Last post...

I sort of promised one more blog entry, since the last one was not very final. I haven't been playing any bridge since then, but I'll try and amuse you.

Immediately after we lost the knockouts, Mike and I somehow decided it was time to play high-card, without replacement, 26 times. This is a great idea, and I recommend it. For the uninitiated, this simple yet beautiful game consists of each player drawing a card from a deck and seeing which one is higher. We used suit preference for ties, with the beer card trumping all others. Now for those who think that this game is independent and that each player has a 50% chance of winning, think again: I beat Mike 20-6 through sheer intimidation. He didn't even win one until the 8th round, and I had the match clinched by the 17th round or so. The std deviation for 26 games of high card is about 2.5, so I beat him by about 2.75 std deviations, or a p-value of less than 1%. That means that any psychologist, medical researcher, or other soft scientist would probably be forced to conclude I was either psychic or cheating. Or that they were bad at statistics (which let's be honest, is probably true).

Eric, Lovey, and I are still chatting about the idea of a the online bridge league, and coming up with conditions of contest. I hope it pans out, and if it does, I hope to help run a site with commentary around it. And if THAT works, I'd really want to start a league for people like me, who are older than college but enjoy regular team matches against non-geezers. Promoting and organizing bridge really gets me riled up (too bad I'm not a better player), and competing online seems like the right place to expand to for people our age.

All in all, Lovey and I played about 730-odd boards (by his count), and won a paltry but glorious 35 master points. We won a couple events, made new friends, and spent time with old ones. We drove 2500 miles. It was awesome. See you all soon, I hope.