How many bridge players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

[hautbois]

We need someone to open, raise, and hold up the bulb, but I don't think the throw-in will be successful.

[ArtK78]

If you are looking for great bridge humor, and more than a little history of bridge from the 1940's through the 1970's, check out Tournament Bridge: An uncensored memoir, by Jerome S. Machlin. The book, published in 1980, is by the former chief tournament director of the ACBL and longtime TD of many tournaments up and down the East Coast (he lived in the Washington DC area) and nephew of Al Sobel, previously a longtime chief tournament director of the ACBL. There is a lot of great stuff in there, most of which I can't print here (for other than copyright infringment reasons).

[ggwhiz]

A sweet young thing put down the dummy in a 6♠ contract and told her partner, "If you make this I'll sleep with you".

 

It was cold but he was so nervous he misplayed for down 3 and she said "Close enough".

[Cyberyeti]

A sweet young thing put down the dummy in a 6♠ contract and told her partner, "If you make this I'll sleep with you".

 

It was cold but he was so nervous he misplayed for down 3 and she said "Close enough".

 

A cleaner version of this kinda happened:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/15/arts/bridge-never-mind-the-contract-the-real-game-is-2-hearts.html

[billw55]

newbie: "what does 'eight ever, nine never' mean?"

veteran: "someone who always goes down one in 3NT"

[GreenMan]

I once got a book as a section prize called "Have I Got a Story for You" that was a collection of bridge anecdotes. Some were familiar, but others I hadn't seen before. Sadly I no longer have my copy.

[Lord Molyb]

It takes 6 bridge players to screw in a lightbulb- 1 to screw in the bulb, 1 to support his partner, and 4 to discuss it in the post-mortem.

[EricK]

It only takes one bridge player to screw in a lightbulb - but his partner still tries the wrong switch.

[y66]

Mahmut and Orhan story

[OleBerg]

Bridge is like sex, if you do not have a good partner, you have to have a good hand.

 

Best Regards

 

Ole Berg

[GreenMan]

Story goes that a couple of tourists staying at a hotel where a tournament was going on chatted with Mike Lawrence during an elevator ride, and after they got out one said to the other, "He was so nice. Are you sure he's one of the bridge players?"

[32519]

Found this on Colorful Bridge Slang

Bridge has many colorful expressions. Here are a few of the fun ones, with explanations and sample phrases to increase your vocabulary. How many more can you add?

 

a moose: a huge hand, typically with lots of high cards in all the suits. "I had a real moose."

 

a dog: a pitiful hand, the opposite of a moose. "That bidding sequence shows a real dog."

 

walk the dog: now this is very different. "To walk the dog" means to purposely underbid an excellent hand (usually with one very long suit) in the hopes of being doubled when you "take the push" (bid one more) later in the auction. If you're a really good dog-walker you score up game plus a doubled overtrick!

 

swan: a hand with 7-4-1-1 distribution. Ely Culbertson, the popularizer of contract bridge, said that swans should declare with the seven-card suit as trump even if you have a 4-4 fit in your second suit.

 

the hippopotamus contract: 5 No Trump.

 

the curse of Scotland: the 9 of diamonds. You explain this one to me...

 

cheese: a reference to Swiss cheese: a hand with a lot of holes in it. "You opened that piece of cheese?"

 

luck of the flop: what comes down in dummy. "The success of a bid like this depends wholly on the luck of the flop."

 

on the table: I like this expression. "You're on the table" means the lead is in dummy.

 

stiff: a singleton. "I had Queen-fourth, stiff King, three small, and King-Jack fifth" means your hand was Qxxx K xxx KJxxx. Obviously "stiff" derives from the fact that, like a dead person, the singleton must stiffly fall on the first round of the suit.

 

tight: used to describe a doubleton set of honors. "King-Jack tight," "Ace-King tight" means KJ or AK doubleton.

 

bid what is in front of your nose: look at your hand and see what is the most obvious feature, then choose the bid that will obviously convey this to partner.

 

tap: when on defense, to lead a suit that declarer is void in so as to reduce declarer's trumps. If you continually "tap" declarer every time you are on lead you are employing a "forcing defense."

 

"4 by 3": a hand with 4-3-3-3 distribution.

 

flat: a hand with no particular important distributional feature is "flat," typically a hand with 4-3-3-3 or 5-3-3-2 distribution.

 

the death distribution: A hand which has one long suit of six or seven cards but otherwise has no singleton (a hand with 7-2-2-2, for example) is known as the "death distribution" as pre-empting with these hands seems to result in worse penalties than other hands with identical length in the long suit.

 

shape: a hand with shape is one with interesting distribution, a singleton and/or two suits being common elements. The opposite of flat. "Sure you had a nine-count, but it was a shapely nine-count!"

 

six-bagger, seven-bagger: a suit of that length.

 

fixed: when an opponent you consider quite a bit worse than you takes a wild anti-percentage bid or play that happens to strike gold. Since their action will not be duplicated by anyone else in the room because it is so bad, if the lie of the cards happens to work for it, you get a bad score without doing anything wrong -- thus you are "fixed." Sample conversation after a session: "We got royally fixed by K. and G. on Board 6." "Oh yeah, what did they do to you this time?" "Well, K. opened 3 Clubs on us, can you believe it? With 4 spades on the side!!"

 

telephone number: a penalty in the four digits. "I went for a telephone number" means you got caught for minus 1100 or 1400.

