Visiting Bridge Clubs

Today we had a good time making some new friends.  We started out by meeting Derrick Browne at Trumps Bridge Club.

There were two games underway so we tiptoed to a small room at the back. Trumps Bridge Club has over 1000 members. Check it out at: http://www.trumps.net.au/

Derrick has written his own beginner and intermediate books and interestingly a book on Benjamin 2’s, a convention we don’t see in North America. Later in the afternoon we visited Paul Marston at Grand Slam Bridge Club which were impressive digs.

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Paul Marston

He had a lot to say about Bobby Wolff’s book but since most of it has already been published so no more here.  He did have some nice things to say about Master Point Press. 

He may be interested in doing a bit of blogging and after our chat I know he has strong opinions and will have a lot of interesting things to say!  Paul has written quite a number of books under the Grand Slam Books imprint and he is editor of Australian Bridge and writes a bridge column in the Weekend Australian.  For more

http://www.australianbridge.com/grandslam/login_gsdb.php

Check out the item on Oz One.  Here is a few sentences from their original press release.  Canadians please note.  You may find the next few sentences disturbing or at least pretty close to home…

Australia has never been a major force in bridge. We have never reached the finals of an important international event and we haven’t won a Far East Championship since 1970. When you consider that recent winners include Japan, New Zealand, Hong, Taiwan, China and Indonesia, and none of these countries has ever been a world champion, it is clear that we are a third world country when it comes to bridge.

Yet we do have a large and prosperous bridge community with many talented players so you might wonder why we haven’t done better. The problem is that the best players are usually spread over several teams and the pairs that do get together are rarely well prepared for the level of competition they encounter overseas.  

Saturday at10AM Ray and I try our luck at matchpoints.   Neither of us are expecting much but we are hoping not to embarrass ourselves. I am not sure what that means yet but somewhere in the middle of the field perhaps.  There is no doubt that we will mix up some conventions, so the trick is to stay calm (and hope our opponents do as well)

By the way, I noticed that when you psyche at an Australian bridge tournament you MUST resport yourself at the end of the event.  I believe you are not allowed to psyche too much or use the same psyche more than once.  I wonder what David Sabourin and Jeff Smith would think about that,