07/28/03’s illustrious band:

Longest & Strongest

Brought to you by my tireless bridge coaches.

My efforts to learn to play bridge continued this weekend. I seem to be getting the hang of some of the more elementary points of the game now. I have a better idea of whether I should bid or pass, how to up the ante if I am bidding, and when to play certain cards. I’ve taken the advice “fourth from your longest and strongest suit” to heart; it appears to mean “play ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.” I’ve also found that it helps to cut down on the sangria and pay more attention to who’s playing what and whether I know where all the high cards are hiding.

I still don’t get the scoring system, though. I managed to win us a 700-point rubber without even knowing what one is. A very, very large eraser, perhaps? Every so often during last night’s game, the scorekeeper would look down at his hieroglyphic notations and announce that one or both teams had nothing on. I don’t know where he got that idea; we weren’t playing strip bridge or anything. Well, most of us did take our shoes off.

The bridge game was a nice way to cap off a nice weekend. I attended classes, did some reading and caught up on household chores. Got the lawn mowed, the cats petted and a plant repotted. I ate mulberries ripe from the tree, staining my fingernails purple with the juice.

I also indulged my puzzle game fetish by buying Super Collapse II online. Great, great game! In the original version, you click on groups (the longest & strongest groups) of same-colored blocks, which disappear from the stack and allow the rest to collapse back down to the baseline. Easy, right? Not when the bricks are coming a mile a minute and refusing to group themselves conveniently!

In version II, you have the option of having blocks appear from two directions -- top or bottom -- or of tackling intricate symmetrical patterns to see if you can make all the blocks disappear. All very silly and time-consuming; a video game nerd’s version of beach reading, or a game of bridge.

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