Education

I played with a new partner yesterday--well, he was kind of new. We had played bridge together once before, and many years ago we used to hang out with the same group of people and play volleyball. Darryl's suggestions the first time we played were the reason that Julie and I now play DONT, bid controls in response to a 2 club opening, and changed some of our No Trump responses. I was looking forward to playing and learning more.

It started out a little rough. I sat down at the table eager to show Darryl that I could play. Don't be a wimp, I told myself. Be aggressive! Take the bid! Go to game! Don't let the opponents push you around! You can guess the result. Darryl softly said "you didn't really have another bid" and I settled down.

That afternoon I learned some things about play and bidding. The most important lesson, though, came from watching an A player's approach to the game. I know enough about bridge now to be able to think about moves that previously seemed almost magical. Questions like "Where did that bid come?" and "Why isn't he getting trump off the table?" have changed to questions like "What did the opponents' bids tell him that I missed?" and "How did he know where the king was?" What Darryl and other good players do--take in and use all of the information that is revealed during bidding and the opening lead--is my goal. Of course I also need to work on counting cards, bidding, opening leads, defense, offense...