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The Raleigh Sectional Bridge Tournament started on Thursday (yesterday) evening at 7 pm and will last through Sunday.  I am the partnership person; if you need a partner or teammate, i’m the one you call.  Thus, my name is one of two names on all the tournament fliers and publications.

Occasionally, i get calls that are not related to partnerships, either because people know me or couldn’t get an immediate answer from the tournament chair, which is the other number listed on the fliers.

Thursday night, it’s 8:15 pm when my cell phone vibrates in my pocket.  The bridge tournament is in full swing.  I’m in the middle of playing a hand, but i glance at my phone to see who is calling.  The caller ID says “RESTRICTED”.  Of course i can’t answer it, but whoever it was left a message.  A few moments later, i have a short break and step into the hallway to hear the following message.

Hello, i am not looking for a partner, i just need to get in touch with the tournament chair and i was hoping you could give me her phone number.  I don’t want you to have to pay for this call, so i guess i’ll just keep calling and hope you answer next time.

I am immediately amused by several different things all at once:

1. Cell phones are supposed to be off during bridge games (in fact you are penalized if a phone audibly rings).  It’s a fluke that i even had my phone on and noticed this phone call.
2. It is in the middle of a bridge session!  Even if i had my cell phone on, as i did, i can’t just answer the phone in the middle of playing!
3. Restricted?  How am i supposed to call you back and tell you what you need to know when you block your phone number?  Especially when you don’t leave a name or phone number in your message!
4. What century are you living in?  I live in the 21st century, where people have cell phones, all of which offer free long-distance on most calling plans.  You don’t have to worry about whether i will have to pay for the call.
5. Where did you get my phone number from anyway?  My guess is that it was from a flier or email publicizing our tournament (i don’t know where else it could have been from).  Guess what - the phone number you want is listed there right next to mine.

She did in fact call twice more, and of course i was unable to answer both times.  I’m very sorry, nice lady from the previous century.  I hope you found the information you needed.

This should be a fun project - please take a minute to share your immediate reactions to the statements below.

Bridge kind of has its own language.  Sometimes you catch snippets of people’s conversations, and you know the gist of what they’re talking about.  I’ve been aware at times, though, that perhaps my bridge conversations are NOT easy to figure out.

Another bridge blogger is also interested in this, and has compiled a list of sentences you might overhear in a discussion between bridge players.

So tell me, if you heard someone say any of these sentences, what would YOU think was being said?  Please share your thoughts for any or all of these.

1. I didn’t have the right hand to balance with a double!
2. You’re supposed to have a stiff when you splinter.
3. Why didn’t you try a double strip squeeze?
4. I was five, five, two, one with hearts and diamonds.
5. I was trying to save the beer card.
6. We used the VCR to find the grand.
7. I tried to signal for a club, but I only had high spots.
8. Jack third isn’t a real stopper.
9. It was a two-suiter.
10. I couldn’t make it after I got stuck in the dummy.
11. My righty hit it in the pass out seat.
12. Who won the Swiss?

I didn’t make time to blog while we were on vacation.  The un-free internet access didn’t help either.  So here are just some random observations from the trip.

