Electronic Scorers

A while ago Julianne (aka Julie) and I played bridge at another club, and upon returning to Grand Rapids we met her husband for dinner at Thousand Oaks Golf Club.

"It was a lot more expensive," I said. Phil, who had spent that afternoon playing golf, looked interested.

"Really? How much was it?"

"Five dollars!"

"You played all afternoon for five dollars?" He chuckled, probably thinking about the expense of playing golf. "What does it cost in Grand Rapids?"

"Three-fifty."

"You can't beat that," he said.

This conversation came to mind because our club has just raised the playing fee to $4.00. The extra fifty cents will go toward electronic scorers and a duplicating machine. I am really looking forward to those scorers, which should help keep my emotions stablized. Let me explain.

It seemed like Julianne and I were doing okay at yesterday's game. Not outstanding, but decent. Twice I was able to use a bidding strategy that Darryl had recommended a couple of weeks ago, and both times this put us in the right contract. Another time I ended up playing five diamonds, doubled, and I made it. We were using "travelers" to keep score, which meant that after each board we could see what others had done up to that point. All three of these boards were looking good. Some of the other hands were also good and some not so good, which confirmed our feeling that were were doing okay. For us, that meant a percentage somewhere in the mid-forties.

Imagine our dismay at the end of the evening when we were at 38%. Discouraged and baffled, we reluctantly agreed to go out with the group for drinks. As we all sat around the table at the restaurant, chatting and talking about the hands of the evening, I decided to bring up the jewel of my evening. Five diamonds, doubled, had to be a good board, I thought. If I hear what others did on that hand, maybe I'll feel better.

The print-out showed that we had minus 550 points instead of plus.

"Joanne!" Upon this horrifying discovery I immediately called the director, who was sitting at the other end of the table and into a different conversation. "There's been a mistake!"

"We can fix it. What's wrong?" Joanne spoke calmly, apparently in an attempt to soothe my panic. I explained what had happened. "I've already adjusted that. In fact, there were two mistakes. Your score went up."

Our percentage ended up in the mid-forties, which is okay for us on a Friday evening (those are tougher games). So I look forward to those electronic scorers, which should make things easier and keep my pulse stabilized by being more accurate.

Although, now that I think of it, the numbers do have to be put in manually so there's still the possibility of human error. Hmm . . .