 

striped-tail ape double: the strategy of doubling opponents who are thinking about bidding slam while they are only at the 4 or 5 level, as to make game doubled is less than getting the slam bonus. This is called the striped-tail ape double because if the opponents are aware of this ploy they will REDOUBLE and you have to run like a striped-tail ape to your own suit!

 

righty, lefty: your right-hand opponent and left-hand opponent. Useful in describing a bidding sequence: "then lefty bid 3 Spades." You sometimes see RHO and LHO used as abbreviations in print, and so some younger players have invented the slang CHO, or center-hand opponent (partner).

 

quacks: a hand which has lots of queens and jacks, or "quacks," is really not as good as its point count would indicate. "I decided not to make a slam try because I had too many quacks." Also a term used in discussing a certain restricted choice situation -- where you are playing a suit where all you are missing in top cards are the queen and the jack, you can say, "When you cash the king, a quack falls on your right; do you finesse now or go for the drop?" Here "quack" is short for a queen or a jack.

 

duck: nothing to do with a quack, "duck" is a verb in bridge. To "duck" a trick is to refuse to play one's only high card in the opponent's long suit for a round or two, with the purpose of cutting communications between the defenders, or in some other situations, improving declarer's own communications. It strikes me as a very funny term; the image I guess is of a very tall person ducking objects being thrown at them?

 

crocodile coup: a defensive brilliancy, usually near the end of a hand, where the first defender to play to the trick wins with a card greater than necessary to "swallow" his partner's remaining singleton honor. If you are cheap and refuse to play this unnecessarily high card, your partner will have to win the trick and is end-played. The crocodile coup is a strange-looking play for it appears you are intentionally "crashing" your partner's honor-card.

 

insult cue-bid: a convention by which if the opponents cue-bid your suit, you take revenge by cue-bidding their suit.

 

"not through the Iron Duke": This is one of the first bridge expressions people learn, although I imagine it must go back to whist. It is used only in a joking way as a defensive play whereby you take great pleasure in covering a relatively low card declarer leads with the obvious intention of ruffing. You say, as you cover the 9, say, with your J, "Not through the Iron Duke!" and everyone laughs. Guaranteed!

[Fluffy]

The 2 that I have heard a lot in spain are these 2:

 

2 young inexperienced women playing against 2 young men.

 

The women bid 1♠-pass-3♠ and alert 3♠, explained as: Not forcing, just invitational.

The hand is played but later on a woman points to a man´s zip on the pants explaining it is open.

-Not forcing, just invitational he replies.

 

 

The other involves an old marriage known for discussing loudly during hands. After a hand was declared by the husband she says:

 

-You play worse than you *****

 

And an opponent replies:

 

-Yeah but hey! you really enjoy it!

[GreenMan]

Two players get paired up at the partnership desk. As the bad boards pile up, one starts criticizing the other's play. Finally he says, "You must be the worst player in the world." His partner replies, "No, that would be too much of a coincidence."

[Lorne50]

the curse of Scotland: the 9 of diamonds. You explain this one to me...

 

There are a number of reasons given for this connection:

1. It was the playing card used by Sir John Dalrymple, the Earl of Stair, to cryptically authorise the Glencoe Massacre. Certainly there is a resemblance between the nine of diamonds and his coat of arms.

 

2. The Duke of Cumberland is supposed to have scribbled the order for "no quarter" to be given after the Battle of Culloden on a nine of diamonds playing card.

 

3. It has also been suggested that it is a misreading of the "Corse of Scotland" ie the "Cross of Scotland" or St Andrew's Saltire. There is a resemblance between the pattern of the nine of diamonds and the Saltire.

 

4. Nine diamonds were at one time stolen from the crown of Scotland and a tax was levied on the Scottish people to pay for them - the tax got the nickname "The Curse of Scotland".

[Zelandakh]

Here are 8 possibilities for the curse of Scotland. Fixed does not necessarily refer to a weaker player, simply that you have no safe way of proceeding.

 

I have obviously not been playing bridge long enough because I have never heard of the last entry, "one of the first bridge expressions people learn".

[32519]

A Bridge Story - Et tu, Partner?

Weak Response – When your partner passes your Forcing Bid … followed by …

Double – When the opponents double up with laughter … followed by …

Dummy – What you call your Partner … followed by …

Call – What your partner thinks of you … followed by …

Overcall – What you think of your partner … followed by …

Point Count – When he Points out and Counts all your past mistakes … followed by …

Small Slam – When you slam your cards on the table … followed by …

Grand Slam – When he slams his fist into your face … followed by …

Splinter – When you poke him with the pencil tip ... followed by …

Short Club – When he hits you with a cane … followed by …

Vulnerable – When you start to cry … followed by …

End Play – Bye-bye partnership

[RSClyde]

Talking about game tries one of my partners asked "we're playing 4-way invites right?" I replied that I didn't care as long as we weren't playing 3-way invites: because I never turn one of those down.

 

Bridge is a strange game:

A strip-squeeze isn't near as much fun as it sounds, a cheap hooker is just someone who takes deep finesses, and splintering with a stiff in your hand doesn't refer to Pinocchio watching porn.

[Zelandakh]

But finding partner's entry is almost always a good thing, especially when they can then reach a successful end game after a strip. Of course having someone force you and thereby losing control is universally bad, especially if the loss of control was premature and you did not end up getting lucky.