A bridge professional once said that we are grownups doing something we love and getting paid for it, so we should relax and have fun. Most of us have read many bridge books, but one I really enjoyed the most was Edwin Kantar’s Bridge Humor. It teaches very few bridge lessons, other than that we should laugh sometimes. When I first started playing for Thailand in 1984, I was impressed by how friendly and helpful the players were at this level. The more skilled, the more friendly, or so it seemed.
Back to Kantar’s book here are my two favorite stories:
In a class for beginners, he had just gone through all the basics of counting points and sorting out distributions. He then placed some hands in front of each student and asked them to write down what their bids would be. Everyone did so, except for one student. So he went up to her and asked her:“How many points do you have?”
She said “13”.
“Good, what is your longest suit”
“Spades, I have 5 of them”
“Good, then bid a spade”
“Yes, I know that, but which spade should I bid?”
In another situation he was playing a Swiss against a mother and daughter.
The daughter, who was absolutely gorgeous, was wearing a lovely blouse with a plunging neckline. (Yes, bridge players do notice these things sometimes). He couldn’t help it and his eyes kept wondering. Everyone at the table could see this dirty old man staring.
Finally, he forced his attention back to the hand. It turns out they were in a good contract and he realized he could lose one trump trick, but could not afford to lose to a singleton king. So he laid down his ace and the king dropped on his left.
After recording the score, they left the table and he overheard the mother say:
“I don’t like that man, did you see him trying to look into your hand?”
