A Bridge To Cross
While I was being introduced to what was SSB in preparation for the selection by a relative of mine who was a Major he asked me what all games I played. Not wanting to count and list it out to him, I gave a short answer, “almost all”. “Do you play Bridge?” he asked me. I was stumped. I had no clue what it was. He had succeeded in putting me in my place. He showed me a bridge to cross.
Four of us as youngsters within five years of service were in a battalion in Rajouri, a field area, in 1972. There is a custom in our Officers’ Mess. The senior most, generally the CO, goes to the dining hall first and others follow, mostly seniority wise. Till then everybody sits around in the ante-room, where all report before the CO (note the reverse), having a couple of drinks and chit-chatting. In this particular Mess, the CO and a couple of seniors used to play Bridge. We youngsters were not given to drinking as them and so soon got tired of the delay due to their Bridging. To go to dinner before them was a bridge too far.
One day one amongst us declared that we also would play Bridge. But how? None of the rest knew how. He said he will teach. So we got two decks of playing cards from the Mess Havildar, cut for partners and listened to the knowledgeable (minimal as we learnt soon) about the basic rules. We started. I vividly remember in the very first game itself I ended up bidding 3NT. (Pardon me, these Bridge terms I won’t bother to explain). The knowledgeable one chided me. I remember that too. Anyway, soon we learnt the rudiments of bidding and playing. Our CO was mighty pleased! He took pride in being the beacon for us, as a CO is supposed to be. In a few months we were found to be good enough to be accepted at the CO’s table. We were playing Rubber Bridge. I had gotten onto the bridge.
There was and is something uncanny about me. If I have a difficult problem to solve the solution comes to me during my sleep. Very often, that is. It happened during my student days too for mathematics and physics. When I was learning boxing in the academy, the whole night I used to be practicing in my sleep. Same thing happened during the days of Bridge with the CO. The entire hand used to be clear in the mind and the way I played and the way I ought to have played and all would play out in sleep. (The joke about it is the question “How do you get any sleep at all?”). It is another matter that the hand will never repeat, but you learn in the process. Those were the baby steps on bridge.
Now a word about Bridge, though I proclaimed that I won’t bother to explain the terms. It is a partnership game played by four, sitting as North-South and East-West. The two sitting opposite are partners. Each one is dealt 13 cards. There are rules, conventions, and very many systems and so on that can be quite complex as the level goes up to advanced and more and infinity is the end of learning. Basically it is a Contract. The declarer team tries to make the contract that was bid while the opponents try to deny the making of it. There are various International Tournaments in which different systems are used. There are National Teams and Private Teams. However it is yet to be an Olympic Sport. This is a mind game just like Chess. (By the way as far as I am concerned Golf and Billiards are also more mind games than physical).
Generally any card game is looked upon suspiciously as being gambling. That is a problem. The possible combinations of hands in Bridge is over 635 Trillion (you got it?) and so the chance of a hand repeating in one’s life time is, you guessed it, zero. That is why it is fascinating, with a wee bit of a chance due to the random dealing after a good shuffle. Skill is the key here. Age and health are no limiting factors. Bridge keeps your mind ticking and brain energetic. Bridge is certified to prevent Alzheimer’s and Dementia! There are lot of probabilities at work in each game. Memory, analytical ability, logical reasoning, concentration, thinking on your feet, alertness to each card played, self-control, trusting the partner and your team (in Duplicate games), adherence to rules are qualities you must have or develop to be a player. A champion player knows them and works on it, each time and every time. You will find a lot of Doctors and Engineers and Academicians and top notch Executives as Bridge aficionados. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett also play. Their brain is the reason. Also many Army Officers, if you don’t mind. They have crossed many a bridge unlike people like Vijay Mallya who on the other hand burnt some bridges.
Omar Sharif (to introduce him would be an insult), had his own “Omar Sharif Bridge Circus”. He was so passionate about it. He had played football for Egypt, his country, before becoming an actor. He was such person. No wonder he was my hero. He and I had something in common. The gap in the front teeth! Because of which he could smile and because of which I could not. He was a compulsive gambler but. Every man has a flaw, after all. But he pointed many a bridge for people like me to cross. A glorious person he was.
