Sentiments from a Monday

well it's all over n i haf taken e double blow... ... amazingly it was much much short of blows. in fact, i'm happy. "y tis siao gia lidat one? wad blow wad happy aku catch no ball la.."

haha. ok yest was interhall contract bridge n my personal aim was to haf an occupied Tues. (cos Mon is e prelims round-robin, den top 4 of each group advances to quarters on Tues) So we were in e grp of 8, had to play 7 other halls, 8 boards (ie 8 diff sets of cards) each. i shall explain a bit more. agst every hall, there'll b 2 pairs per hall playing. one pair will sit at one table n play north-south. e other will sit at another table n play east-west. hence, both halls will haf players playing opposing sets of cards. so let's say at table 1, ur pair makes a 3NT game bid. they get 420 pts. but at e other table, the opponents pair makes a similar 3NT game bid plus an additional trick, they get 450 pts. overall, ur team is net 420-450 = -30 pts. this, when matched to e "imp" table, records as -1 overall pt. yup. tt's roughly how e score is recorded.

so i was playing e first 3 matches, first 2 with Keat Wei n den with Lizhen. e first match was disastrous.. agst a not v strong opponent, our overall score was 2-18. lots of mistakes n misbids by both our pair n e other pair, Joel n Ziyang. Aft which we won e next match 12-8, still ladled with mistakes, but mainly on me n Keat Wei's part. Den came e 3rd match which i tot me n Lizhen had played well UNTIL i saw e other table's scores. n den i went SHIT. SHIT. SHIT. (always lidat rite.. u nv noe how bad u reali r until u see others..) we lost. n i was very disturbed. very. u shld've seen me. i tink some ppl can imagine how i'd look like. haiz. Fergus (ya.. e bugger who is our Captain who withdraw his room earlier than they had generated e resident's list, making him ineligible to play when he was one of our best 3 players..) could see n he pulled me to rest n buy dinner with him. received a lot of counselling fr e rest of e team too. but ya. i duno. i was v sad. n when it was tt pt, we were 6th out of 8 teams. hope was bleak, if there was any. and so i tried to cheer myself up as i went to da bao dinner with Fergus so tt e team can eat immediately when dinner break came.

n we returned to joy when we knew they beat e other team. i was genuinely happy, partly bcoz hope returns (albeit mathematically) n partly coz i felt e team has improved. so we had dinner (which i had no appetite to eat so only ate less than half my veg rice) n next up was a sure-lose (hall 3, which had scores of 20-0, 20-0, 19-1 n 20-0.. i had jokingly said let's b e first hall to even them 10-10.. although we would b glad to make do with a 2-18). so Fergus turned to me n i said ok, though suggesting tt mabe he shld consider e winning pairs. well he insisted tt i can play so i agreed. ask me to choose a partner n i said anyone will make a gd partner for me. so it was back to Keat Wei n me with Joel n Ziyang (oh ya they 2 are our 2 best players), agst e favourites n lao jiaos of hall 3.

And it was amazing. i tink i will remem tis particular game (no lah dun b crazy.. not all e exact cards of coz) for a v long time. i opened a premptive 3S (oh ya, we were vulnerable, ie every additional trick we lose abv e 4 that we can, we lose 100 pts instead of e usual 50). The guy on my left doubled me. and i asked his partner, "wad e double mean ah? take out ah?" to a reply of "i tink it's a takeout double". n i gave my typical "i am DOUBLED" reaction... i look at e cross (a double is represented as a cross), i look e my cards, i look at e doubler, i look at my partner, n i laff. :D And den everybody else passed. so it was up to me! n i played. n i made e 9 reqd tricks. n i breathed in relief. n i recorded n checked my pts... 730pts!!! WTH!!! OMG!!! i wanted to jump up and shout!! i was so overwhelmed with happiness!! (in case u r wondering, game bids of 3NT, 4H/S n 5C/D are worth 420pts.. so 730 pts of a non-game bid, ie part-contract, is juz WOOHOO..) In my heart (n my brain la), i knew tt tis could b THE difference liao, tt we could realli b e first hall to take away more than 2 pts from hall 3. and when Keat Wei played our 2nd game of 2S n made an additional trick, i was realli happy. both of us were totally relieved by now. there was no longer any stress n we juz let e hall 3 pair play out their games fr them on, noeing tt they were quite sian-ed already.

