourdain
was born on November 1 1942 at Woking, Surrey, and educated at St Edward’s
School, Oxford, where he founded the school bridge club in his last year.
He won a scholarship to
Peterhouse, Cambridge, where, in theory, he read Physics and Natural Sciences,
while actually spending much of his time playing bridge. He was Secretary of the
University Bridge Club and played in the 1964 Varsity match.
The selectors had
promised the winners a match and so Wales fielded Jourdain, its youngest
ever-player at 23, in a match against Northern Ireland in Belfast in early 1966.
For six consecutive decades, Jourdain was a regular on Welsh teams.
In 1973, Jourdain was
promoted by British Steel to run a team in Glasgow, designing computer systems.
Jourdain played two matches for Scotland in 1977, helping the country win the
Home Internationals for the Camrose Trophy. The trophy for the annual bridge
match between Scotland and Wales now bears his name.
In 1976 Jourdain had won
the Gold Cup, the British knockout Championships, and was already earning money
as a writer and teacher of bridge. He therefore decided to switch to bridge
full-time, something that came as a surprise to British Steel, which had him on
a high-flier list for senior management.
Jourdain returned to
Cardiff in 1977 as manager of the city’s main bridge club and bridge
correspondent of the Western Mail. He also became the bridge journalist for
Channel 4’s teletext section on bridge. After re-qualifying for Wales he became
the squad’s most frequent member.
From 1982, when he became
editor of the IBPA’s Bulletin, he also understudied GCH Fox, bridge
correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, reporting for the newspaper from each
World and European Championship.When “Foxy” retired in 1992, retaining the post
of columnist, Jourdain took over as correspondent. On the rare occasions that
bridge made the front page it was mostly owing to scandal.
In 1999 Jourdain was the
key person in the exposure of a Welsh international bridge player as a cheat,
for which he had spent months gathering evidence. At a Welsh National
Championship, witnesses had observed the player exchanging shuffled packs for
prepared decks where he knew every card. At the subsequent hearing, faced with
the irrefutable evidence, the player confessed and was suspended for 10 years.
The story made the front page of The Daily Telegraph and was picked up by the
media throughout the world.His first job after graduation was in operational
research for GKN in Cardiff, which was nationalised as British Steel shortly
after he joined it. In 1965, on the morning the trials for the Welsh Bridge team
were due to start, a player was taken ill. Jourdain was called in as a
substitute, and after a few minutes’ preparation with his partner, Roy Griffin
of Swansea, the pair went on to win the trials.
When a quirky story about
a computer coming fifth in a field of the world’s top bridge players in solving
bridge problems made the front page, Jourdain was exhilarated. “Today,” he told
a friend, “my words have been read by more people than saw Shakespeare when he
was alive!”
At the 2002 World
Championships in Montreal, Jourdain competed against Bill Gates and, at the
Press Awards, was declared Bridge Personality of the Year.
As a journalist there he
achieved a world scoop. At the time bridge was trying to get into Olympic Games
and had adopted the same drug-testing procedures. On the grapevine he heard that
a player had refused a drugs test. Though no name was given, at the prize-giving
banquet he noticed that when the American women’s team went up to get their
medals a player was missing. He located the missing player, who told him that
she had been stripped of her medal for refusing to take the drugs test, asking
him to make the matter public. The story made the front page of The Telegraph.
In 2010 Jourdain was
organiser of the Buffett Cup bridge match between Europe and the US that
preceded the Ryder Cup golf match. Two of the finest bridge teams ever to
compete in Britain saw a win for the US.
In 2014 Jourdain was in
the team that won the first Welsh Premier League. The team represented Wales in
the Commonwealth Nations Bridge Championship and won the gold medal. The same
team was selected for the 2015 Camrose Home Internationals, finishing a narrow
second to the Republic of Ireland.
Jourdain was co-author
with Terence Reese of Squeeze Play is Easy (1980) and on his own wrote Play the
Game Bridge (1990), The Daily Telegraph Easy Guide to Acol Bridge (2005) and
Patrick Jourdain’s Problem Corner (2009). At the Cardiff School of Bridge, where
he was principal, he taught more than 1,000 people to play.
Unmarried, Jourdain was a
social golfer, a tennis player and a strong Christian who had served as a “boat
boy” when very young and continued all his life to sing (bass) in church at
festivals and to attend the annual All Saints’ Day service on his birthday. Hi
disappeared 2016, July 28 after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.
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