A Visit to ACOL

What does ACOL stand for? When you mention "bridge" and "Europe" in the same breath, the term ACOL always seems to come up and it's often surrounded with an aura of awe and mystery. It's supposed to be the oldest bridge club in London – and since everything in England is so old and since bridge … [Read more...]

Sam’s chutzpah Slam

My partner Christine and I needed a change of venue to break out of another mini-slump. A handful of times at a variety of sites in Florida and Georgia we had scored in the 40s or the low 50s and come away without points, despite the fact that in pluses and minuses against the par from the hand … [Read more...]

Slam Fiends

I guess you might call my partner Christine and I real Slam fiends. Once we smell the possibility of a Slam, we usually bid it. Sometimes we go down, but many times we get Slams that no other pairs find – that’s always an incredible adrenaline high. A case in point was last Thursday’s Cinco de … [Read more...]

Double the Fun

My partner Christine and I like to combine bridge and something else in our travels, and this past weekend (3/4-3/6/2016) it was bridge and baseball. On Friday we played in the Stuart Silver Sectional because it was the home tournament of Florida’s chief director Harry Falk, and we figured we … [Read more...]

An Unusual Entry

Bridge players love to tell each other about the strangest things that ever happened during a bridge tournament they attended. We keep telling people about the time when the a/c went out during a Regional in Fort Lauderdale, where profuse sweating made everyone Ill-tempered, and also about the time … [Read more...]

Delayed Alerts

What a way to start the 2016 New Year – with a zinger of an argument at the table, and winning it! With the Voidwood (or Exclusion Blackwood) convention, my partner Christine and I reached an unbeatable 6 Clubs contract in the auction, but our very competitive opponent, the solid A player Freeman … [Read more...]

Trust Your Partner

Whether you play with one or more regular partners, the ability to be a good partner is probably the most important skill any bridge player can develop. To be consistently successful in duplicate bridge, you have to have developed an unerring confidence in your partner – that he or she will not … [Read more...]

Up or Down

As they move up through the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) ranks, regular duplicate players face a choice. Do you play “down,” looking for weaker competition to beat up to gain MasterPoints more quickly, or do you play “up,” measuring yourself against tougher players in a field where it may … [Read more...]

Finding Honor at Honors

It’s a small world – even in the big city. Many of my friends, acquaintances and even some enemies have probably heard me tell the story of how I, many years ago when I was a younger man, single-handedly quashed the hopes of Bulgaria to stage the Winter Olympics. At the time I was working for … [Read more...]

In Between Rich and Poor

My partner Christine and I always assumed that running a bridge game as a business is a penny-ante affair and no one really gets rich off bridge – with the possible exception of a handful of professionals who are so good they can command $200,000 annual salaries plus bonuses from their rich … [Read more...]