• San Diego was beautiful.  The second day we were there, it rained, and that was the first rain they had seen for 164 days.  The day we went to the zoo, we wore short sleeves and were completely comfortable (until the sun went down).  I was very disappointed to come home and find there was a possible forecast for snow.
• San Diego is expensive.  I knew that going in, but wow.
• Bridge is hard.  I’m a good player, but i just spent a week getting my brains bashed in by people who are better.  I make way too many careless errors.
• Despite the fact that i’m still licking my wounds, i loved the competition at the high levels we played in.  This is the way to get better.  I wish we could attend all the national tournaments.  Alas, after going to two (of three) this year, we might be forced to take a year off.
• We learned this week that we really need to improve our slam bidding.
• The mixed pairs event is pretty funny.  To enter, you need one man and one woman.  I have never seen such a squabbly, bitchy, unhappy bunch.  I think this is what happens when you force men and women to play together.
• Years ago, there used to be a Men’s Life Master (LM) pairs event alongside a Women’s LM pairs event.  The men’s event was the prestigious event that got all the attention, and the women complained.  They wanted to compete in the “real” event, too.  So they got rid of the Men’s event.  Now, the prestigious LM event is open to all.  However, there is still a Women’s event, and it still counts as a national win.  As a woman, i think this is kind of bogus.  If Jeff Meckstroth (arguably the best player in the world) can’t enter your event, can you really claim a national title?  Is this golf, where we tee off from the Women’s tee?  I don’t think anyone will say that outright, but i get the sense that there is an understanding that women need separate events.  And i don’t like it.
• Petco Park was neat.  Our tour guide was an old codger who grew up loving baseball and knew a lot of lore.  These guys make the best guides.  At Wrigley Field, our guide was a girl younger than me.  A tomboy for sure, but she couldn’t make the place come alive.  We’ll take the old guys from now on, please.
• The zoo is everything it’s cracked up to be.  Humongous.  We spent 3+ hours walking around, and my guess is we saw 60% of it, max.
• Our hotel was in walking distance of a lot of great restaurants.  It was a fabulous venue for a big tournament.  The hotel staff did a marvelous job accommodating the bridge crowd.  Bridge players are awful guests, in general, leaving trash everywhere and they can be rude to staff.  I’ve seen hotels get overwhelmed in dealing with bridge players’ needs, and there are more than a few hotels that won’t invite bridge tournaments back.  However, this hotel, the Manchester Grand Hyatt, just absorbed the bridge players like it was nothing.  It was great.

We already have plans to go back in 6 years when San Diego hosts the nationals again.

If you know me at all, you know i’m a bridge fiend.  I normally play twice a week at the local club, and then sometimes on the weekends for nearby tournaments.  And then i ALSO use up my vacation days from work to travel around the country playing bridge.  In fact, Lance and i will be attending the San Diego North American Bridge Championship for 9 days around Thanksgiving.  Yes, for Thanksgiving i will not be with family - i choose bridge instead.  My parents don’t understand this, but i can’t help it.

The average age of bridge players belonging to the American Contract Bridge League is about 70.  And that’s with people like me bringing the average down!  Bridge used to be a staple in college cafeterias.  Now, young people may not even have heard of it.  More commonly, “oh, my parents play, but i never learned.”

So anytime bridge gets some press, i’m excited.  I don’t want this game to die out because no one plays anymore.  And recently the Wall Street Journal published an article about bridge. It starts off:

I am not sure if there are clinics that will help you get over bridge, but if there are not, then perhaps some enterprising entrepreneur will take up the idea. I think it would work, but the problem is that we all know what those admitted would do in their spare time. Exactly.

And somehow I feel it would not work. Addicts have to want to change, and most bridge players I know have no desire to do so.

Any exposure for bridge is good, in my opinion.  There are currently efforts to get bridge back in the schools, the most successful being the Atlanta Junior Bridge program.  Raleigh is attempting to start a junior bridge program as well, but we haven’t gotten our feet off the ground yet.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet (shown at right, playing in a tournament) have even gotten involved in supporting youth bridge.  I hope all of these things help revive a fabulous pastime.

Others writing the Sunday Somethings: Kerry

Something that made me happy this week: Playing bridge with Lance.  He is a wonderful partner, he is pleasant to the opponents, he makes thoughtful bids and plays.  Everything he does is for a reason. (Though i don’t always figure it out!)  I enjoyed playing with ya, sweet thang.

Something i struggled with this week: The partnership desk really makes me mad sometimes.  People are so unbelievable.  Another example from Friday: a guy shows up and says he needs a partner; a few minutes later, another player arrives.  Seems perfect to me.  I introduced them.  After a brief discussion, the first guy now says “Can i talk to Audrey alone for just a minute?” and tells me he would rather not play with this less experienced player.  And he leaves me the awkward job of telling the less experienced player he isn’t wanted.  Sigh.

