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More about myself.... where to begin. I lead a rather sad life, dare I say. When I am at home (and not translating) I watch sci-fi (but if you have read this far, you must know this already). Otherwise I usually split my time between bridge and Scottish country dancing.
Let's begin with bridge:
Bridge is a rather addictive card game that is played by four people, two against two playing as partnerships. This is actually one of the biggest shortcomings of the game as well as being one of its greatest assets. It is a shortcoming because, despite the fact that you (allegedly) play with a partner, more often than not, they seem to play against you; it is, however, an asset, in that you
have someone to blame for your mistakes! Bridge partnerships can be quite intense (not unlike a marriage): you argue, scream, shout, make up and so on and so forth. The positive thing is that, if
you are wise enough not to play (bridge) with your spouse, you can go back home to someone who refuses to analyse every card that was played throughout the course of the evening (but who, no doubt, is still going to give you a hard time - of a different kind, mind you, but a hard time nevertheless - that's life).
The game is divided into two parts: the first one is the auction, during which everybody describes in turn what they have in their hand (card-wise) to both their partner and the opposition, by stating how many tricks they think they are going to make with a certain suit as trump; it must be borne in mind that every time you open your mouth and say something to describe your hand that is not �Pass� you are promising that you are going to make a certain number of tricks if the auction stopped there, so you have to be careful; it is like being at a real auction: you raise your arm and get lumbered with a lovely tea set in fake-china� During the (bridge) auction players do not speak in plain English, but use some sort of code made of 35 symbols that can be used only in ascending order: for example your partner says "1 Club" (promising that his side can make 7 tricks with Clubs as trumps) and you reply "1 Diamond" (promising the same, but with Diamonds as trumps), but now you cannot go back to 1 Club. Since each partnership will attribute a certain meaning to each of these symbols, (or "bids" as they are called), you will be able, at the same time, to describe with a certain degree of accuracy your hand to your partner and the opponents. It may look now as if the two partnerships can exchange information with their partners in secret, but that is not the case: the rules of the game require that each player discloses any meaning that may be hidden in their bid if the opponents request that information, so that everybody has the same amount of information. Alas, although it shouldn't happen, there is a lot of non-verbal communication (sighs, hesitations, eyes rolling, looks of disbelief, daring looks and many others). Quite often people make these gestures inadvertently, but there are occasions when there is a more malicious intent (at high and low levels alike). In any case, at the end of the auction, one partnership will have prevailed, promising (or hoping) that they can make more tricks than the other partnership (for example, they may bid 4 Hearts, which means that they think they can make 10 tricks with hearts as trumps) and this is when the second part of the game begins.
Enough for now�. Watch this space for the next instalment.
