Good Things

A few weeks ago on a Friday evening, Julie played bridge with another partner.  A player from Kalamazoo, used to seeing the Julie-Margaret partnership, wondered what was going on.

"Where's Margaret tonight?" Beth asked.

"She's doing something with her boyfriend," Julie replied.

"Her boyfriend!"  Beth was astonished.  "I've never heard anything about a boyfriend.  I've heard and read about her cat, but nothing about a boyfriend."

Apparently they then discussed that Randy should get at least a little print time, especially considering all of the Halloween pictures I posted of Amadeus.  I'm not sure that this conclusion is valid, since he's been in the Grand Rapids Press a lot lately (he's a musician) AND he did not dress up for Halloween, but here you go.  I bring this up now because yesterday evening I was again out with him instead of playing bridge.

However, I did play bridge on Wednesday afternoon.  Julie and I had a good game, coming in first in C and first in B in our section (you know how much I like being first!).  Some things come to mind about this game.

First, I thought that one of our top boards was the result of making an extra trick.  I was the declarer on this particular hand and one of our opponents, a top player, made a mistake in defending and threw off the wrong card.  How clever I am, I thought, in playing all of my trumps at the end rather than just giving up my loser.  This way, my "loser" became a winner.  While this was a good thing, when I checked the scores I discovered that this extra trick was not the deciding factor in giving us a top board.  It turns out that we were just in a better contract than everybody else.  Also a good thing.

Second, we learned another nuance of the never-ending rules of bridge.  Julie was the declarer and was on the board; however, she pulled a card out of her hand.  "You're on the board," I said, but I didn't say it quickly enough.  Both of our opponents said, "I accept it."  We didn't really want it accepted, since playing out of her hand cost us an extra trick, but we had no choice.  It turns out that if the declarer has the card in the played position, meaning almost on the table (or on the table, of course), the opponents can accept it and it is then considered played.  If the card is still sort of in front of the declarer, even if the opponents see the card it is not considered played.  Good to know.

Finally, the idea of mental toughness continues to haunt me.  I think that one of the reasons I played better on Wednesday is because I was often the declarer.  My mind didn't have a chance to wander or get lazy because of this, so I stayed sharper.  I have to learn to keep my focus even if I get bad cards.  That would be really good.