Something tasty i ate this week: My dad took us out to Shabu Shabu while he was here during the week.  The Tuna Tataki was awesome, and the Wolfpack Roll was awesome-er.

Something i learned this week: To get rid of an ant infestation in your car, get some ant bait, spread black pepper around the floor of the car, and clean thoroughly.

Something from the bridge table: Some friends encountered an unintuitive safety play in the knockouts.

Some things i am doing towards my goals: I “won” the next level of the speaking competition i’m competing in with Toastmasters.  Again, it was by default; this time i had no one to compete against.  They must have heard i was coming. (Yeah, right.)

Something i am reading: Meltdown by Thomas E Woods.

Something happening around the house: We are exhausted after a weekend of bridge.  Neither of us has the energy to do anything, though there are lots of things we should be doing, such as laundry, grocery shopping, cooking meals for the week, not drinking, finishing my photography assignment.

Something i am thinking: Jim and Pam’s wedding on The Office rocked.  It must be cool to be the couple whose wedding inspired an episode of a hit TV show. (If you don’t know what this means, you probably aren’t watching The Office, and if that’s the case, i think you’re missing out.)

Something i am looking forward to next week: Visiting mom & dad in Asheville.  It’s not for a happy reason - i’m helping out my mom while she recovers from a shoulder surgery.  However it will be good to see her.

Something i am hoping: To get back on track with running.  I didn’t run at all this week - i kept saying “after work” or “in the morning” or “tomorrow.”

Something random: This joke made me laugh.

Something captured: This is a bidding box we use for bridge, such as the tournament we played in this weekend.  This allows for silent bidding, which removes ethical problems that can arise with audible bidding (confidant versus resigned, for example).  Isn’t is pretty and colorful?

I am the Partnership Chair for this weekend’s Raleigh Sectional Bridge Tournament.  If you need a partner for any session, contact me, and i will try to match you up with someone else who also needs a partner.  The tournament starts today, and so far i have paired up a dozen people or so.  There will be more work to do during the tournament as people try to find last-minute partners.

It’s somewhat stressful, but i’ve learned that it’s OK to fail.  The partnership desk is a hub, not a guarantee of a partner.  I will match you up with other people who are also looking, but i’m not going to make a dozen phone calls on your behalf.  If you won’t do it for yourself, why should i?

But anyway, based on this year’s tournaments, here is a list of Do’s and Don’t’s for Using the Partnership Desk to Find a Partner.

• DO email or call at least a few days in advance.
• DO leave a phone number as well as an email address.  Email will not help me contact you an hour before gametime Saturday morning when time is of the essence.
• DON’T call me from four hours away the day the tournament starts requiring a guaranteed partner for the next three days or else you won’t come at all.  You might as well have just not called, because there is no way i can guarantee you will have partners.
• DO proactively tell me if you find a partner on your own for a time slot you submitted to me.  Otherwise i may pair you unwittingly with someone else, and then everyone gets confused and agitated.
• DON’T ask me to find you another partner because the one i paired you with plays too many conventions.  Have you ever heard of partnership negotiation?  Just tell him you don’t play four-way transfers and move on!
• DO arrive early to meet your partner/teammates and talk about a convention card.
• DON’T show up late for a partnership i have arranged for you and then be disappointed when i found another partner for that person because you were a no-show.
• DON’T expect me to accommodate your exacting requirements for the type of partner or teammates that you want.  I’m just not going to be able to get you the congenial partner who has an instinct for bridge and doesn’t make mistakes and has something to teach you without being a jerk, who also doesn’t have many points so you don’t have to play in the top strat.  I actually know a player who meets that perfect description, but guess what - he has his pick of partners, so he’s probably not going to play with you.  Sorry.
• DON’T call the Partnership Desk and then turn your nose up at players i suggest to you.  Ever hear the expression “beggars can’t be choosers, bitch”?
• DO understand that if you were difficult to please in previous tournaments, i will probably not go out of my way to help you this time.  And i won’t feel bad about it.

