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Horoscopes


Day 23

Aries: Earth from stone, Water from wine. This seems to be the time to break things apart into their constituent parts. For bridge this means separating bidding from play and not leading during a live auction.

Taurus: As every Englishman knows, the sunny month of May has finally arrived when the finals of the snooker world championship finish. As a serious bridge player, you also know that this means losing bridge matches at the Spring Fours. But hey — the standard is high!

Gemini: One off is good bridge, that is this week's maxim! And by the looks of it, you are going to play lots and lots of good bridge.

Cancer: Some things are infectious, like leprosy, small pox and, apparently, the Roman 2D opening that half the downtown bridge club players play. Given the randomness of this otherwise unheard-of convention, it is difficult to work out where this infection was caught from, but certainly not from any of the good players of Rome.

Leo: Judge not lest ye be judged is all well and good in theory, but how can you not judge when partner hideously overbids his hand by about three tricks and then comes across all "what did I do?" at the end of the hand? (Answer: draw trumps, eliminate hearts, and throw in west to make; then smile and, modestly, say that you were a bit lucky.)

Virgo: When partner says "I don't want to disappoint you but..." be wary of what is about to come down in dummy.

Libra: Looking back at your old school photographs you can't believe how young you look. Oh those were the days! But then, looking around your local bridge club photo, you can't believe how young you look. See, there are advantages to the aging bridge demographic...

Scorpio: Sometimes I think I'm repeating myself when I write this horoscope. Then I turn on the radio and listen to what passes for chart music these days and feel confident that, in the originality stakes at least, I've still got it.

Sagittarius: "I can't give you anything" is what partner will tell you while tabling his hand on Thursday. Sure enough, the knave of clubs is the only picture card in his hand. The question is: do you make a quip about the fact that dummy has one point, the fact that there is doubleton support for your suit, or that he is giving you a 13 card dummy so you can declare the hand? This will turn out to be the toughest part of the hand — the -200 will be automatic.

Capricorn: On close inspection of the hand records you will notice that there was a double squeeze available on board 14. If only you had been able to spend 15 minutes at the table staring at all four hands before playing the board, then you would have gotten a much better score!

Aquarius: While listening to Joe Cocker's classing tune "Up Where We Belong" you will wonder where that is, exactly. Is it to the club first team, the county side, or maybe an international call up? Well, I think the song makes it quite clear: it's up a mountain with unhappy eagles and unpolluted air.

Pisces: It happened fast, it's over quick. Yup, 4S opened and everyone passes in tempo. Sadly, the same can't be said of the play. This will be mainly due to your tanking for about four minutes over which opponent to play for the DQ. If you were an Aries it would be easy as your opponent would be attacking you from "the northern regions", but as it is you're completely stuck.