bridge-the card game.anyone else play?

[yorgatron]

i have a regular game i play on wed.night,but i haven't played duplicate.

[LSparkle]

1. Used to years ago when I was preteen and loved it

but as I aged, I realized it was considered an "old fogey" game. Now that I AM an old fogey, I can play again! Never played duplicate bridge, though ... but I did have a "Bridge for Two" set when I was younger!

[Igel]

2. I used to play with a friend from CalTech.

It was trendy, so he wanted to learn, and I was sufficiently bored.

We tried Goren-style bidding, then precision bidding. But one of the last hands we played together threw us for a loop. I had one low-ranked spade, the rest were hearts--just not the ace.

The bidding was wild, it opened on my left, and went something like 2 diamonds-3 hearts-5 clubs-6 spades-5 diamonds ... and I paused, thinking "what the hell?" Okay ... 8 hearts ... pass ... long pause ... My partner bid us up to 12 spades; I wasn't sure if he had the missing heart, and he was the stronger player; I passed.

I put down my hand down, and my partner scowled; he usually had a really good poker face. I passed when I shouldn't have. Then he put his hand down: I had his one missing spade, he had my one missing heart. Shooting the moon in either spades or hearts was a trivial task, so we didn't play it.

Our opponents could have shot the moon in either minor suit, but the suits were evenly split, so they couldn't know it. Their bidding system foiled ours, and ours foiled theirs.

I can't get my wife interested in it, though.

[yellowdogintexas]

3. I have been known to play on Yahoo games from time to time

I suck at it but I enjoy it once in a while.

My true love is Canasta though

[Dookus]

4. Never understood it

and I've had a few smart people try to teach me.

It just seemed that understanding bidding was just all a secret code.

[yellowdogintexas]

5. took lessons with some friends who taught us a neat simplified

bidding system.

Audrey Grant's "Bidding" is an excellent reference tool

this is the "textbook" for our bridge lessons.