Bridge on the Boat

In terms of chronology, the following happened first. John, the bridge master in this piece, told us that if we wanted to improve our game, we must join a bridge club and play. When we returned home, we did.

Bridge on the Boat

We two moderately unskilled social bridge players were talked into going on a cruise ship for the first time by close friends who would rather be on a boat than just about anywhere else. For the intro to cruising, the friends found a great deal from Barcelona to Miami. We were fairly certain that neither of us were all that claustrophobic nor motion sick. Being together in a small cabin for ten days? We gave it no thought since we didn’t really know how small the cabins were.

When we finally made it through labrythian hallways of the ship to our cabin, there was on the counter, a little flyer listing daily activities and we noticed that there were two bridge teachers on board giving lessons and supervising play. Oh boy, our favorite game lessons; great!

John was a British master, a large fellow, with unruly white hair and a ruddy complexion with fierce blue eyes which brooked no nonsense from know nothings such as me. He was accompanied by his pal and sometime partner at his home club, Ivor, a quiet, patient guy who contrasted well with John’s strong personality. Whenever I had a question, I waited until after class and asked Ivor.

During the first class, finesses were discussed. I mumbled under my breath “finesses never work”. Although I was sitting in the back trying to look inconspicuous, John, with the acute hearing of a bird of prey, pounced! “AHA”, he said, “You are right – they don’t” and then, peering intently at me from under bushy white eyebrows blue eyes flashing, finished with, “Unless you know how to do them properly”. Oh great.

“Miss Finesses never work, what do you think of this hand?” John would ask in my general direction.

“I don’t know enough to make an intelligent comment.” I thought that might get me off the hook. Not a chance.

“Good! You are making progress!” John would shoot back.

Most of what John said was like listening to a foreign language and I don’t mean British English. Splinter, ACOL, Flannery, Jacoby 2no, Drury, Bergen; we were definitely at sea and not just literally.

Before this ship experience, partner/husband and I had subbed in exactly two duplicate games in a neighborhood group. We didn’t understand much about duplicate including the scoring. The first afternoon of boat bridge, when I was asking myself what kind of an idiot would take a cruise and spend it in the card room instead of on the sunny deck, we placed first. John was in a state of shock so, feeling responsible for his continued good health, after play we treated he and Ivor to their favorite large Australian beer in the champagne bar.

In subsequent days we slipped to middle, one day finally to last and then made our way back up to the middle of the pack by the last sea day. I announced in class that the more I listened to John, the worse our score was. He denied responsibility and blamed it on our lack of understanding of basic bridge with which we couldn’t argue and the rest of the class already knew having played against us and racked up wins.

My favorite saying of John’s went something like this: “When you have a void, you KNOW that your TWIT of a partner will open that suit”. When husband/partner and I need to defuse a bridge tiff, one of us will say, “If my twit of a partner had only………” and we end up laughing remembering John Beard, British Master and author, our first duplicate teacher, and great cruise friend.