Many congratulations to Tom Hanlon, who yesterday became the first Irish player ever to be elected to the European Bridge League (EBL) Hall of Fame.
The induction took place at the Opening Ceremony of the European Championships in Riga, and Tom is pictured below with EBL President Eric Laurent and Kathrine Bertheau of Sweden, who was also elected to the Hall. This is a wonderful achievement for Tom, and clear recognition of the esteem in which he is held by his peers and by the European bridge authorities.
Tom is Ireland’s most capped player, and is closing in on a century of caps. He graduated straight from the Juniors to the Open Team in 1994, and has the distinction of being our youngest ever Grand Master. Very popular and highly regarded worldwide, Tom has represented Ireland in pretty much every year since his junior debut in 1986. He has won all our major national titles, most of them on multiple occasions, and more than fifty in total. Internationally, his achievements include:
- 2006 Silver medal in the European Championships in Warsaw
- 2007 Bermuda Bowl in Shanghai
- 2012 Semi-finalist in the World Championships in Lille
- 2013 Silver medal in the Cavendish Teams; fourth in European Transnational Pairs partnering John Carroll
- 2017 Winner of Copenhagen Invitational Pairs partnering Vince Demuy
- 2023 Bermuda Bowl in Marrakech
Tom is also a multiple winner of the Camrose Trophy and the French Open League, has won the prestigious EBU tournaments the Lederer Trophy (several times) and the Spring Fours, and has many strong performances to his name in the US, including in the Vanderbilt and Spingold.
Away from the table, Tom has given a great deal to bridge, supporting and developing the game in many areas. He was an integral part of the player effort to expose the high-level cheaters who were such a blight on the game during the 2000-2015 period (in several of Tom’s podium finishes, including Warsaw in 2006, he was defeated by teams or pairs subsequently revealed to have been cheating). He continues to serve on our domestic Tournament & Play Committee. And in his early days in particular, Tom devoted considerable time to training juniors, and has consistently played in international events with emerging talented players.
In spite of his extensive commitments as a full-time professional player, Tom continues to support as many national and club events as he can – he is a proud and popular member of the Regent Bridge Club in Dublin. At these events, Tom always obliges participants with answers to their bridge queries and advice about systems, as well as entertaining them with stories from tournaments abroad. His enthusiasm for bridge and his consistent drive toward improvement makes him a very natural promoter of the game. Tom was also the bridge correspondent for the Evening Herald newspaper for many years.
His partnership with Hugh McGann was at the core of many of Ireland’s bridge achievements, and, since Hugh left for foreign parts, Tom has built an extremely successful partnership with another player who graduated seamlessly from the junior ranks, Conor Boland. Tom has also had many successes in partnership with John Carroll.
We sure all Irish bridge players will join us in congratulating Tom, and we will mark his achievement in due course. We hope that he had a celebratory drink or two last night. But we’re sure it was not too many, because there is of course the matter of continuing to attempt to qualify for next year’s World Championship (Bermuda Bowl, to be held in Barbados). The top eight teams from the European Championships qualify automatically for the Bowl. We currently lie in sixth place, having already played quite a few of the stronger teams in the tournament. However, there are no easy matches in an event like this, so there’s plenty more hard work to be done before the final results will be available on July 7.
The Women’s, Mixed, and Seniors events all start today, so best of luck to the Irish teams there too. You can watch their progess of all four of our teams by clicking on the relevant results tab here.