We’re back from the DC Nationals.  We were eliminated from the Spingold Knockout Teams last night.  The session ended at midnight.  We were home at 5 am.  (I take after my father - a road warrior.)  Lance and Malcolm were a great help, talking to me the whole drive to keep me awake.  Things were getting somewhat bleak and we were all tired around 3:30, but someone started a conversation about women bridge players not being as good as men bridge players.  That got my blood boiling enough to keep me awake the rest of the way home.

As i mentioned in my last post, Lance and i entered a 3-day pairs event, the Von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs.  We played well the first day and made the cut (60% were eliminated) to compete in the second day.  On the second day, we were outmatched.  I take most of the blame onto myself - i did not play particularly well.  But the bridge was amazing.  It’s truly a different game to play with people of that caliber.

Our third day, since we were not in the finals of the LM Pairs event, we played 3 sessions of regional pairs.  Nothing went right for us.  One of the fun things, though, was how many people we knew from Raleigh and the Triad who were also there in DC.  We’d have lunch with some folks, run in to a few others at the bridge table, and drink at the bar at the end of the day with even more other folks.  It was pretty fun.

Monday was our final day, and we entered the Spingold Knockout Teams event, another national event.  83 teams entered.  A few teams got byes to the second day, while the rest of us played 4-way matches.  The event is seeded, so when the top 7 teams got byes, the first bracket is seeds 8, 83, 27, 64.  The second bracket is seeds 9, 82, 28, 63.  We were seeded 58th; our bracket contained seeds 14, 77, 33, 58.  In a 4-way match, the two top teams play the two bottom teams for 32 boards, and if you win, you advance.  If you lose, you have to play a second set against the loser of the other match, and the winner of that match also advances.  So three of four move on to the next day.  We thought our chances were pretty good - we weren’t even the lowest seed in our bracket.

The top (14) seed in our bracket contained Steve Robinson, and his team advanced.  Our squad faced Buffalo Bill Pettis (33) and his team.

You play half the boards and then compare with your teammates to see how you’re doing, then you play the final 16.  Lance and i had an awesome first set.  A mistake here or there, nothing too costly.  We bid our games and slams, took our tricks (Lance had an awesome endplay to gain 6 IMPs) and put up some good defenses.  Our opponents, the Buffalo himself, made a couple of errors - didn’t bid what seemed like an obvious slam, and let me make a vulnerable 3NT (which got set FIVE at the other table, for a swing of 15 huge IMPs).  But despite this huge swing, our teammates didn’t bid that “obvious” slam either, and we gave back some of our lead along the way.  Still, after 16 boards, we were up by 2.

Lance and i played extremely solid in the second set as well.  It’s possible that we made no errors in that second set of 16 boards.  We wanted a win.  Knocking off a higher seed, having to call work to say, sorry i can’t come back yet because i’ve advanced in a national bridge event, getting to play a lower seeded team with real chances to advance again… i could taste it.

Alas, it wasn’t to be.  To use a baseball analogy, we pitched extremely well for 9 innings, but got no run support, and ended up losing the game.  By 2 lousy IMPs.

We had a second chance, against the losers of the other match in our bracket.  They were seeded lower than us, so surely we could outmatch them.  In the first half, lance and i played well once again.  The opponents once again did a couple of goofy things, missed a slam, etc.  We seriously thought we were possibly up by 40.  However, we got back to the table and our teammates said “Brace yourselves, it’s bad.”  We were down by 36.  The number of times they went for -200 and -300 were appalling.  We were unable to get it back in the second half.

And so, 15 minutes after midnight, we were in the car for an all-night drive back to Raleigh.

What can you do?  I admit i am disappointed.  I have never felt so locked-in and focused.  As Lance remarked, “Whoa, when i’m really paying attention, it’s like i can see their cards!”

There will be other tournaments, though, and other big events in which we will play well.  I have a few takeaways from this tournament on what i can do to improve.  And i will prove to those boys that women players are not inferior to men!

“They sure give out good babies in XXXXXX, Illinois!”

