Introductions and the Like

[Clinch]

Peter, 46, ENTP, Brit living and working in New York.

 

I've been playing bridge for about 22 years, having spent a year ordering up old copies of 'Bridge Magazine' from the Bodleian Library stacks in my last year at university.

 

I played a lot of FTF bridge in UK until I moved to US in 1998. A few small national achievements in UK (English Mens Pairs, South of England Pairs, EBU Autumn Congress Teams). In the UK majors furthest I have reached is rd 5 of Gold Cup, Crockford's final once, Hubert Phillips quarter final once.

 

Since moving to US have played almost exclusively online at OKBridge, and in some Nationals. Best finishes 26th in mixed pairs in Reno, 24th in open pairs in Pittsburgh. Kibitzed Fred at Anaheim, when we both had streaming colds and Bridgebase was still Offline - we shared cough candy (yeah, like he remembers that).

 

 

Peter.

[TheoKole]

Hi, my name is Theophilos Spyros Kolettis (see if you can say that name fast three times ;) )

I go by the name of Theo and have a user name of TheoKole on BBO.

 

I grew up and lived in Vancouver, Canada before I decided to emigrate to Greece about 5 years ago, presently I live on Corfu Island, Greece (between Italy and mainland Greece) and am 35 years of age.

 

I am relatively new to BBO, online bridge and bridge playing in general. Although I learned the basics of the game as a child from my father and uncle, I started playing in our countries league games about 18 months ago. I have been a member of this forum and have played on BBO for about 5 months.

 

In general I have found this forum and BBO to be very helpful in helping me improve my game, and the different points of view have been inciteful, funny sometimes and intellectually challenging. (Even the points of view that I disagree with ;) )

 

Thank you all and I hope to see you at the tables.

 

Cheers,

 

Theo

[Winstonm]

Winston Munn or winstonm on BBO. 7 1/2 in dog years. Have learned that crow and humble pie go best with fava beans and a nice chianti. Livin it up at the Hotel Oklahoma....what a nice suprise....if you're in disguise....

 

Have yet to win a world junior championship, but have hopes of reincarnation unless it takes me to Plano - LoL.

 

Winston

[MickyB]

Don't know why I'm doing this now...actually I do, the alternative is working out what a Klein Four group is.

 

Mike Bell, 20. Played a little bit at school, started duplicate about 3 years ago. Doing Maths at Warwick University, but the quantity of bridge played hasn't really helped with that. Hopefully will get picked for the England U25 team this year, but I only have a slightly greater chance of winning a world junior championship than Winstonm :P Bit of a bidding nut - I've always found bidding (and lead) problems to be much more interesting than the play of the cards, if I had my way we would just give the remaining 51 cards to GIB or DF to sort out! I'm usually up for playing an interesting system - I've played a little bit of Relay Precision, MOSCITO, Tresboof Forcing Pass, WJ05, Echognome's Strong Diamond, Nightmare/Millennium Club and several different versions of Transfer Walsh. Currently playing Acol (eugh) in my two stronger partnerships, and messing around with a Welland-Fallenius style system with my partner at university (that's 14-16 NT, all 11-13 or 17-20 bal hands open 1♣, transfer responses to 1♣ with completing the xfer showing the 11-13 NT, with both minors open 1♦ and hope partner responds 1♥ so you can tell him which of your minors is longer! PM me if you want to know more B) )

 

Just back at uni, where I am putting off doing Maths by playing Lacrosse, Netball, Badminton and Bridge Club stuff - our early recruitment drive led to 5 tables of bridge and 2 tables of minibridge today, let's hope we can keep most of them coming!

[mr1303]

That's impressive. We managed 2 tables of each at our first session (Bristol University).

 

Still, it's quality, not quantity that's important.....

[Blofeld]

While we had about sixteen tables at our first session of the term.

 

Can't quite hope to keep the numbers that high, but still ...

[Gerben42]

Don't know why I'm doing this now...actually I do, the alternative is working out what a Klein Four group is.

 

Hope you found out:

 

If not, it's the Abelian abstract group on four elements that is isomorphic to the finite group C2 x C2.

[Fluffy]

Don't know why I'm doing this now...actually I do, the alternative is working out what a Klein Four group is.

 

Hope you found out:

 

If not, it's the Abelian abstract group on four elements that is isomorphic to the finite group C2 x C2.

I remember I was suposed to understand that, but I was never able sadly.

[guus]

Hi, I live in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines and looking for people to brige with.

[ready_i_am]

I LOVE this game so much that you can say that it's an addiction !!!

 

Happy New Year form Doug in Canada.

[jillybean]

LOL I still havent read through all of these and they seem to get get better the older they get...

(quote) "I'm something of a crank"

 

:)

[Double !]

2005 winds down, and in a few days I have to go back to work, yuck!

I have actually had a chance to meet (online) and play with more BBF members this past year, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

So, with the year ending soon, I just want to wish you all the best of a happy new year, the best of health, happiness, success (however you define it), and all the warm fuzzies you could ever ask for.

 

D.H.L.

[Guest Jlall]

I love reading the old ones from the now regular posters. It's kind of interesting.

[toothbrush]

Hi,

 

my name is Willem De Visschere, 21 years old and studying dentistry in Gent, Belgium.

I learned to play bridge in the year 1997, but just the last 3 years I've started to learn intensively how to play this game. I changed from bridge-club and I decided to play less with my father and that seemed to be a good decision! ;)

I'm not an expert, but I'd like to become one!

