Year Two

I haven't written for awhile, but I have been busy playing bridge.  A few things have happened since last summer . . . Julie and I have established a solid partnership. We learn from each other, don't get upset by each other's mistakes, and mostly we have fun.  I am much more confident in my bidding and my play, and we sometimes join the Friday evening games (we were intimidated at first by the level of play, but now we don't care).  We've had some good games where we actually got master points.  Some things have remained the same . . . most of the people at the club are very nice and a lot of fun, but some are grumpy.  There's so much to keep track of that I lose my train of thought sometimes and make mistakes that I shouldn't make because I know better.  My bidding is still too conservative.  And while we have some good games, we also still have some not-so-good games.

Last Thursday included a little bit of all of this.  The play at our table was so crazy I didn't know what to think.  Here's one thing that happened:  During one game, I had five nice spades and was getting ready to bid them when my RHO bid spades.  This was disappointing, but I bid something else instead and we got the contract.  My LHO played, the board came down, and my RHO said, "Something is not right here."  I thought she meant that our bidding was way off (which was possible, I guess), but then she said that she had some of the same cards in her hand that were in dummy!  It turns out she had taken her cards from the other board.  I was sure this had never happened before in the history of bridge, but when we called the director over she said that she's seen it all and seen this particular scenario more than once.  Our opponent exchanged her cards and play continued, even though we were in the wrong contract and did not do well.  Our opponents felt badly and tried to give us an extra trick but the director said "no."  

And then we played with another pair and things were going smoothly when suddenly one of the opponents started to vigorously erase something on her card.  She erased and erased, picking up her card and blowing on it, and erased some more.  I watched Julie become increasing distracted and was not surprised when she suddenly blurted out, "What the hell are you doing??"  Our opponent explained that she had written the wrong score down previously and was correcting it.  I didn't say anything.

That gives you an idea about how our afternoon went, and we could only laugh.  Playing bridge is never boring.