The Mountainview Bridge club has games every Tuesday at 1 p.m. in Mountainview’s Catalina Room. Bring your own water and mask. For further information, contact club president JoAnn Aiken, at (520) 256-2702 or email jotax123@aol.com . Check out our website, visit www.bridgewebs.com/mountainview.
We’ll be seeing the Director at our table if we need clarification, but he may not look like a statue.
Some of us will continue to play bridge online at virtual games, ACBL pairs and other competitive venues as well as casual games with friends.
One recent article by Rick Roeder in “Bridge Bulletin” suggests we may think of songs when we play bridge. For example, “Partner made a weak jump overcall—in your void. LHO’s reopening double is passed around to you. Time for a rescue redouble. ABBA’s S.O.S. starts playing with two exceptions: those born in Jersey hear the Boss’ BORN TO RUN. Fans of Roy Orbison’s three-octave vocal range revel in RUNNING SCARED.”
Roeder goes on to mention other songs for frustrating situations during play. Some songs included “Born to be Wild,” “Celebration” and “Dream On.”
Maybe listening to music while we play competitive bridge will help us.
Meanwhile, Augie Boehm discussed bidding in an unbalanced partnership, where one player is much stronger than partner. He said, “shed conventions that have low frequency and high complexity.” Another bit of advice from Boehm, “Don’t throw partner a knuckleball and expect it to be caught.”
Sometimes, a simple bid is easier to understand.
Another contributor to the magazine, Robert Todd, compared 2/1 with Standard American bidding. “Playing 2/1 may seem complicated, but this system simplifies the rest of your agreements… More importantly, instead of needing a series of rules or possibly pages of agreements about which bids are forcing, you solve that problem with your first call. Once we have initiated a 2/1 sequence, we know partner cannot pass below game.
Whatever venue we choose, playing bridge will continue to stimulate and challenge us.
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