This is also a game where a host of etiquette is at play. Once the cards are dealt, all clam up except to bid. Civility and courtesy are hallmarks. A good sense of humour is a sure plus. No mannerisms, no unnecessary eye contacts, no unwarranted expressions, verbal or otherwise. Many such are prohibited as those would be construed as signalling. One has to watch one’s body language. There have been courts of enquiries in international tournaments where cheatings were suspected. This is a game for gentlemen (that includes ladies) and if you are not one, the game will make you one. That is why many women who play “sweep” boisterously and cheat cannot cope up here. By the way this is one game where gentlemen and ladies play together without any gender bias. And there have been world renowned, intimidating players among ladies. Dorothy Hayden’s name comes to mind. I have a book of her husband, Alan Truscott, on Bridge hands which I got in the 70s, which is now in tatters but preserved as a treasure, due to the beautiful characterisation of the players of each hand in the book. Terrific Bridge hands to walk over.
To come back to the narration, Bridge requires IQ and EQ. Also Social Quotient and all other Qs that you can think of. I started liking Bridge a lot, without IQ or EQ but I suppose I had SQ. After about three years I landed up for the Degree Engineering Course in Secunderabad. Quite a lot of our course mates from the Academy too were there for the same course. So it became a get-together of sorts after five to six years of our basic training and few of us had learnt bridge in the mean time like me. So we ignored our studies and played Bridge. We paid the price for it in our exams is just an aberration. But we played and played. We couldn’t get off the bridge.
SKN Nair, Sampath, Machado (Mac as we called him), Prasanna and I were the regulars. SKN was brilliant in academics, Sampath into indoor sports and Mac and Prasanna into music, Mac hugely. There is one unsavoury thing, if you can call it that about Bridge. After each hand there is what is colloquially called a post-mortem. It is supposed to be a friendly discussion on the play that just happened. But the player who makes even a single a mistake is normally chewed up by his partner. Did I say it is a partnership game? The partner will fume to the opponents’ glee. Many people give up playing Bridge, being on the firing line too often. Once in Rajouri I saw a General profusely apologising to a Capt! The Capt was a damned good player and the General, useless. Somehow I used to be at the wrong end of the barrel with my aforementioned friends. However I hardly ever ridiculed my partner, for I knew I was no great shakes myself. Moreover when you are constantly receiving how can you give on an odd occasion that comes your way? My bridge was always shaky.
At every posting after that and at every place somehow we the so called Bridge players would smell each other out and form foursomes. Every field area posting and every course was the best time to build Bridges.
Delhi is very special in every way. There Officers are many and time is aplenty, especially when you are posted in the AHQ. Distance at that age was not an issue at all. There we had a formidable set of Bridge players. Ramu, Satnam Singh Kundi, MD Menon, Arun and my brother-in-law, Kittoo to name some. Each one staying at different far away locations but bridging the gaps on our scooters on most weekends for a few rounds of Rubber Bridge. Here too I must confess I was the punching bag for them. Especially for Kittoo. He was vicious. Ramu and others were a little more civil as Bridge demands. Ramu, Menon and Arun dripped humour. Kundi was more or less like a patriarch. I must say, with this gang, I learnt quite a bit. Yes, we all had to cross many bridges to be together, one being our wives who initially frown but then give in for there was no other way. The get-togethers went on in to the wee hours. Somehow our wives never played Bridge! No water under that bridge, funny, now that I think of it!
Once in early 90s during another course in Secunderabad, Arun and I were playing with some others, in one of our rooms in the Officers’ Mess. We had planned to finish the game quickly so that we could hit the bar and then the Mess for dinner before their closing time. The game went on and on with one revenge rubber after another and when we looked up, it was midnight. No drinks, no dinner! So we decided to explore some eating joint. On our scooters we took off. There was no restaurant open. Somehow we found a lonely forlorn banana seller with his push cart. That was what we had for dinner. Bananas. We bridged our passion and hunger with those bananas.
That is something about Bridge. You forget everything else. Those who profess meditation and such bunkum do not know Bridge. They never came across it.
Earlier we all used to play Rubber Bridge, which is more casual. But now SKN, Arun and I play Duplicate Bridge on line from our respective locations of retirement. Arun who grew to be a General, grew in Bridge too and has gone far beyond our reach. He is almost a professional now playing crazy conventions! Learning all the complicated technicalities, I wonder whether he really enjoys the game as in the days of yore! SKN and I decided to keep ourselves within the realms of our enjoyment. The difference in genius and stupidity at a Bridge table is that genius has limits. Stay on the familiar, don’t cross the bridge, stay in limits, SKN and I say. Arun goes on!
Best thing I like in life and Bridge is the Squeeze! The best bid in Bridge is supposed to be “Pass”. So, that’s it.
