By Mary Ewing
For The Daily Herald
By Mary Ewing / For The Daily Herald
“What do you do for recreation?” Dave Thompson asked while helping me apply for a Lockheed Sunnyvale tech-support job that I wanted to help finance my senior year at San Jose State College.
“I play bridge,” I answered.
“Write that down. Bridge players usually have judgment and communication skills. We play the game here every noon. You’ll fit right in!”
Later, Dave called me to say, “You’re hired!”
Everett is now a satellite campus of Washington State University. Surely some of the college’s students or employees will seek a bridge game for fun, to meet people — or even to include their expertise with the game on their resumes.
I wish the city would relax its requirement that you must be at least 50 to participate in Carl Gipson Senior Center’s activities. Our duplicate bridge membership is shrinking. Perhaps this trend would be reversed if our members could mentor local beginning bridge players.
In my last bridge article, I said I’d be using this column to introduce basic information about bridge to readers interested in learning the game. I started with a narrative about dealing the cards, defining suit ranking (clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades and notrump), and briefly describing how bidding progresses.
Bridge is a partnership game. Your partner sits facing you at the table. The two individuals on each side of you are the opposing partners. As both partnerships vie for the right to play the hand, how do you decide what to bid and when to pass? Just as location, location, location identifies good real estate, good bidding results when communication, communication, communication is at its best.
First add your high card points. Aces are valued at 4 points, kings 3, queens 2, and jacks 1. A hand with an ace, a king, 3 queens and a jack has a high card value of 14. Distribution points are determined by the number of cards held per suit. Add 1 point for two of a suit, 2 points for one of a suit, and 3 points for zero cards in a suit. Distributional points are usually considered after the opening bids but some pairs do include them right away.
As stated in an earlier article, bridge has a limited vocabulary. You communicate with a partner using the numbers 1 through 7, the words clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, notrump, pass, double, redouble, alert, director, and the phrase “skip bid.” Partnership agreements and conventions calling for various responses between partners hopefully will lead to the best contract. I have reached my article’s word limit, so let me end this with “to be continued.”
For the where and when of local bridge games, call Mamta (425-789-1106) or George (425-422-736).
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