Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Mark Itabashi

January 25th, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  3 Comments 

MARK ITABASHI: (cross-referenced to Allan Stauber and Anonymous)

EW Vul. MP’s. N dealer.

Itabashi had J87 KJ54 943 AK4. 4♠ made. The commentary after the hand:

Anonymous opponent: I thought we might beat it on our values.

Stauber (with his 5-1-1-6 and 6 HCP’s): I don’t believe in values; I only play the Tricky Dick Nixon method!

(A bunch of even more unsolicited junk from me: Not that the tricks or policies of most other Presidents were necessarily any better. A lot were even worse, sometimes far worse. But I think he may have been the leader of the leaders, or close to it, in one category: Most Psycho Pres! I guess all of the dirty tricks of JFK, JFK’s ultra crooked old man, the Chicago mob, LBJ, etc. were too much for poor Dick. Incidentally, I believe that election was the first time that computers predicted results based on voting precinct analyses, voter interviews, etc. The early predictions based on the “raw” returns, etc. apparently had Dick as a 6-1 favorite to win. Hmmm …

Among many questions of great historical interest is, “Why weren’t any of these greatly ad-mired psychers and falsecarders in the ACBL?”)

—

Itabashi (in a discussion with a bunch of bridge nuts): It’s amazing. Many of the opponents think Stauber is a banker or something. They have no idea what they are in for!

(P.S.: In light of recent events, many people may have forgotten that bankers were once Roth-Stone advocates.)

Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Brian Glubok

January 22nd, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  5 Comments 

BRIAN GLUBOK: (cross-referenced to Phil Gordon, Kerri Sanborn, and Allan Stauber)

Kerri Sanborn and I were playing against Brian Glubok and Phil Gordon who is best known for his poker exploits.

Sanborn (starting the festivities): Stop, 3♥ .

Gordon: What type of preempts do you play?

Stauber: Very undisciplined.

Gordon: Please explain further.

Glubok: He (indicating Stauber), is the one who taught Bergen how to preempt!

Gordon: No further questions. (Actually, it was something else to that effect).

Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Jim Fox

January 21st, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  14 Comments 

JIM FOX: (cross-referenced to Allan Stauber and Anonymous)

Fortunately, I had discussed some of my superb methods with Fox, a fellow RPIer, before the game. I was so proud as we used one of them to get to a contract that was probably unbiddable by standard, or even most other, methods. After tabling the dummy, I got to fully appreciate that great auction.

Fox: I concede ALL OF THE TRICKS!!

Anonymous woman who was my RHO: Just because you are in a bad contract, you don’t have to concede all of the tricks.

Fox: Madam, this is not a BAD CONTRACT. This is a COLD BOTTOM!

Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Joe Dell

January 20th, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  1 Comment 

JOE DELL: (cross-referenced to Emil Jensen, Bill Kreps, and Allan Stauber)

N (uncertain, but probably Kreps), E (Dell), S (Stauber), W (Jensen). Matchpoints.

The first part of the auction:

Stauber: Director!

Jensen (to Dell): You don’t have to double to get me to lead YOUR suit, ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE TO DOUBLE OUT OF TURN TO DO IT!

Based on this development, I later decided to play 3N instead of the normal 4♠ contract. I knew that we could gain the critical tempo that we needed for that contract by barring a club lead. TOP!

Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Jim Dederick

January 19th, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  No Comments 

JIM DEDERICK: (cross-referenced to Allan Stauber)

Dederick was the declarer in 4S. He had bid it voluntarily after a few bids by our side in an uncontested, non-game forcing auction.

Stauber (his partner who had observed during the play that Dederick’s 4S bid was a big overbid): Why did you bid 4?

Dederick: I didn’t think I could make 3!

Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Stasha Cohen

January 18th, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  1 Comment 

STASHA COHEN: (cross-referenced to Steve Bandes, Allan Stauber and Anonymous)

I was playing with Warren Rosner in the Grand National Teams District 3 Final back around 1,000,000 BC. I had a marathon session of endplays with the extremely vulnerable Racquel Welch the night before, so she didn’t show up.

Since I was quite drained, I never got into the bidding on a hand, which was a rarity in itself. As usual, neither did Rosner. Stasha Cohen was the declarer after an auction that went something like 1 of a minor – 1H – 1N – 3N.

So I made a lead, and she could only get eight tricks assuming we played even semi-sanely. It was one of those rare times, when things went pretty well for us. We were up quite a bit after whatever quarter that was. After the comparisons, I overheard this conversation between her and an exasperated unknown Mr. Macho who held my cards at the other table. The auction was the same.

