Recruiting

Our son, Gregor, was always the outlier in our sports obsessed family.  However, since moving back to San Antonio, he has become as fanatic a Spurs fan as all the rest of us who live here.  He shows up on Sundays to observe the Cowboys/Giants controversies and, recently, has been subjected to the baseball playoffs since the beloved Phillies are still alive.  During the last Sunday's game, held at night in Philadelphia, the temperature was about 40 degrees or so. 

Greg asked, "who is that girl sitting on the sideline?"  We explained that she is the "ball girl" and retrieves foul balls.  Next question, "why is she all covered up?"  We explained that it was really cold up there.  Greg was shocked and said, "what's the point of watching a sport where the girls are all bundled up?"  Aha moment!  He doesn't care about the games - just the cheerleaders and other scantily clad so called dancers or whatever.  I should have known.

However, it started me thinking.  If the ACBL were smart and really wanted to grow the game, it should start looking to ramp up interest by using peripherals.  What if a new player has a game breaking the 60 % barrier?  Maybe the rest of the players should throw them to the floor and pile on top in celebration.  The new health insurance plan should take care of the multitude of hip fractures. 

How about teams in each city playing each other on the bridge network?  Cross training some scantily clad, low cleavaged babes to interview the 50,000 point players would probably drag in some ratings.  To keep the female viewers happy, hire some hunky pros who love seeing themselves on TV.

 I envision a male/female duo doing the play by play of games in hushed voices like the golf guys.  "Wait, wait I THINK he is going to finesse that 8 -yes, YES he is!  It's rolling past east - almost there - oh NO - west takes it with his 9.  What a miscalculation on south's part.  That's gotta hurt him.  What do you think, Sam?"   Sports commentary just lends itself to the game don't you think? 

Maybe some nice fireworks on a jumbotron when there is a spectacular Knock out win.  Side stories on players' traumatic childhoods like they always do on the Olympic athletes.  "Zelda grew up in Kazakistan and her mother had a cold when Zelda was just 6.  She really had to work to overcome that tragedy".  We bridge players have stories too!

I hope somebody at ACBL is reading this blog.  I won't charge much for my ideas.

A Decent Game

When we sat down at the club sectional game today, Pro Greg said, "I noticed you guys had a decent game yesterday".  This is opposed to our usual indecent game where I strip naked and dance on the table if I don't screw up a 3 NT play.  At least, I think that is what he meant.  Maybe not.  For the first time outside a novice game, husband/partner and I had managed to score a 60% the day before.  Director Tom was close to a dead faint when he saw the score.  Maybe it was the concussion from falling off his director chair earlier.  Maybe not.

As you may recall, we took last week off from bridge play.  We felt that we needed to reset our heads not to mention our expectations after our dismal 25% game in the NAOPs.  In the first sectional game on Thursday afternoon, we scored about 40%.  We were actually okay with that and stayed positive, feeling that we had not played badly.  In the Thursday evening game, we netted a little over a coveted silver point with a 50% game.  The next day our percentage went to 60.  We expected a 70 today but, as you might guess, that didn't happen.  We were knocked out of the knockouts by a considerable margin but took first in the afternoon C strat. 

Teacher Diane was delighted for us.  We have had one supervised play session with her and she is now taking credit for our most unexpected success while reminding us that bridge is a game of ups and downs.  She and Director Tom can do a duet on that song.   I do believe them based on our recent history alone.

The question is, what happened between 25% a week ago and these past three days?  I think I need to study probability theory to explain it.  There seems to be a possibility that anything can happen. The probability may be that some things might not but, then again, they might.  The possibility is that our game will continue on a straight upward line.  The probability is that we will continue to do the sine wave dance.  After the drop to the bottom of the chart, we somehow made it up the other side to make a nice V.  Perhaps the law of averages is working.  I should have paid more attention in math class.

Bottom line, I love this game; win or lose.  I think the few days I took off  from playing gave me time to get myself under control and regain some perspective.  If we play badly and lose, there is always another game.  It happens to even the best players, although much less often.  Maybe I will get to that point someday; maybe not; but, in the meantime, I will have great fun playing this magnificent game with my good friends in the San Antonio bridge community.

Sine Waves

"Bridge is like a sine wave", says Director Tom, "results go up and down and up and down. Some days all your bids are genius and the hands fit and play themselves. Other days are normal." Okay - he didn't really say that last sentence. That was mine. I replied, "Yes, Tom, but we had a 25% game." As he wandered off, his voice floated back to me. "Okay - that is really bad." Add a Homer Simpson "duh" right here.

A series of gentle hills and shallow valleys charting our results would be a happiness. However, a 25% game is more like one of those steep lines you see on TV when the stock market crashes; nothing gentle in diving off the cliff like precipice impaling on the spade spears below. I'd be most happy to get back to the sweet undulating curves of a sine wave. Maybe tomorrow.

Taking a Break

Husband/Partner's Phillies limped into the playoffs in the east, collapsing badly at the end of the season. Tony Romo and the "Girls" (husband/partner's name for the Dallas Cowboys when they are less than stellar) are not spectacular so far this season. Coach Pop is in the media saying that he is "very pleased with the Spurs team this year". This is code for "out after the first round of the playoffs". My NY Giants are doing well though. The kids call any Giants/Cowboys game the divorce bowl and make postgame phone calls to check that the marriage is still intact.

Our bridge playing however poses more danger than the divorce bowl ever has. It rained 4 inches last night but it has not rained points or, more importantly, decent play all week. The awful, horrid, embarrassing debacle at the NAOP event yesterday was the last straw. We decided to take a break from bridge. We both wonder if it is worth it when we feel so awful after such a wretched game at the end of a pitiful week. We have committments to other partners which we will honor including team games at the club sectional next week but we will not be playing otherwise.

We decided to find out how much we miss playing. We are also trying to analyse what happened this past week after feeling as if our game was on a good upward track. We decided to do some more bridge book reading and studying the game.

I am looking forward to playing with Biig Al next Tuesday because it is always fun. He covers for my dumb mistakes and makes my lemon bids into lemonade. I am extremely fortunate to know a few other women who are great for me to partner with and learn from. I hope those games will continue. Give up the game altogether? My internal jury is still out.

to be continued.