======================
Four of us as youngsters within five years of service were in a battalion in Rajouri, a field area, in 1972. There is a custom in our Officers’ Mess. The senior most, generally the CO, goes to the dining hall first and others follow, mostly seniority wise. Till then everybody sits around in the ante-room, where all report before the CO (note the reverse), having a couple of drinks and chit-chatting. In this particular Mess, the CO and a couple of seniors used to play Bridge. We youngsters were not given to drinking as them and so soon got tired of the delay due to their Bridging. To go to dinner before them was a bridge too far.
One day one amongst us declared that we also would play Bridge. But how? None of the rest knew how. He said he will teach. So we got two decks of playing cards from the Mess Havildar, cut for partners and listened to the knowledgeable (minimal as we learnt soon) about the basic rules. We started. I vividly remember in the very first game itself I ended up bidding 3NT. (Pardon me, these Bridge terms I won’t bother to explain). The knowledgeable one chided me. I remember that too. Anyway, soon we learnt the rudiments of bidding and playing. Our CO was mighty pleased! He took pride in being the beacon for us, as a CO is supposed to be. In a few months we were found to be good enough to be accepted at the CO’s table. We were playing Rubber Bridge. I had gotten onto the bridge.
There was and is something uncanny about me. If I have a difficult problem to solve the solution comes to me during my sleep. Very often, that is. It happened during my student days too for mathematics and physics. When I was learning boxing in the academy, the whole night I used to be practicing in my sleep. Same thing happened during the days of Bridge with the CO. The entire hand used to be clear in the mind and the way I played and the way I ought to have played and all would play out in sleep. (The joke about it is the question “How do you get any sleep at all?”). It is another matter that the hand will never repeat, but you learn in the process. Those were the baby steps on bridge.
Now a word about Bridge, though I proclaimed that I won’t bother to explain the terms. It is a partnership game played by four, sitting as North-South and East-West. The two sitting opposite are partners. Each one is dealt 13 cards. There are rules, conventions, and very many systems and so on that can be quite complex as the level goes up to advanced and more and infinity is the end of learning. Basically it is a Contract. The declarer team tries to make the contract that was bid while the opponents try to deny the making of it. There are various International Tournaments in which different systems are used. There are National Teams and Private Teams. However it is yet to be an Olympic Sport. This is a mind game just like Chess. (By the way as far as I am concerned Golf and Billiards are also more mind games than physical).
Generally any card game is looked upon suspiciously as being gambling. That is a problem. The possible combinations of hands in Bridge is over 635 Trillion (you got it?) and so the chance of a hand repeating in one’s life time is, you guessed it, zero. That is why it is fascinating, with a wee bit of a chance due to the random dealing after a good shuffle. Skill is the key here. Age and health are no limiting factors. Bridge keeps your mind ticking and brain energetic. Bridge is certified to prevent Alzheimer’s and Dementia! There are lot of probabilities at work in each game. Memory, analytical ability, logical reasoning, concentration, thinking on your feet, alertness to each card played, self-control, trusting the partner and your team (in Duplicate games), adherence to rules are qualities you must have or develop to be a player. A champion player knows them and works on it, each time and every time. You will find a lot of Doctors and Engineers and Academicians and top notch Executives as Bridge aficionados. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett also play. Their brain is the reason. Also many Army Officers, if you don’t mind. They have crossed many a bridge unlike people like Vijay Mallya who on the other hand burnt some bridges.
Omar Sharif (to introduce him would be an insult), had his own “Omar Sharif Bridge Circus”. He was so passionate about it. He had played football for Egypt, his country, before becoming an actor. He was such person. No wonder he was my hero. He and I had something in common. The gap in the front teeth! Because of which he could smile and because of which I could not. He was a compulsive gambler but. Every man has a flaw, after all. But he pointed many a bridge for people like me to cross. A glorious person he was.
This is also a game where a host of etiquette is at play. Once the cards are dealt, all clam up except to bid. Civility and courtesy are hallmarks. A good sense of humour is a sure plus. No mannerisms, no unnecessary eye contacts, no unwarranted expressions, verbal or otherwise. Many such are prohibited as those would be construed as signalling. One has to watch one’s body language. There have been courts of enquiries in international tournaments where cheatings were suspected. This is a game for gentlemen (that includes ladies) and if you are not one, the game will make you one. That is why many women who play “sweep” boisterously and cheat cannot cope up here. By the way this is one game where gentlemen and ladies play together without any gender bias. And there have been world renowned, intimidating players among ladies. Dorothy Hayden’s name comes to mind. I have a book of her husband, Alan Truscott, on Bridge hands which I got in the 70s, which is now in tatters but preserved as a treasure, due to the beautiful characterisation of the players of each hand in the book. Terrific Bridge hands to walk over.
