Brian Senior


Brian R. Senior is a professional bridge player and writer from Nottingham. He has represented Great Britain, England, Northern Ireland and Ireland in international competition and has won all the major English Bridge Union competitions. Senior is also the editor and publisher of the annual official world championship book, under World Bridge Federation auspices.
Senior played once in the World Team Olympiad, on the Ireland open team in 1988, which finished 15–16th in a field of 56.
Asked to name the bridge success "closest to your heart" in April 2014, Senior recalled one of the few Camrose Trophy match wins for Northern Ireland against England—but he has since played one of the few match losses for England against Northern Ireland.
Since 23 August 2019, Senior has been Saturday bridge columnist for The Daily Telegraph.

Selected works

  • Clever Bridge Tricks
  • Master Counting, Master Bridge series – published in association with Peter Crawley
  • Directing a Club Duplicate
  • Weak Two Bids, Bridge Players Handbook
  • Bread and Butter Bidding, Maxwell Macmillan Bridge series
  • Over Your Shoulder: Learn from the experts, Tony Forrester and Senior
  • Raising Partner
  • Step-by-step Card Play in Suits
  • The Amazing Book of Bridge: How to master the arts of the greatest of card games
  • Play These Hands with Brian Senior
  • Hand Evaluation in Bridge
  • It's Your Lead, How to Play Bridge series
  • Practise Your Cue-bidding Bridge Plus Practice series
  • It's Your Call: Bidding problems answered by international panel
  • Competitive Bidding, How to Play Bridge series
  • Conventions Today, Better Bridge Now
  • Practise Your Trump Coups
  • Suit Contracts: Essential Bridge Plays
  • ''Simply the Best - 20 of the Greatest Bridge Players of All Time''

    Nevena Senior

Brian's wife Nevena Mihaylova Senior is a world champion ladies bridge player and a regular participant in European and world championship tournaments since the late 1980s. As Nevena Deleva she played for the Bulgaria women at least to 1993. She won the 1987 European Women's Pairs Championship partnering with Matilda Poplilov. She was playing captain in the European championships. They won bronze medals in the 1988 World Team Olympiad and placed 13th in 1992. By 2000 she played for the England women, who won the same event in both 2008 and 2012. For the Venice Cup, or odd-years world teams championship, England has qualified with Senior a member of the six-person team in 2003, 2011, and 2013, finishing fourth and second on the latter occasions.
Sometime prior to the 2014 European and world meets, Nevena Senior ranked 18th among 73 Women World Grand Masters by world masterpoints. At least for the SportAccord World Mind Games in December 2011, where the England women were second in a four-team showcase, Senior played with Heather Dhondy, recently the 3rd-ranking Grand Master by masterpoints.