Editorial by Marti Ronemus
“A Bad Time for Bridge”
April is a terrible time for bridge. Club owners around the country experience low turnout for games. Social groups have to reach deeply into the “sub” roster to fill in vacancies. Regular players abandon their seats and aren’t seen for weeks.
Why is this? My theory is that finally the weather (especially here in the Northeast) has broken and that people are so eager to get outside that they forget what their REAL job is… BRIDGE! A large portion of bridge players are also gardeners and they would rather dig in the dirt than shuffle cards. They would rather plant veggies and flowers than delve into the mysteries of those 52 magical pieces of paper.
You, our Faithful Readers, are obviously a different breed. You know where the REAL excitement is… and it’s not in the dirt. Although we don’t mind it one little bit when you share the bounty of your garden flowers and food.
So we’ve made today’s issue especially exciting to reward you for your passion for the REAL deal!
We start with MATTHIAS HUBERSCHWILLER. His six hands reflect his unique clarity of description. He makes complicated issues seem simple… well, maybe not simple but certainly clear! He also has two quizzes for us. The first is on bidding Grand Slams. The second quiz is one of his bid-‘em-ups.
BEN NORTON is up next with six gems. All his hands are No-trump, and we should be delighted. As we have seen over and over, No-trump is the quickest way to riches and fame. Ben touches on suit combinations, Reading the Lead, combining chances and counting. As he says, after this set of hands, we’ll all be No-trump aficionados.
Next, I’ve got six hands to hopefully make you glad you’re inside rather than getting dirt under your nails. My theme is taking time to figure out What Can Possibly Go Wrong? Visualize, plan! You’ll be playing a couple slams that, if you only went by points, you’d never be in them. But bridge is not a game of points, it’s a game of tricks. Hopefully you see that more clearly after my hands.
Now, get to work. The sooner you finish these illuminating hands and grow your game, you can go outside and grow some onions!
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