awful clichés

[gwnn]

I find myself saying these things a lot at the bridge table and I'm trying to stop. They were not funny the first time but now I'm positively sick of them. I hope acknowledging the problem will be the first step in eliminating it.

 

(when I bid a suit, they win the auction and dummy has a lot of them) "Oh, we should have been playing together!"

(when anyone ruffs anything trick 1) "Too late!"

(when we win the auction in 1m) "Looks like we preempted them!"

(any time I table a 4333 after a competitive auction) "I have a fit for everyone!"

 

Are there pills for this?

[helene_t]

- this hand would have been better for playing poker

- good choice! (when declarer asks dummy to play her singleton)

- that is one trump more than I deserve! (when I unilaterally bid some suit contract and dummy tables a singleton trump)

[broze]

Stiff Ace in dummy - "low please pard"

[1eyedjack]

"Meredith, we're in!" - on winning the delarership

[diana_eva]

Weirdly I find all of these quite funny :P I shd be playing with you more often to get sick of them before thinking of a cure.

[Antrax]

I don't get the ruff one :(

[gwnn]

They are trying to cash an ace "too late" because I'm out of that suit already. No, it's not funny.

[helene_t]

when partner discards a diamond on a heart and declarer asks which discard system you play: "we play colour coups"

 

When dummy tables 5-card trump support that wasn't shown in the bidding: "I love you!"

 

When you make a nonvulnerable preempt and partner tables QTx of trumps: "Nice trumps p, better than mine actually!" (This is dodgy because if not true it could be seen as aimed at misleading).

 

This one I found a bit funny, though:

 

When declarer leads ♦6, you discard the ♣6 and dummy discards ♥6. Partner discards whatever: "No sixes, partner?"

[Cyberyeti]

With resignation on seeing dummy after partner led a low card against 3N:

 

"What are your leads ?"

 

"4th highest of dummy's longest and strongest"

[helene_t]

They are trying to cash an ace "too late" because I'm out of that suit already. No, it's not funny.

Ah I misunderstood. I have seen the same joke when it was a defender that ruffed: It's too late to draw trumps.

[WellSpyder]

With resignation on seeing dummy after partner led a low card against 3N:

 

"What are your leads ?"

 

"4th highest of dummy's longest and strongest"

LOL - we play those, too.

[aguahombre]

Guilty of many of those, amused at some others.

 

Guilty of worse, opponents still chuckle if it is new to them and roll their eyes if not.

 

"What's the double?" "Pard is reminding herself what to lead."

[Cyberyeti]

When dummy tables a 4333 after a trump has been led "Well that cut down the ruffs".

[barmar]

Mine is: "That's the fourth best lead he could have made."

 

Another one is not a phrase, but an action: when laying down dummy, putting down just a single trump, then the other suits, then finally showing the rest of your trump support. My regular partner likes to do this, and one of my opponents last weekend in the Jacoby Swiss (the man in a nice young Chinese couple) did it.

[aguahombre]

Mine is: "That's the fourth best lead he could have made."

 

Another one is not a phrase, but an action: when laying down dummy, putting down just a single trump, then the other suits, then finally showing the rest of your trump support. My regular partner likes to do this, and one of my opponents last weekend in the Jacoby Swiss (the man in a nice young Chinese couple) did it.

Yeh, when I start to do that, Terry just says "knock it off".

[WellSpyder]

Another one is not a phrase, but an action: when laying down dummy, putting down just a single trump, then the other suits, then finally showing the rest of your trump support. My regular partner likes to do this, and one of my opponents last weekend in the Jacoby Swiss (the man in a nice young Chinese couple) did it.

This is only effective if you only do it very occasionally, of course - I have probably only done it 4 or 5 times in my life.

 

But I saw it done once by a Norwegian international playing with only a semi-regular partner when we were playing against them in the English Spring 4s (a very tough KO event that attracts lots of international teams). They had one of those auctions where one showed a strong balanced hand, the other made an artificial bid, my partner doubled to show the suit, opener redoubled and the auction suddenly ended right there. Dummy put down a singleton A of trumps, and the reaction must have been everything he was hoping for, before he eventually produced the Q and a few little ones as well. The context, which made a misunderstanding in the auction quite plausible, made the incident hilarious for the whole table, despite being something of a cliché. (And yes, of course, declarer was able to make the contract for a big score.)

[jeffford76]

Stiff Ace in dummy - "low please pard"

 

I regularly say "low", not to try to be funny, but because it gives less information if a nearby table accidentally overhears me.

[mycroft]

Mine for that (singleton anything, in fact): "Use your judgement, partner"

Also, with two touching: "Always falsecard from dummy. <higher card>, please". Note: at one point I did that with dummy holding QJ. When the opponents commented on it, I suggested that the other line for the other card was less suitable. They then asked me what that was, and when told, agreed quite strongly that it wasn't suitable.

When partner puts down exactly what I expected (balanced crap): "Where was the hand you held in the auction?" - note that doing that in the "standard" case is a partnership-limiting move.

Similarly, again with balanced crap that has passed throughout: "Ah, I see. Overbidding your hand again, partner?"

[Vampyr]

These are awful. If I ever heard them, it would be a soon-to-be-former partner.

 

Although it reminds me of a pet peeve --when dummy has a singleton, sometimes a thick dummy puts it in the played position. So as third hand, I do not know whether it is my turn to play a card.

[PhilG007]

These are awful. If I ever heard them, it would be a soon-to-be-former partner.

 

Although it reminds me of a pet peeve --when dummy has a singleton, sometimes a thick dummy puts it in the played position. So as third hand, I do not know whether it is my turn to play a card.

 

You should call the TD and say what happened. Dummy is NOT allowed to play any card without instruction

from declarer...even a singleton. The TD will give a ruling

[gwnn]

One I managed to stop was 'Oh so it was a penalty double!' after e.g. (1H)-2C-(x) and opener becomes declarer and dummy has 4225 or so. I stopped after it became often obvious that it was actually meant as a penalty double.

[Cyberyeti]

One I managed to stop was 'Oh so it was a penalty double!' after e.g. (1H)-2C-(x) and opener becomes declarer and dummy has 4225 or so. I stopped after it became often obvious that it was actually meant as a penalty double.

 

This reminds me of an auction where there were hesitations aplenty by the opps as the auction went 1♠-P-1N-X-2♣-X-P-P-P, I had an indifferent 5-4 12 count as opener and was about to wheel in the man and indicated this, partner said that I might wish to see dummy first. He then produced ♣AQJxxxxx.

[Vampyr]

You should call the TD and say what happened. Dummy is NOT allowed to play any card without instruction

from declarer...even a singleton. The TD will give a ruling

 

I usually just ask declarer if he has played. Wasting the director's time on something like this would be pretty silly.

[gwnn]

I usually just ask declarer if he has played. Wasting the director's time on something like this would be pretty silly.

I agree, except declarer sometimes has no idea what I mean by my question. Also sometimes when I'm dummy partner/defenders try to gently wake me up if I don't "auto-play my singletons."

[barmar]

These are awful. If I ever heard them, it would be a soon-to-be-former partner.

It's just a game, what's wrong with having a little harmless fun?