On-line news
Our monthly mentor game will be held this Saturday, April 10 at 10:00.
There will be a Charity Week April 12 – 18. Details are not yet available but it will likely be double masterpoints with an additional $1 charge for charity.
An interview with Guido
Several readers have asked about Guido. Since he is currently out on bail, I took the opportunity to ask him a few question.
Paul: Where did the name Guido come from?
Guido: Years ago a 20-something female member of my department walked into our area sobbing. I asked her into my office and asked her what was wrong. She told me the Vice President of Sales was hitting on her and making unwelcome advances. I went to his office and loudly told him that if I heard of him doing this again to anyone, I would beat the living out of him. For some reason this gained me my nickname.
Paul: When and how did you learn bridge?
Guido: I learned the game a few centuries ago as a freshman in college. I took 10 bridge books out of the library, read them, and assumed I knew everything.
Paul: Who is your regular partner?
Guido: No one right now. I played a lot with the late and sorely missed Bud Dean. All I need is find a world class player who wants to play Blue Team Club and is also patient enough to put up with me. Do you know anyone like that?
Paul: What do you enjoy most about bridge? What do you dislike? And, no, I don’t think such a person exists.
Guido: For the game itself, it is clearly bidding systems and theory (that should be obvious from my dismal defense). Mostly, though, it’s the people. I’ve enjoyed directing on-line and trying to put some humor and fellowship into the experience.
My pet peeve is people showing up late for the game (whether on-line or face-to-face). It shouldn’t bother me so much, but it does.
Paul: Well, I think you are brilliant. Any other comments?
Giudo: Rather oleaginous, aren’t you? I hope everyone had a great Passover and Easter.
Word of the week
Oleaginous
1. Oily, greasy
2. Exaggeratedly and distastefully complimentary
Meaning 2 is more useful to bridge players as in Guido’s last response in the interview above.
Bridge on the web
An excellent site for those interesting in bidding systems is Dan Neill’s https://bridgewithdan.com. Dan is a bridge author, teacher, and translator. His website has a collection of interesting bidding systems, including some rather odd ones.
Bridge Trivia
Answers to last week’s questions
1. Morton’s Fork was named for John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VII. If you had a large house and fancy clothes, you clearly had lots of money. If you lived in a hovel and wore rages, you clearly had a lot of money hidden. In either cases, he raised your taxes.
2. Italy has used the following systems named after cities in world championship play: Roman, Little Roman, Neapolitan. Leghorn, Pescara.
3. Milton Work first popularized the 4321 high card point valuation. Originally, it was actually a 4321½ count and was used only for No Trump.
Questions for this week
1. A prior question asked the minimum number of points to make a grand slam. What is the minimum to make 7NT?
2. Bridge players (not you, of course) are often superstitious. The Rabbi’s Rule is a fairly common superstition. What is this “rule?”
3. Alphonse “Sonny” Moyse edited The Bridge World for twenty-four years and published it for eleven. He was a strong advocate of Moysian Fits. What are these?