Anonymous Mr. Macho (to Cohen): How did you go down in 3N (on the above hand)?

Cohen: Stauber led a heart.

Mr. Macho: I led a heart too. The contract is COLD after that! (It was not stated, but I could sort of hear him adding “YOU MORON!”)

Cohen: Did you lead the JACK?

Mr. Mach 0 (but not capable of moving at the Mach numbers of his counterpart at the other table!): (silence)

[Still suffering from Bandes Shocks (see above), I had led the HJ from Jxx again. Dummy had KQ9x, partner had Txxx, and declarer had A8. Eventually we got a heart trick and four other tricks. Mr. Mach 0’s low heart lead gave our declarer the ninth trick.]

Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Dennis Caro

January 17th, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  No Comments 

DENNIS CARO: (cross-referenced to Warren Rosner and Allan Stauber)

Warren Rosner and I had journeyed down to NYC to play in a National Men’s Pairs, our first national event. Somehow, we had bumbled our way into first place after the first day. This was a conversation regarding one of the hands:

Caro (to Stauber): What did you do on board (something or other)?

Stauber: I was in 1N, making 4.

Caro: FOUR? I made 3 and thought I did very well. I actually got a real good score. How did you ever make FOUR?

Stauber: What direction were you?

Caro: North-South, of course!

Stauber: That explains it. We were East-West!!!

I couldn’t help it if everyone else wanted to play it N-S. Incidentally, Rosner and I got our act together after that, “achieving” 5th after the 1st final session, and lower still after the last session.

Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Bob Blanchard

January 16th, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  3 Comments 

BOB BLANCHARD: (cross-referenced to Marty Bergen, Jill Blanchard (now Levin) and Allan Stauber)

The ACBL used to have Men’s and Women’s events which were usually held at the same time. I think it had something to do with the theory of simultaneous orgasms. This state of nirvana had never been known to have occurred for a mixed pair, at least in bridge. Thus, it was rather ingenious planning by the ACBL, no? There also were open events that usually were not played in conjunction with these events. However, Jill Blanchard sued the ACBL to make the Men’s Events “open” so she could play in them with her husband, Bob. As one might often expect for married bridge partnerships, the pairing apparently led to a divorce. She is now Jill Levin. (It seems more logical to me to make the women’s events “open”! I would also think that some male pro would file suit, or even NT, against the women’s events for loss of employment opportunities or some other trumped up reason. Evidently, it hasn’t happened yet, or at least hasn’t reached a successful climax.)

I was the declarer in an Open Pair event. My LHO and RHO were Jill and Bob, respectively. One of the things I wanted to do was find some card, say a Q. I led a J or some such card, thought for a while, finessed through her, and won the trick. It was obvious to everyone that my thinking had paid off, at least up to that point. So I continued playing the hand, and she was not saying anything, but obviously fuming, apparently because I actually did something right. (Since I had never guessed anything right against anyone before that hand, I can see that she couldn’t believe I broke my streak against them!)

At or near the end of the hand, it became clear to me that Bob actually had the card after all! Of course, she had thought that I had it, and was pulling off some kind of ethical scam. However, he knew his duck would make no difference on the actual layout. When she saw that he had it, the following occurred:

Jill Blanchard (to me): I was all set to file a Conduct and Ethics Complaint against you for thinking about the situation just to deceive us!

At this point, Bob could hardly contain himself with his “achievement”, not so much of fooling me to no effect, but of tricking her as well. So he gave me a HIGH FIVE besides to congratulate me on our “teamwork”!! (Not that I had done anything that was even a little brilliant.)

Being blessed with unique “table presents” (mainly for the opponents), I think that was a slight clue that the pair might be involved in an ending with few cards left to be played!

Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Marty Bergen

January 15th, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  2 Comments 

MARTY BERGEN: (cross-referenced to Bob Blanchard, Jill Blanchard (now Levin), Larry Cohen, Sue Emery, Brian Glubok, Meckwell, Warren Rosner, Steve Sanborn, and Allan Stauber)

Bergen (in a Grand National Teams match): What happened on the hand that was passed out at your table?

Stauber: It went Pass, Pass, Pass, Pass!

—

Bergen, my RHO, (after taking infinite time to decide what to open): 1NT

Larry Cohen (Bergen’s partner): What does he have this time? TWO stiff kings?

