My name is Jim.
Similar to Ken, I grew up playing all sorts of card games. Somewhere along the way, the games became a bit specialized. Cribbage when I visited my uncle in the Pittsburgh area. Hearts when camping in the Boy Scouts. Euchre during study periods during high school. Double-bid Euchre in college. Double-deck Pinochle when visiting my brother’s college. And a separate group of college friends played Spades.
Bridge was the odd game. My parents played some social bridge, complete with the Goren tablecloth that described how to convert your honors into points, and how many points you needed to open, bid game or slam. I remember opening According to Hoyle’s section on bridge and becoming completely confused by their discussion. So I never took it up, but I did start reading the bridge column in the newspaper, learning something, but not too much in depth.
Working on my Ph.D., there was a table in the dorm hallway of bridge players, and to help guarantee that they would always have at least one fourth, one offered to teach an introductory class. That was a brief introduction, because after the semester ended, so did the game. Next time for bridge was a few years later, on a Post-Doc; there was a sign in the student union –Free bridge lessons: intermediates at 6, beginners at 6:30. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to sit in on both, so I came early. The instructor came in, asked who wants a lesson, and who wants to play? Everyone else voted to play, so I joined in. Somewhere in the middle, the auction went 1H-2H-P-3D; P-3H-P-4C; P-4H-X-P; P-P. So I found myself in 4HX, when RHO opened 1H; I had a terrific hand and great 6-card heart suit, so the contract came home and I was hooked!
My Post-Doc was in Measurement of Social Psychological Concepts, so I justified my obsession as being a different form of applied measurement and bidding, the method by which a partnership communicates to arrive at “true score” or contract.
I moved into directing at local clubs along the way. For a while, I was a fixture on Imagination, playing bridge and spades, but when they raised their prices significantly, I jumped ship. For about 25 years, almost all of my bridge playing was with last minute pickups to fill out movements where I was the director. Now I get to play more often, and need to (I pull hands from my play to bring to my mentoring classes).