Story by Bruce Neiger (BBO: zorch11)

I was in college back in the mid 80s when a few game playing friends of mine and I decided to try bridge. Reading the rules out of Hoyle's and following the old Goren tablecloth cheat sheet, we played at rubber bridge about half the time we got together.

When I started dating my future wife, she was living off campus in NYC at the 92nd Street Y, which I discovered hosted a weekly Tuesday night duplicate game. When I found out about it in late fall that year, I gathered my four college friends to try it, and we descended upon the game en masse.

The funny part is that we were/are all rather big fellows, over 6', over 200 lbs, and got around the city on motorcycles. So we walked into a room of generally middle aged folks looking like a local biker gang, with thick leather and chrome jackets and gloves on, and full face helmets in hand.

The folks running it got quite nervous and told us flat out that we were in the wrong place, that this was a duplicate bridge game. She wasn't exactly relieved to hear that it was bridge we had come for, and asked how we planned to join for the evening. But after a few reassurances, she and the director took our card fees and let us play.

Whereupon the seasoned old folks trounced us younguns rather thoroughly. I think I almost got to 40%, which probably isn't awful for a first time duplicate in an open club game. But I was hooked. Soon I became a regular participant, and good friends with both the director and his assistant. The latter confessed later that she had been ready to call lobby security on short notice, in case we were trouble, but soon realized that "you were all the sweetest guys."