—

As per usual before playing with Bergen, he would thrust 100+ pages of the latest notes at his current victim, err, I mean partner. Even worse, these had approximately a zillion auctions each on some of the pages. But that was just one sterling attribute. Back during the Jurassic Period, most people including Bergen did not have a word processor. Apparently, he couldn’t barter his bridge lessons for typing services either. Thus, everything was handwritten, and it was mimeographed on unlined blurry purplish-blue paper besides. But wait! It gets worse. Clearly, Bergen should have gone to medical school. He easily would have led his prescription writing class in most atrocious handwriting. He also completely ignored lines even if they were available such as on the convention card. Thus, he took a stab at the correct area, and would write some indistinguishable nonsense at an upward 45 degree angle for some convention, downward at 30 degrees somewhere else, etc. I suppose that didn’t matter much anyway because Bergen would sometimes forget his own bids. I think his favorite screw-up was the Good-Bad 2NT; his partners were great at this too! Of course, I NEVER messed it up! ☺

Anyway, we were playing in a National Men’s Pair event somewhat before Jill Blanchard filed her lawsuit vs. the ACBL and got it changed (to the Open Pairs) so she could play in them with her husband, Bob. (Elsewhere there is another hand that I played against them.) We were about 10th with one session to go. The Meckwell boys were leading.

Bergen had given me some minor suit Blackwood system in the notes, but when I unleashed it against Meckwell, he promptly forgot it. So that was a disaster. That was nice timing by Marty for a double swing! He couldn’t wait to execute that maneuver against some pair that was out of contention??? I got back at him by later getting a slow play penalty against another pair that I think was out of contention. That is the proper technique for such tactics.

After the session was over, Bergen skedaddled, and as usual, I was playing “Can You Top This Fiasco?” with some of the other addicts.

Then:

Sue Emery, The ACBL Daily Butchery and Undeserved Results Bulletin editor (said to Stauber): Congratulations.

Stauber: For what?

Emery: You won!

I was never so surprised in my life to win an event! This shows that good bridge such as ours gets rewarded! Furthermore, to the delight of the readers, I believe that they got a one day reprieve before having to look at our mug shots because Bergen’s mug couldn’t be located. That’s in addition to the 100 gallon one that he always used to lug around with him. He always claimed he had water in there. If so, it must have been heavy water.

I did notice that guys from the Los Alamos National Lab used to kibitz him all the time. There were also a bunch of chicks who looked Russian, but they spoke English as perfectly as Michael Jackson’s “ABC”. However, on the (rare) occasions when they were psyched up by our perfect partnership music, sometimes they said something about singing to the “KGB”.

Incidentally, my slow play penalty was on a round for which we got 76 out of a possible 76 matchpoints before the penalty was applied! It would have been even more amazing if that had been the total including the penalty. (OK, it’s not as impressive as when Warren Rosner and Paul Grossman got 0 out of 50 for their slow play round in the New York City Goldman Pairs Regional event — and that’s before deducting the penalty! Therefore, they were negative for the round! In addition, somehow they didn’t emerge victorious in the event.)

—

Bergen (to Stauber, perhaps in the 1980’s): The next Nationals that I WON’T play in, is the one after I’m dead!

Apparently, Bergen has been dead for over 15 years, since he hasn’t been seen in any Nationals for at least that long. (Come to think of it, I disappeared from most Nationals for somewhat more than that amount of time too. Uh oh, this may start rumors!) Surprisingly, his ghostwriter continues to fire off articles and books.

Even more astonishingly, I talked to his ghost on the phone a year or two ago! Who claims there are no such things as ghosts? Haven’t they ever heard of a “phantom pair”? What morons! I hear women say it all the time when I take shortcuts in the bidding department, I mean department stores, and they always seemed to be designed to go through lingerie departments.

Nauseating Bridge Quotes: Jim Becker

January 14th, 2011  ~  Al Stauber  ~  7 Comments 

JIM BECKER: (cross-referenced to Howard Chandross, Jon Green, and Allan Stauber)

NS Vul. Swiss T4. W dealer.

4♥ made 5. Becker was not happy, especially since the HAQT9x in the dummy was over his KJ doubleton! Even I was able to get the heart suit right. He also had discovered that Chandross had about 7 points and 4 card diamond support (in a flattish hand).

Becker (to Chandross): Why didn’t you bid 4♦ ?!

Chandross: Isn’t that supposed to be forward going? I had a piece of junk. Besides, how was I supposed to know that Stauber would bid again?!!