July Bridge Letter 2009
While we are waiting for the summer to arrive we are enjoying looking through the travel brochures. I think it is a close call between The Sunrise Queen and the Hotel Iberostar Albatross, both look excellent and the usual good deal from Bridge Overseas.
June’s issue of the English bridge magazine has 2 good articles on the pros and cons of the Multi Two Diamond Opener. A bid that usually generates lots of heat and little light on club evenings.
www.ebu.co.uk
We are all aware that hesitation is wrong but lots of bridge players find it difficult not to show their feelings with their body language. Players should gently remind the offender that hesitations are not allowed and all players must try to keep a smooth pace to the bidding without inflection in their voice or actions, such as a shrug or other body language. You cannot “strum” the table or touch bidding box. When considering a call, you must remain quiet and try to decide on your action as quickly as possible.
In the same vein, passing quickly, flipping your cards on the table in a “lets get this hand over” style, or verbal “Oh Dears” or like comments, are all signals or unauthorized information.
All these actions can be observed in most bridge clubs any day of the week and apart from being against the laws of bridge are also against the spirit of the games and can be daunting to new players.
Glossary
Table feel (also table presence)
Drawing inferences from the behaviour of the opponents (which is legal) or of partner (which is illegal), other than their calls and plays.
Teammate
Player on the same team; sometimes, one of the players on one's team at the other table.
Telephone number
four-figure penalty.
Tempo
(1) the time (in terms of tricks during the play) needed to take an action or to execute a plan;
(2) the opportunity to lead at any point during the play;
(3) the speed at which a player executes a call or play.
Third from even, low from odd
An opening-lead method in which the third highest card is led from even length, the lowest card from odd length; part of (and the most distinctive feature of) Journalist leads against suit contracts.
Third hand
(1) The player third to have the opportunity to bid.
(2) The player third to play to a trick.
Third hand high
A principle of card play from whist.
Thirteener
(slang) A card held when all other players have been exhausted of cards in its suit.
Threat
Menace.
I came across this article written by Erle Stanley Gardner
whom I had only heard of as a detective writer , but when I read this I thought that of course Bridge is the ideal panacea for the problems he writes about!
Erle Stanley Gardner
As society changes, it generates new problems and then, sometimes, their solutions.
Much of this cycle has to do with speed.
Messages once delivered by runners, then the pony express, then the telegraph, now flash around the globe over the Internet.
People have moved by foot, by horse, by automobile; longer distances were covered by boat or train, now by airplane.
Business machines have achieved calculation, data entry and correction, printing and copying at ever increasing speeds.
Almost everything today has been speeded up so much compared to earlier times, and the increases have come so quickly, that it is difficult for most people to relax.
Few people caught up in a world that moves at a pace for which their earlier life has left them unprepared can simply forget their problems.
They appear too pressing, too urgent, too important.
To avoid the negative effects of continually living with stress, it is critical to find alternative activities that will fully occupy the mind.
Ordinary pursuits that lack intellectual power and mental action will not do; they will not provide the punch needed to move one's consciousness to another environment.
Those who cannot find satisfactory ways to provide a break from their usual state of mental stress may be forced to seek refuge in dangerous alternatives, such as sleeping pills.
What form of activity can serve safely as therapy for the strains of modern life?
It must be something that is exciting and intriguing enough to drive ordinary problems out of one's mind.
It must focus attention.
It must be totally engrossing.
If you can find such an activity, you will have a key to unlock the secret of mental repose.
The more and the more deeply you think, the more you will be exposed to the high pressures of dealing with the speeding world, and the more you need an alternative that has fascinations deep enough to distract you.
Pattie Dupree
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