Bruce was born in 1948 in Brisbane. For the first part of his working life he was an IT professional, but later worked in the financial services industry in a wide variety of roles. He is now retired, but in addition to playing bridge, was involved in bridge administration from 2004 to 2018. He was President of the Australian Bridge Federation between 2014 and 2018. He lives in Sydney with his wife Chris and their dog.
His uncle, Donald Neill, was a leading player in Brisbane and later Sydney. He interested the rest of the family in the game. The Neills are very much a bridge playing family with both his mother, Barbara (now deceased), and his sister, Sue Lusk, representing Australia on International Women’s teams. Bruce met the game at secondary school and fell in love with books like Card Play Technique by Mollo & Gardner, Reese on Play, and Edgar Kaplan’s book on the Kaplan-Sheinwold system.
When he first moved to Sydney in the 1970s, he used to spend Sunday afternoons and evenings playing rubber bridge with and against Tim Seres and Dick Cummings, two of Australia’s greatest players ever. As well as being tough, it was fast – he once counted up that they had played 180 hands that day! These days he just plays National events about once a month and, if he’s lucky, an overseas event every year or two.
Over the years he has won a significant number of Australian Championships.
Major International Appearances/Representation
APBF Australian Open Team: Tokyo 1979, Hong Kong 1983, Sydney 1985, Seoul 2005
WBF Olympiad Australian Open Team: Rhodes 1996, Istanbul 2004
WBF Bermuda Bowl Australian Open Team: Shanghai 2007 (quarterfinals)
WBF Senior Bowl: Australian Senior Team: Estoril 2005, Lyon 2017.
Asia Cup: Australian Senior Team: Wu Yi, China, 2014; Goa, India 2018.
APBF Australian Senior Team: 2009, 2017.
