Rick Waters' thundering, rip-roaring salty saga of plundering pirates and a plethora of pet parrots that spans the seven seas from Wisbech to Walberswick. Starring Framlingham BC's very own Rick Waters as Erol Flynn and Fleur as the feisty first mate love interest that Robert Louis Stevenson somehow forgot to write into Treasure Island.  Now showing at 'Useful Links' on your laptop in stunning feelaround monochrome.

Rick Waters' thundering, rip-roaring salty saga of plundering pirates and a plethora of pet parrots ..........

Who among us does not recall their bewilderment when Duncan and Rosemary first joined the Club and announced their Blue Club bidding system.  For the first few weeks we all listened with faces suitably composed into what we hoped were expressions of intelligent understanding as they patiently explained their esoteric creed.  The briefings however soon got shorter and eventually almost ceased entirely as they and we tacitly accepted that we were never going to grasp it and quietly tucked it away inside the mental file marked 'far too difficult'.  After all it came round just once a week and not at all if the movement didn't put us on the same table during a session.  For the rest of the time we could happily lounge around on the familiar and comfy sofa of standard ACOL and only now and again  rouse ourselves to ponder the barely more demanding challenges posed by the few deviants who dabble in the relative exotica of 5CM.  A very few of us who ventured further then Framlingham to play might even have encountered the peculiarities of the Precision system which in bridge terms is a bit like a blend of Calvinism and Buddhism with a side order of Atheism.  Who knew that there exists bridge belief systems that are weirder yet?

Wikipedia lists no fewer than 92 different bridge bidding systems in use around the world.  Some of those listed are highly suspect (of which more later) but some are definitely not so let's begin by sticking with the School of Precision which comes in no less than seven additional flavours: Simplified; Precision Club; Super Precision; Super Precision Club; Ultimate Club; and, finally and most appealingly; Icelandic Precision and the splendidly ambiguous and illogical; Imprecise Precision (wrap your brain around that one).  Players who rightly or wrongly retain an unfashionable nostalgia for the British Empire in its pomp might care to try Colonial ACOL or how about Churchill Style?  My three favourites by a mile must be Every Hand an Adventure (EHAA) which happily exists somewhere in the real bridge world and 'is characterised by sound opening bids, undisciplined weak 2s in all four suits and a opening 10-12HCP 1NT'.  The Webmaster has tried for years to convince his playing partner that all of that with a particular emphasis on the 'undisciplined weak 2's' element is a perfectly sound system and now she'll have to believe me.

My final two systems of choice are: Kamikaze No Trump which, as far as can be determined, partially translates to a hyped up version of the gambling no trump. Finally who among us does not wish to announce to their incredulous and disbelieving opponents: 'We play Stone Age ACOL with Pakistani Preempts'.  The Webmaster knows nothing more about the latter and nor it seems does Wikipedia which strongly suggests that it might well be the creation of mischief makers for which that website has a well established and unfortunate track record.

Sadly while it is possible to find all these alleged bidding systems named on a number of bridge-related websites not one of them goes into any description of what they actually are which gives rise to the suspicion that they have all fallen for the tricks of the original hoaxers and uncritically copied what they found elsewhere.  The EBU sheds no light on any of the above and the Webmaster pities the club director who is called upon to approve almost any of the above systems should a partnership claim to be playing it so early adoption is highly recommended.

Who among us does not recall their bewilderment when Duncan and Rosemary first joined the Club and announced their Blue Club bidding system.  For the first few weeks we all listened with faces suitably composed into what we hoped were expressions of intelligent understanding as they patiently explained their esoteric creed.  The briefings however soon got shorter and eventually almost ceased entirely as they and we tacitly accepted that we were never going to grasp it and quietly tucked it away inside the mental file marked 'far too difficult'. ..........