To come back to the narration, Bridge requires IQ and EQ. Also Social Quotient and all other Qs that you can think of. I started liking Bridge a lot, without IQ or EQ but I suppose I had SQ. After about three years I landed up for the Degree Engineering Course in Secunderabad. Quite a lot of our course mates from the Academy too were there for the same course. So it became a get-together of sorts after five to six years of our basic training and few of us had learnt bridge in the mean time like me. So we ignored our studies and played Bridge. We paid the price for it in our exams is just an aberration. But we played and played. We couldn’t get off the bridge.
SKN Nair, Sampath, Machado (Mac as we called him), Prasanna and I were the regulars. SKN was brilliant in academics, Sampath into indoor sports and Mac and Prasanna into music, Mac hugely. There is one unsavoury thing, if you can call it that about Bridge. After each hand there is what is colloquially called a post-mortem. It is supposed to be a friendly discussion on the play that just happened. But the player who makes even a single a mistake is normally chewed up by his partner. Did I say it is a partnership game? The partner will fume to the opponents’ glee. Many people give up playing Bridge, being on the firing line too often. Once in Rajouri I saw a General profusely apologising to a Capt! The Capt was a damned good player and the General, useless. Somehow I used to be at the wrong end of the barrel with my aforementioned friends. However I hardly ever ridiculed my partner, for I knew I was no great shakes myself. Moreover when you are constantly receiving how can you give on an odd occasion that comes your way? My bridge was always shaky.
At every posting after that and at every place somehow we the so called Bridge players would smell each other out and form foursomes. Every field area posting and every course was the best time to build Bridges.
Delhi is very special in every way. There Officers are many and time is aplenty, especially when you are posted in the AHQ. Distance at that age was not an issue at all. There we had a formidable set of Bridge players. Ramu, Satnam Singh Kundi, MD Menon, Arun and my brother-in-law, Kittoo to name some. Each one staying at different far away locations but bridging the gaps on our scooters on most weekends for a few rounds of Rubber Bridge. Here too I must confess I was the punching bag for them. Especially for Kittoo. He was vicious. Ramu and others were a little more civil as Bridge demands. Ramu, Menon and Arun dripped humour. Kundi was more or less like a patriarch. I must say, with this gang, I learnt quite a bit. Yes, we all had to cross many bridges to be together, one being our wives who initially frown but then give in for there was no other way. The get-togethers went on in to the wee hours. Somehow our wives never played Bridge! No water under that bridge, funny, now that I think of it!
Once in early 90s during another course in Secunderabad, Arun and I were playing with some others, in one of our rooms in the Officers’ Mess. We had planned to finish the game quickly so that we could hit the bar and then the Mess for dinner before their closing time. The game went on and on with one revenge rubber after another and when we looked up, it was midnight. No drinks, no dinner! So we decided to explore some eating joint. On our scooters we took off. There was no restaurant open. Somehow we found a lonely forlorn banana seller with his push cart. That was what we had for dinner. Bananas. We bridged our passion and hunger with those bananas.
That is something about Bridge. You forget everything else. Those who profess meditation and such bunkum do not know Bridge. They never came across it.
Earlier we all used to play Rubber Bridge, which is more casual. But now SKN, Arun and I play Duplicate Bridge on line from our respective locations of retirement. Arun who grew to be a General, grew in Bridge too and has gone far beyond our reach. He is almost a professional now playing crazy conventions! Learning all the complicated technicalities, I wonder whether he really enjoys the game as in the days of yore! SKN and I decided to keep ourselves within the realms of our enjoyment. The difference in genius and stupidity at a Bridge table is that genius has limits. Stay on the familiar, don’t cross the bridge, stay in limits, SKN and I say. Arun goes on!
Best thing I like in life and Bridge is the Squeeze! The best bid in Bridge is supposed to be “Pass”. So, that’s it.
======================
I think you could comfortably come up with your own version of "27 terms around the bridge".
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, "Those who profess meditation and such bunkum do not know Bridge" - best line in the blog. Loved it.
Thanks a bunch...or should it be a bridge? :)
DeleteThough I am a big zero in bridging I enjoyed the blog. All I know about bridge are the ones at Kanninada to Ramban in Kashmir and ofcourse the one on river Kwai. One must learn it I feel when you referred to some big names.
DeleteYes, it is a wonderful game. But you need a foursome to play! Like "28" I think. :) But one can always learn.
Delete