A YOUNG Lytham card player hopes to have plenty of tricks up his sleeve on Sunday. For 13-year-old Oliver Burgess will be one of the youngest bridge-players to represent his county in this weekend's tournament between Lancashire and Cumbria.

Not only that, but his mother Anne has been picked to play too.

Mrs Burgess, who works at Guardian Assurance, said: "I've been playing for years but I've never been chosen for the county before - then again I've never had such a good partner as Olly before.

"He's only been playing for two years but he's already surpassed me." Olly only took up the game, she added, when his sister, 17-year-old Sarah, got fed up of baby-sitting for him when their mother went out to play at Lytham Bridge Club. "I asked Olly if he'd like to come with me, and it all started from there.

"Sarah, on the other hand, doesn't want anything to do with the game at all."

Oliver, of Tennyson Avenue, now hones his card skills by playing three or four times a week, sometimes with his teachers at King Edward VII School, Lytham.

He is one of the youngest master-players in the English Bridge Union and looks set for an ace future.

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