Bridge and stuff
Well, I went to the Twin Cities Bridge Center last night, and had a not-so-good night. I was partnered with a guy named Don who, I gathered from the table talk, has recently stopped taking his bipolar-stopping medicine. He was an erratic bidder, a fantastic player, but I couldn’t stand the things he said. He berated me for not understanding his bidding (I’ve never heard of anyone overcalling with 0 HCPs and a 6-card suit, but apparently that’s his standard), he made fun of an opponent who reneged (this opponent had recently had a stroke, and I was impressed that he was still playing at all). When I commented to another opponent that I liked her nice, white sweater, he joked about putting his dirty fingers on it (which was fine), and then actually put his dirty fingers on it (no one was happy about that). We ended up taking 5th out of 8, and although that’s higher than myusual placings, I think we could have done much better if I had understood the way he bid. Well, tonight I’m going and playing with a guy I met there last night, who seems to have a better (read: more normal) bidding system. Oh! and there were two sophomores from St. Olaf there last night! They weren’t nearly ready to compete (they’re about as good as Hadley and Robin are now – they know the basics, but not much more), so we beat them soundly, but it was still nice to see other people my age there.
Also, I joined the American Contract Bridge League. If you’re thinking about doing this too, do it before new years, because the rates are going up in January. As a student joining for the first time, I payed $14. This makes my 0.49 of a Master Point over the summer official, and I’ll get various newsletters that the ACBL sends out. You can join online at acbl.org.
Last night, I also got to spent a little time at Michael’s before he goes to Japan for a month. We watched the extra features on the Monsters Inc. DVD, and I must say that there is some amazing stuff that went into that movie.
Well, that’s about all for now. I’ll write more when I have the results from tonight’s bridge game!