5 diamond sacrifice in Vero Beach

VERO BEACH, Fla - While on a weekend visit to Central Florida, my partner Christine Matus and I wanted to check out what is supposed to be one of the top five, eight or nine bridge clubs in the country, the Vero Beach Bridge Club. We were initially told that on Sunday, the day we had available to … [Read more...]

Squeeze play: Make 5 diamonds with 20 points

I couldn’t play on my usual Thursday night team in the Delaware Bridge Studio’s Thursday night Swiss competition this week because I was otherwise occupied, taking my granddaughter to Brown University in Providence, RI, on a college-scouting trip. Christine Matus filled in for me on our team, … [Read more...]

Rock ‘n’ Roll bridge in Cleveland

CLEVELAND - My partner Christine Matus and I played our last session of Gold Rush pairs at the All-American Regional duplicate bridge tournament on the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend in Cleveland immediately after touring the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame with the new Rolling Stones exhibit on the … [Read more...]

Swiss downer: Scaredy-cats never win

WILMINGTON, DE - For the first time in many weeks, we got our regular Thursday night four-person Swiss team together again last week (5-16-2013) at the Delaware Bridge Studio with Eileen Bickel-Thomas, recovering nicely from a minor operation, always steady Ed Maser, our fiery captain John Walston … [Read more...]

An unusual Grand Slam: Down 6 doubled, but a great bid

Grand Slam bids are pretty rare in bridge. Bidding a Grand Slam with only 1 high-card point in your hand is even rarer -- and few if any bridge players would even dream of doing such a thing. But yours truly, otherwise known as the "bridge burglar," did exactly that on Thursday night in a Swiss … [Read more...]

Optimists don’t fare well in Reston

RESTON, Va - I should have known better than to try and squeeze in a late-night bridge game after the annual visit to my tax accountant, which is always a pretty exhausting exercise. But since I still use the same accountant who has served me well since the days I lived in the DC area in the ‘80s … [Read more...]

Stealing bids, parking spaces at the Black-Eyed Susan

PIKESVILLE, MD - The Black-Eyed Susan Spring Sectional duplicate bridge tournament this past weekend (March 22-24, 2013) in the Baltimore, Maryland, suburb of Pikesville turned out to be dangerous place for bridge burglars like me – but not necessarily at the bridge table. First of all, it was … [Read more...]

No fit, no points, but we still stole bid

ARLINGTON, VA - While playing reporter at a Payroll conference in Washington, DC, my head was spinning from the W-2s, W-4s, FICA, FUTA and all the other alphabet soup that goes with that territory, so I took a break to look for a bridge game Monday night (3-11-2013) and I found a very congenial one … [Read more...]

Stealing a win at the Blue Hen Sectional

WILMINGTON, DE - My partner Christine Matus and I seem to do best in bridge tournaments when we go some place where nobody knows us and we can fly under the radar. That wasn’t possible this past Saturday (2-23) at the Bridge Studio of Delaware’s Blue Hen Sectional when we both got mini-McKinney … [Read more...]

Stealing a bid while playing hooky

PHILADELPHIA - My partner Christine Matus and I went on a mentoring mission to an inner-city school last Friday, and after so much do-gooder activity, we felt the need to balance the ledger and do something absolutely criminal. So like good partners in crime, before going back to work we played … [Read more...]