That’s what my dad tells me every birthday, and i don’t quite feel like it’s my birthday until i’ve heard it.  Yesterday i turned 31, and it was a really great day.  Here’s why:

• It was the first day of a vacation.
• I got to sleep in.
• Heard from both my bros.
• Got to hang out with lance all day, who was sweet to me. (-:
• We competed in a national event and qualified!  The event is three days (six sessions), but you have to qualify for the 2nd and 3rd days.  378 pairs entered the event.  210 were eliminated after the first day.  Lance and i were in the 168 that will compete today in the two semifinal sessions (we were 38th overall, top 10%!).
• I got squeezed by a European expert.  There is just something so elegant about watching someone play the cards well.  It’s like rooting for your favorite football team, but you can’t help but appreciate a nice catch by the other team.  I wish i could play at this level of competition all the time!
• Friends took me out to tasty dinner and sang me happy birthday.  I splurged on cheesecake.
• Lance’s parents left me a voice mail and sang me happy birthday.  The Shulls all have such beautiful voices.
• Had a couple beers with pals after the bridge was over.
• We’re in room 7024 in the hotel!  Birthday room!

The day was almost over by the time i talked to my parents.  But i finally did, and i heard about the good babies, and all was well.

It was a good day!

So it’s 11:30 pm, and i have one more day of work before a five-day vacation.  I should be packing so we can leave as soon as i get home from work.  Instead, i have wasted the evening watching TV and playing bridge online.  It was a lot more fun than packing, i’ll say that!

I watched the first disc, two episodes, of HBO’s True Blood.  I love it.  I have to say i think the lead vampire, Bill, is a LOT sexier than the Edward that was portrayed in the Twilight movie.  The chimistry between Sookie and Bill and amazing.  Sookie Stackhouse is a great name, too.  I’ll have fun with that one.

We played online bridge with another pair we know, one of whom is a world-class player.  I probably shouldn’t presume to question him.  However, he offered one suggestion for our defense, which i’m not sure i agree with.  So i did ask a question.  A damn good one, in my opinion.  Instead of an explanation of why his suggestion would be better, he simply restated it in a different way.  Not helpful, yet who am i to say so?

I’ve spent a couple of weeks trying to find a way to avoid paying $30 per day for parking while we’re in DC.  I had this elaborate plan that involved parking in the suburbs of Virginia and riding the metro, late at night, to the hotel.  Problems with this plan: a) riding the metro late at night could be scary, b) a metro ride would be at least an hour each way, c) leaving my car unattended in “long-term parking” sort of says Please Vandalize Me, but more pressingly d) the metro stops running at midnight, and i’m not sure when we’ll get there.  I guess we’ll pay for parking.

I have drank Diet Sunkist pretty much since i got home from work.  Maybe that’s why i’m so jittery, and blogging instead of packing, or better yet, sleeping.  It is the best drink, ever.  (Well, at least the best non-alcoholic one!)

Did you know they make low-fat ice cream sandwiches?  They have hardly any calories and only count as 2 Weight Watcher points.  Except when you eat three of them.

I wonder if i’ll be able to convince myself to exercise during this vacation?  I’ve never made myself do it on a bridge trip - there never seems to be any time.  Yet i’ve been highly exercise-motivated lately.  We shall see.

I guess that’s enough random crap to share with the world.  (-:

We took the morning off from playing cards and decided to do something around Cincinnati.  Our choices were the Cincinnati Zoo or the Creation Science Museum.

I had no idea the Creation Science Museum was here!  It is something i have heard about - a “museum” where they put things on display that show the “facts” of creationism.  Such as people and dinosaurs living together!  No, i’m not kidding.

I would have loved to see it, but it was twice as far away, so we went to the zoo instead.  It was neat - i always learn something.  And the animals were cute.

One thing that amuses me about people at the zoo.  If they can’t immediately see the animal, they often assume “oh he’s not in there.”  People, the animals are shy!  And often camouflaged!  The Dead Leaf Mantid certainly was in there - in fact, there were many!  All the things that looked like dead leaves were the mantids!

After that, it was back to the bridge tournament, where we proceeded to get our asses stomped all day long.  But hey, i got to see a rhino today!