den in tis game when they were playing a 3NT vulnerable, Keat Wei played a card when it was my lead. E guy on my left promptly raised his hand n called for e director (we had taken e first 4 tricks). so e director came n said tt card would now b a penalty card to b played at e first possible instance (it's a 3 of diamond, which is e last diamond left). staring at my hand, i decided to play a heart. And yay! Keat Wei had e Ace, to which i curtly (or happily..) commented in front of e director who was looking, tt "so now he has to play e 3 of diamond rite?" n he said yes. so Keat Wei played e 3 of diamonds n we happily had taken our 6th trick from their 3NT game. :D:D:D (u shld've seen my jubilant n ZHUAI face.. HAHA) Subsequently they won e other 7 but we had earned e 300 pts. Quietly, i felt that, hey, e 10-10 joke seemed vaguely possible. e rest of games were standard n there were no game bids so no stress. and den when we matched our scores with e other table, we had done e unthinkable! we had beaten them 13-7!! it was simply amazing!! n tt 3S vul doubled would b THE moment of e whole IH contract bridge for me.

Keat Wei n I continued to pair agst e next hall hall 7 n it was a clinical 16-4 win. aft tis 2 games, we were suddenly in 4th, with 58 pts agst e 5th-placed team hall 8 with 55. however, we lost e last match (i din play.. but i was staring at our team mates whilst Ziyang, Joel, Fergus n me chatted by e sides). and news that hall 8 had beaten hall 7 20-0 ended our dream comeback.

haha i v long nv tell story lidat liaoz. but Lizhen was v sad coz she made 2 or 3 mistakes incl a big big one in e last match. i was in an unusual position of trying to cheer her up. and i tink i said stuff (on msn) which got myself tinkin too. and i tot, hey, i learn from my own words too. and i tink e things tt i can take away fr tis period of practice sessions n competitions are..
1. i haf learnt a new game. and tt's impt isn't it? always learning new things.
2. tt although bridge is abt ur game play n technique n e conventions tt regulate ur biddings, it's realli more than tt.. it's abt e understanding b/w e 2 players in e pair, abt interpreting weird bids n reacting to cards u've nv seen b4. e team is always more impt.
3. tt committment n focus can make a lot of difference, both to picking up a new game n to playing in a competition. look at Lizhen. when she joined, she TOTALLY din noe how to play. look at her now. She's a pro, like us!
4. many small mistakes are as bad as one big one. and quote from Fergus e bugger, "No mistakes are unforgivable".
5. dun let a mistake undermine e improvement n achievements tt u haf made.
6. Mistakes happen! forgive, dun forget, most imptly, learn!
7. Learning from contract bridge has / will revolutionise my way of playing social bridge..

and i wanna sign off tis entry by saying tt as a team, e 8 of us -- Ziyang, Joel, Fergus, Keat Wei, Pei Herng, Jasmine, Lizhen n me -- haf improved, matured, and we WILL BE THE TEAM to b reckoned with in e yrs to come! (ok tt's assuming we still all in hall 2 la n play IH contract bridge.. but Ziyang is yr 4 liao we need a foreign import! foreign talent pls! LOL.)

p/s Lizhen, i duno abt e rest, but from Fergus, Keat Wei n myself, we unanimously award u e "Most Amazing Newbie" and e "Most Improved Player" awards! :D:D:D so cheer ups! let's play bridge sometimes.. it's time u play some social bridge lolz. *wink*