Chic Callas tells his bridge story (BBO: cgcallas)

In 1974 I enrolled in a pre-med program at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Coming from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, a small mining town on the edge of Great Slave Lake, I was an immature 18 year old and I was completely unprepared for the extreme competition within the program.

However, within a month I had discovered the game of bridge because there were regular evening games in the common area of my dorm unit. Slowly I worked myself into being a regular at the table. I would play bridge from late afternoon until the wee hours of the morning with whoever was willing to play.

I quit going to classes. To this day I'm not sure why nobody ever came and checked on me to see why I was missing classes, but they didn't so I kept playing bridge or studying bridge. I'd sleep in, get something to eat when I woke up, track down the paper so I could read the Goren bridge column. One of the students had "The Encyclopedia of Bridge" so I'd pour over that in the early afternoon hours. And then play would begin as students returned from their classes.

I'm not proud of that time. Missing classes and being a "failure" at the end of the year is something that I never fully recovered from.

I didn't play for about a decade when I got back to Yellowknife, but then I joined a small group of bridge players and we would play once a week. There was a decision to make it "more interesting" so we played for 1/10th of a penny a point. At least one of the players was an accountant so we kept a ledger of the points won and lost each week.

During that time I got married and then one night at our weekly Wedneday evening game, I got a call from my wife telling me it was time to go to the hospital! I cashed out, receiving money from the other players as everybody owed me for the previous 2 years. I think I ended up with a little over $20. I rushed home in plenty of time to walk my wife to the hospital as it was just behind our house and the next day our first son was born.

I didn't play for 20 years while working and raising a family of three boys. There just isn't the time for bridge in those very busy years and I understand why young folks aren't at the bridge table.

Darkness arrived. I had always suffered from depression though I just didn't know what it was, but when I was forty-two, I crashed at work and I was unable to work for 6 years. It's a crushing illness, that eventually led to a divorce. I was, to put it mildly, a broken man.

In 2005 I moved to another town in northern Canada, Whitehorse Yukon, to be with someone and I started over. My mother had developed dementia and I wanted something to keep my mind active as I gingerly tip-toed into my 50's.

Thankfully there was a local bridge club! So in 2009 I started going out to the local non-sanctioned club and I started playing duplicate bridge for the first time. Things had changed! Apparently we weren't opening 4 card majors anymore as a start!

There was a local Christmas tournament coming up so my partner and I entered. We came in 1st with 10 tables in our first event! I remember thinking that bridge wasn't too hard! How naive of me! I've had lots of failures at the game since then, making countless mistakes along the way. And I've also had some wonderful successes. Through it all, it's a beautiful game for teaching one how to handle triumph and disaster, and as Kipling said: "And treat those two imposters just the same."

I managed to become a Life Master in 2020 living in a place without a sanctioned club. That was no easy feat considering the closest sanctioned club was over 1,000 miles away. But when covid came along and we could earn black points online, I was able to cross that finish line. I followed up with Silver
and Ruby LM and I expect to reach my goal of Gold LM in 2025.

Along the way I was able to take the teaching course with Patty Tucker in 2020 while attending the Penticton Regional and I have been passing on my knowledge and experience since then.

The local club did get sanctioned in 2022 so players can now earn black points here. But the travel to tournaments is still a challenge as it's a 2.5 hour flight to Vancouver, the nearest Regional Tournament.

I've had a good run at the bridge table these many years and I have met a lot of great people along the way, both locally and by attending tournaments. It's another family and I appreciate being one of it's members.

Along the way the game has taught me a lot about friendship, trust, disappointment, joy and sorrow, patience and understanding.

I don't know how many more years I will be able to play. I will cut back my bridge schedule next year but as long as my mental faculties allow, I expect to teach and to play.

It's the best mental exercise game in the world and I'm glad I found it.

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