[Vilgan]

Greetings all,

 

I'm a comp sci major at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. I started learning the game in September when I showed up at a newcomer game hoping to learn and started playing occasionally in the main games in November. I didn't break 5 points until 2006, but have been having some success since then in the mini-mckenney... at least till I take a 3 month break to have fun in Europe this summer. It'd be fun to get to know other juniors who play bridge, as we seem to be a rare breed in Oklahoma.

 

As for systems.. I started with standard, but just recently switched to precision after a bad morning round. We got knocked out in the first round of a KO, so at lunch my partner suggested a switch to precision. He gave me a 5 minute rundown of the various responses and away we went (and scored a 58% game that afternoon). Having played it more, I am really really loving precision and 10-13 notrumps.

 

Anyways.. fun to meet new bridge players and maybe I might meet some of yall at Dallas in March. I'm also planning on going to the Junior camp this summer since I'll be in the area already.

 

Eric Sieg

[Guest Jlall]

Hi Eric. I'm a junior player, and live in Dallas so will be at the nationals obviously. Also will be in Slovakia, look forward to meeting you.

[the saint]

I'm Alan, and I will be 30 in a weeks time....

 

I'm a former England U25, been playing for about 14 years now. I play the odd national event, but do a lot of junior coaching (including helping out the England U20 squad). If there is a junior event on BBO, you may see me on vugraph.

 

Outside of bridge?

 

I am a rocket scientist (impresses relatives at weddings!).

 

Hobbies?

 

Love sport (basically anything without horses) and keeping fit. I also DJ (deep/electronic/techy/acid house & breaks) every now and again.

 

Still single, but trying (yes I'm very trying).

 

Love to you all and see you round

 

Alan

[hrothgar]

Hi Eric. I'm a junior player, and live in Dallas so will be at the nationals obviously. Also will be in Slovakia, look forward to meeting you.

VERY important comment for any Junior heading to Slovakia:

 

The beer in that part of the world is strong.

VERY VERY strong

[mr1303]

Sounds like some useful advice, duly noted.

 

I'll be in Slovakia as well by the way. I'll be looking forward to playing you Justin. I'll be the one with a cute blonde bird (can I say that on here?) sitting opposite.

[Codo]

Hi

 

I am Roland, but not as good as the well known hero from my northern neighbourhood.

And I am a Hambuger, but maybe not as tasty as your favourite ones.

 

I own and run a company which sells empty bottles and caps for pharmaceutical customers. Does not sound very sexy, but is a good way to earn money and spend time.

 

Playing bridge and writing in forums is a nicer way to spend time, but I am not good enough to be paid for it. Yet.

 

Other hobbies? I have a family with two kids and play volleyball.

[akhare]

Hi folks,

 

Atul here (foobar on BBO) -- currently located in the Pacific NW (USA) and originally from India. I will be 37 soon and my profession is probably pretty evident from my BBO handle ;). I started playing bridge about 10 years ago and wish I had learnt it sooner. Being somewhat of a system aficionado, I am conversant w/ several systems, but greatly prefer those w/ limited openings (FP, Strong Club, Moscito, etc).

 

Anyway, other hobbies include running (marathons), racquetball (similar to squash for the uninitiated), reading (in addition to bridge books that is) and movies.

 

BTW, I have been trying to convince my wife to learn bridge for the past few years, but to no avail -- any suggestions? She's got the right aptitude for the game, but thinks that it's an old person's game....

[sceptic]

try tellling her, she is getting on a bit and she would fit in well with the bridge crowd, if this fails I know a good divorce lawyer

[Trysalot]

I just discovered The Water Cooler and missed an ACBL tourney here on BBO because I couldn't break away from reading it from beginning to end. What a wonderful group of bridge players you are!

 

I'm too tired to write anything much about myself other than to say I am an ACBL Silver Life Master who hasn't been able to travel much so the only National tournament I've attended was the one in my own city a few years ago (in which I played in the Regional events) and I expect my next one will be when a National is in my city again two years from now. I didn't have Internet access until spring 2004 so compared to most of you I am a newcomer to online bridge. The hours I have spent playing bridge online the past 2-3/4 years have been very enjoyable and I plan to hang around for a long time.

 

Trysalot

[jocdelevat]

Hi

My name is Florin Diamandi(38 yearss old) and Im from Romania and live In USA since 1996. My job is to mess up with computers and networks.My bbo id means playing tricks in my language. In my country I had play the oldbridge wih 2 bids strong. I learn SAYC 3 years ago playing rubber bridge in Yahoo leagues( more of social than bridge) where still play sometime because I have a lot of friends there.

First time I played in bbo was a night mare when I saw all kind of systems and conventions with a lot of players experts and advanced. Now I enjoy BBO more than any other bridge online site. My level is beginner-intermediate-forever . I play for fun and relax however I do not like to loose.

[ohioply]

I'm Angela. If you can't tell I'm from Ohio. Go BUCKEYES! I've played bridge off and on since I was 18. I'm pretty much a self-taught-online-seat-of- the-pants player. I started playing at www.playsite.com where I was ravengirl80 or alegna18, so if any of you played there nice to see you!

I've played in a few tourneys, but with school (full time student) and work (full time job) I don't get much time to go.

Its nice to see that other young people are here, finally I'm not the youngest!