Thursday 17 March 2011

THE BRIDGE ACADEMY CLASS : BIGOT FINDS A STAR
" Well class, I see that most of you are still here but now's the time to get rid of the riff raff, the also rans, the loafers and the fools. Those who aren't up the task need to sod off and allow me focus my attentions on the best.
And so for this lesson, you have 2 hours to write an answer to the following question : you hold xx...x...KJ109xxxxxx...void, and your LHO opponent opens a balanced 12-14 weak 1 NT, and your partner doubles. Your RHO opponents now pulls it to 2S ( weak ).
Using everything you have learned about advanced bidding, decide on what bids ( by you ) need to be written off as useless, fatuous, futile, pathetic, inappropriate or darn right stupid ? "
Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were frantically scrambled through, and the pace of writing was fast and furious. Some students wrote over 30 pages in 2 hours attempted to explain why several bids needed to be discounted, in a vain effort to isolate the one bid that had true merit. However, in the corner of the room sat one young lady, who for the whole period quietly contemplated the problem. Then right at the death she calmly wrote three words on her answer paper.
A week later Bigot stormed into the classroom to announce the results. And he was not a happy bunny.
" All of you have flunked this test bar one. "
As the results were posted up the wall, the rest of the group wondered how they could have failed when the only successful candidate was the one who had barely written anything at all. So when Bigot was asked what she had put, the answer he spat out completely took their breath away.
" Instead of fannying about.....she wrote down the only sensible and obvious answer........which was of course....... ALL BUT ONE "

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