Di stories - let's introduce ourselves :)

[amre_man]

My grandmother taught me canasta when I was 5.  My grandfather taught me gin rummy at the same time.  I picked up chess on my own.  And poker, hearts, spades, cribbage, etc.  I wasted many hours in college playing pinochle.  Okay, fine!  More hours on pinochle than studies.  And during all this time I was an avid fan of crossword puzzles, this last directly from my parents.

While pursuing the daily crossword I was always drawn to the bridge column, by Frank Stewart.  They were always side by each, after all.  I never quite understood the bidding but could usually bring home the contract.  And Frank returned my emails filled with beginner questions!  So in the early-mid 90s at 40 or so I found Yahoo bridge.  I saw a table with a few kibitzers and joined as a kibitzer.  I asked them if it was OK to watch.  Turns out they met every day at 8 in the morning, played for 1 hour and then were off for the day.  During the next 2 weeks these folks became my friends.  They taught me the very basics of the bidding, sent me to Karen Walker's website, https://kwbridge.com/, and even invited me to sit knowing I was, well, whatever I was.  6 months later, my hand no longer sweated on the mouse as I made my bids and play.  Another 6 months and I was playing online tournaments.

I had a regular partner living a state away that I have never met.  But we spent much time on the phone with hand records discussing appropriate bidding and play of the hand.  We eventually found the dealer at contract bridge too frustrating and joined MS Bridge or Games or whatever it was called where we found duplicate.  What a difference!  I still don't always like the dealer but I can scratch playing defense!  OMG!

Despite advice from that original table of friends and my extended chat with my new partner, I was primarily self-taught.  I played my first f2f game with real cards (!) in 2012 after joining the ACBL.  Played my first game with the president of the local club.  Who pleasantly (for the most part) suggested that I needed a better teacher.    I was unaware that I needed a convention card to play the game.  My real bridge education had begun!  And I had already been playing for quite a few years.  I still have a regular date with her each month.  And now carry some 30 convention cards with me to every game.

Since 2012 I have unlearned my bad habits.  Not an easy thing to do.  OK, fine!  I still have some bad habits.  But I have also become a life master, club manager, director, club owner, and a certified teacher.  Absorbing the nuances of ACBLScore and BridgeMate software is a story for another post. 

I will play with anyone who enjoys the game as I do.  I share my time with beginners interested in learning, as others shared with me.  And I try to do it  with a smile on my face and a kind word on my lips.

Had I been exposed to bridge in college, I'd likely have dropped out of school.

Addiction comes in many forms.

Jim

[hoki]

Oliver:

Phase I: Born and educated in Auckland, New Zealand, I was around the
age of 13 when I learned bridge – the easy way, watching my parents play
socially at home. They even joined the local club but they chiefly played
with a young couple where I would watch while doing my homework
and listening to pop music. Then when that couple moved out of the
city my brother had to make up the foursome. By the time he left home
he’d had enough of cards and never played bridge again but did become
a formidable chess opponent.

Phase II: At university we all assembled in the common room  to play
bridge between lectures with quite a few extending their play time
into the lecture sessions. Quite a number of those former students are
now still regulars on the local tournament circuit. I’m not sure or whether
the bidding followed any particular system or what we played was just
called “common room bridge”. I had one partner with whom I occasionally
played at the local club. As youngsters we were tolerated although we
were the only ones there not wearing a suit and tie.

Phase III: After completing my studies I couldn’t wait to visit the land
my parents had escaped from when the Nazis took over in Germany and
Europe. A planned two-year OE (overseas experience) trip turned into
20 years, with bridge featuring only briefly at the beginning and then a
tad longer at the end. German bridge clubs lacked the same relaxed and
friendly atmosphere that our local clubs here do too and it wasn’t until
I got a look into the games run by the US forces stationed in Berlin and
other parts of Germany that I took the game up again. Already at that
time I encountered the “forcing notrump” convention which went under
the name of “Eastern Scientific”.

Phase IV: At the end of the 70s I spent almost three years working at a
university computer centre in Nigeria and the only bridge I encountered
there, and that only sporadically, was at the officers wives club where
the members knew better than the international luminaries and ruled
that to make the game “fairer” overtricks should only be counted at half
their nominal value.

Phase V: Back in Berlin I sat the certified director test and staffed at
the four or five annual ACBL-sanctioned Sectionals run by the EAFBL
(European Armed Forces Bridge League) and even the first couple of
ACBL Regionals that were held in Wiesbaden at that time. I sorely miss
the great camaraderie of those days as I also miss the directing and the
manual scoring.

Phase VI: The attraction of online bridge hit me towards the end of the 90s,
first of all with OKBridge and then from about 2004 with BridgeBase.  It was
good to meet friends from OKB later on BBO as well. On the latter site I early
became a mentor in both the BIL (Beginner Intermediate Lounge) and the
IAC (Intermediate Advanced Club). Around that time I quit paid employment
as a polytechnic tutor in computer subjects and because I missed the teaching
and the interaction with students I took on quite a heavy commitment on BBO,
running one or two sessions every week. Over the years my dedication to online
bridge teaching gradually diminished as more and more other projects grew in
interest for me … from writing and editing material for websites on Holocaust
education to local control of invasive weed species (moth plant, woolly
nightshade) – and every¬thing in-between.

(Edited by Curls77 - we can not promote different bridge platforms, IAC is BBO club. Many lessons on BBO use ZOOM as helping tool, but there is also BBO Video Chat for those that like having more social touch, altho whenever we used it, very few players adhered).