Bridge tip of the week,

When a good declarer starts to think it is incumbent on a good defender to try and work out exactly what they are thinking about. There in lies the art of good defence.

General Ellis , the art of war in bridge, chapter one.

AYE, AYE GENERAL ELLIS. I’M WITH YOU!

JKW

Judy,

As you know, I sit over the other side of the fence. I believe I once described to you a friend, and exactly once a partner, who explained to me that the reason for his slothfulness, which he believed to be thoughtfulness, was that he started each round of bidding and/or play with contemplations on what if the suit broke whatever was mathematically left to none. And he did that for each suit. For each bid. And then for each play. The man is a paragon of nice …. but playing with him, or just behind him in a pairs game is (or at least was, back when I was playing) legal recourse to assault and battery.

Despite my penchant for hurried and thoughtless play, I recognize that some people DO think out their various courses of action. And they should be allowed a reasonable amount of time to do this. But the elastic nature of reasonability has to have a common baseline in a social game. Compromises have to be met. Thus, the alleged fact that Bridge is a timed event. I even wrote a Bridge Clock program to provide the local club(s) that capability, especially when a harried director might be filling in playing or running around handling various situations.

I played chess. I liked chess rather a lot and played it at a decent level against players who eventually were amongst the best in Canada whilst I was in high school. I played second board, but quit the game rather cold turkey after playing against the school that won the national high school championship that year. I spent most of ninety minutes staring at the pointy little noggin of my opponent that day. When the game was over (a draw), I looked at my clock. Fourteen minutes consumed by my plays, 76 minutes watching him think.

Omar Sharif said it best about Bridge. “Bridge is a beautiful little puzzle every hand, to be solved in about seven minutes. Then you move along to the next problem.” Now, I THINK he was refering to moving on to the next hand, not the next bid or play [G]. I certainly hope so.

As to the boorish lady in question, a sweet “Where to put my World Championship trophy. Where do you put yours?” would have sufficed. I think.

Appreciative as always for your point of view,

A descenting voice.

Dear Gary:

I always appeciate your input from North of the Border and know you could fill a few books from your experiences with the ACBL.

I just don’t take kindly to rudeness (from partner or opponents) or poor ethics at the table and won’t and do not tolerate it. The majority of the people at the club level play for fun or to kill time — especially in retirement areas although there are a few very good partnerships where we play. I take it very seriously and the day I don’t, I will be totally senile or six feet under. I am not a proponent of just tossing cards — and never will be.

Most of the problems at the club level are caused by the directors not being qualified to give rulings other than those standard ones straight from the book (and it has come to light that some are not even there for the reading).

Many rulings involve judgment. experience and expert knowledge of the game but the ACBL has never really taken that seriously at the club level although master points are still sanctioned.

But, when I have a problem and give it extra time, I still think it is something the average player would not consider. Being married to two HOFers gives you a lot of food for thought and at 76, my brain is not as agile as it was in my youth. It’s not a Nascar race — as they say — Just a Game — but SOME game it is!

Judy,

While I know that I’ve seen you at some tourneys over the years, I don’t remember that you ever had the misfortune to speak w/ me.

Anyway, I regurgitated violently when I saw that you violated my bridge-related rights to all forms of the word “nausea”. BTW, that includes in all 6 states of matter — solid, liquid, gas, plasma, Bose-Einstein condensate, and the most foul smelling one commonly known as New Jersey — as well as any others that may be discovered in the past, present, or future.

Of course, this is all well established under the right of preemptive domain. My royalty fee is either $0.01 (US) or 1,000,000 Masterpoints (ACBL) per usage. In this case, the damages also include one dinner. That is another $0.99 (US) or 99,000,000 Masterpoints (ACBL).

I immediately contacted my attorneys, Shyster & Shyster, LLC (Losing Lawyers Corp.). In keeping w/ their tradition, they advised that I would lose because of a note, which I unfortunately appended to one of my non-bridge Facebook page (Al the Plumber) treatises:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/?id=160535467294012&sk=basic#!/notes/al-the-plumber/proofreading-is-a-dying-art-these-days/120163668037478

Otherwise, in light of the superb quality of legal research, I doubt anyone ever would have known about this law. Naturally, Congress never has any idea what is in the laws that they pass either.

OK, so you got away with it. I guess I can’t retire or become the ACBL MP leader yet!

—–

To quote that old psycher, Arte Johnson, “Verrrrry interesting!”

When I went to FB to get the above link, a copy of Explorer was on my impersonal personal page (brilliantly named “Allan Stauber”). When I clicked on my pending notifications and refreshed the page or whatever, guess who they put up as a suggested friend w/ 21 mutual friends???

Robin Kay!!!!!!!!!!

I think you are related to her, but my hunch is that you would know a lot better than I would.

—–

I would like to get to the topic under discussion by you and the others, but I try very hard to remain irrelevant to the world. In addition, I just got a shocking e-mail from Zeke Jabbour. He has hoodwinked some victim into playing w/ me in today’s Parkinson’s Disease Pro-Am Benefit. In case, you are wondering, I’m supposed to be the Pro part of this. Apparently, Zeke sent this only to me:

Hi Al,

(… a bunch of directions)

Shave,wear clean underwear and bring a jacket.

Z

—

What a fussy ingrate!

Since it’s 4:00 AM, I’m getting to bed so I can do all that stuff in the morning. BTW, does anyone know if any stores in the Palm Beach area have sales on razors, blades, shaving cream, underwear, and jackets today?

Signing off,

Al the Plumber

Dear Al the Plumber:

What a delightfully amusing comment to help open my eyes this lovely Sunday Morning. I am not sure I know you, but your sense of humor gave me a boost, And, yes, of course, I am related to Robin Kay, who sensibly has given up bridge for poker and has no regrets. Each of us is entitled to name our own poison, but it is a shame that with such good genes (Norman’s, of course) that she chose to go off in another direction.

Good luck today. Instead of the proverbial basket to have gifts dropped in, bring your drain pipe. Should work as well.

Cheers,

Judy