Port Macquarie Hastings Bridge Club - Learn & Play Bridge

A DIRECTOR’S LOT IS NOT ALWAYS A HAPPY ONE

It was a cool, overcast and windy morning with a 70% chance of rain. In fact, it was a perfect day
for Bridge.
Five minutes to go, we had an even six tables, good, so we would play a six board relay Mitchell.
Linda was training to be a Director so I watched as she entered the movement into the computer.
Just as we finished Denise came in to say that Wendy wasn’t here yet, she was always late but not
this late. We rang her up and she wasn’t coming in. Never mind, Margaret was looking for a partner,
give her a ring, no answer. Alan had called in to say that he was a no show as Bede’s wife was
crook so they wouldn’t be playing, so ring Al, sorry mate, too late, I am up to my ears in garden
waste. How about Margot, no answer. Janet, sorry playing this afternoon. Leslie, no answer. Bill,
sorry busy. Ann, no playing this afternoon. Margaret, still out. Neville, waiting for a plumber. We
rang every man and his dog, the excuses were amazing, Fatty O’Barrel reckoned he was being sworn in
that morning, that pommie kid, Will, needed to get back to England to organise his wedding.
OK, give up, twenty minutes into playing time, delete event and set up a Howell, Linda typed in the
movement while I put out the white movement cards. I checked the missing pair North/South on table
4 and we entered it into Bridgemate. OK, good luck everyone, let’s go. Director, the boards are
wrong on Table three; OK, it is saying round two, ??, I’m sure I got the missing pair right, maybe
not, just swap the movement card from tables three and four and carry on. Boards also wrong on
Table two, OK give up on movement sheets and just use the Bridgemates.
End of round one, move to the next round. Total chaos, people milling everywhere, some were using
the table number, some were using the pair number from the abandoned movement sheets and some were
going where they were they were told by the Bridgemate, whilst others insisted that the Bridgemate
didn’t tell them where to go. Additionally the sit-out pair from the first round had no idea where
they were supposed to go, as their Bridgemate went straight to Round Two. Still confused by the
mix-up between Tables three and four, I decided to abort and start again.
We deleted the event and started again, checking the starting positions we found that the blue
movement cards matched the information displayed by Bridgemate. Ok, stay where you now are, and we
will start again. Unfortunately, the Bridgemates hadn’t understood my intentions and remained at
Round two; bugger. Delete event, turn off computer, turn off Bridgemates, start again.
OK, re-enter your IDs and pretend it is 10.30 and start afresh. We were the only pair that hadn’t
moved so we received the same cards as we had the first time around, oh, different opposition,
don’t tell anyone, just keep going. Interestingly, only one of the three boards was played in the
same contract as on the first attempt. Everything went smoothly, apart from the change between
rounds which continued to resemble peak hour at Wynyard station all day, and after three rounds it
was twelve thirty. What, twelve thirty - time for lunch. Lunch, after three rounds, we are never
going to finish on time. Two people had mentioned early on that they had appointments after three
and in the earlier confusion I had forgotten. Nothing we can do so just hurry them along as much as
possible. At the third last change two pairs went home, so I said that the leftover pairs may as
well play each other. At the end of that round, everyone else went home with the Bridgemates still
waiting for us to play one more round.
At this point I finalised the event, removed the IMPS link, printed the results and went to the
bar.