One of the things that I love about playing duplicate bridge is the characters you meet. One such person was John Cleary who now lives in Brazil with his lovely wife. John organized the first Brooksville Sectional and was an outstanding player who had a ready wit and an acerbic tongue (just ask Tom Madden). Here are a couple of John’s one-liners.

If you think luck doesn’t play a big role in your results, you haven’t played long enough. The following two hands illustrate what can go right even though everything you did should have resulted in disastrous results.

If you play in the upcoming Clearwater Regional, watch out for a big, gregarious fellow named Ed Schulte.

I don’t know about you, but I hate to open a 19-HCP hand either 1♣ or 1♦ and watch three green cards hit the table - UGH. That’s one reason I love Big Club systems.

As the summer months approach, you may be playing bridge with new or unfamiliar partners for various reasons; snowbirds returning to northern climates, extended vacations, or long cruises. When you play with a new partner and get bad results, don’t be quick to blame him/her for the outcome. What did you do to contribute to that 45% game. Let’s look at some things that went wrong -- especially on defense which is the toughest part of bridge.

Shannon and I had a good laugh at the Palm Beach Regional about this. She's a great player and lovely redhead to boot.

The third Brooksville Sectional is upon us so it’s time to revisit one memorable hand from last year’s event.

Here's more hot air from your favorite story teller.

Alerts and Questions
Common Mistakes

In one of her patented e-mails, Annabelle explains a Director's ruling she made recently.
She related this incident:

"At a recent game, a player [the Questioner] came to me, showed me his hand and explained his problem.  I went to the table and had the players reconstruct their bidding, which had gone P by questioner's partner, 1♣ by RH opponent, P by questioner, 1♥ by LH opponent, P by partner, 1NT by RHO, P by player, 2NT by LHO.   At partner's turn to bid, partner asked if the 2NT bid meant that opener didn't have 4 ♠s.  He was told that it did.  This was followed by 3 Passes. The questioner, being on lead, felt a little uncomfortable because he might want to lead a ♠.

Poor Hearts.  Mom always liked Spades best.

Yesterday, Rich and Marj Talbott rolled out a new wrinkle to even the playing field a little.  Playing 2/1, and holding 5 Hearts and a game forcing hand, Marj bid 2C over Rich's 1D opening, which Rich alerted.  Neither I nor Jim Somma had ever seen this bid, and were at a loss what to do.  I'd like Marj or Rich to comment on it.

But it got me to thinking.  Why do the bridge gods so favor Spades over Hearts, and to a lesser extent Diamonds over Clubs?  Is this "fair" to Hearts and Clubs?  They're just as good looking, and work just as hard, but no matter what they do, they're always second class to Spades and Diamonds.

NT gets an even better deal, but at least NT has to work harder.   And of course Diamonds and Clubs, being minors, don't score as well as the adults.