To all competitive tournament players — and most particularly world-class players like these women — there is ZERO chance involved.

That is because of how competitive bridge results are scored – entirely differently than some parlor version of bridge.

Have you ever watched or participated in a competitive bridge tournament? How you play each hand is scored in comparison with how other teams play the same hand.

Like an episode out of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has announced the discovery of a mass of crystallized carbon formerly known as star BPM 37093, now known as the biggest diamond in the galaxy, fifty light years away from Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

The star, named “Lucy” after the Beatles song, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” is estimated to be 2,500 miles across and weighs approximately 10 billion-trillion-trillion-carats – a one, followed by 34 zeros. Travis Metcalfe, an astronomer from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and leader of the team who discovered the gem, says “You would need a jeweler’s loupe the size of the sun to grade this diamond..

yep..that’s hard to believe..True or not I cannot say..but in the unofficial Hoopsters poll with a + or - 3% variation among respondants.. 98.99% of all surveyed claimed that chess is the much harder game. ( and no, you can’t see my survey..cause it doesn’t really exist. )
The problem with bridge or poker or any other game is that there is an element of chance involved.. the turn of a card, the roll of the dice.. the element of just pure luck..all that exists in all other games but chess..
You can counter and tell me that hoopster..you couldn’t learn bridge if your life depended on it..and you’d be right..
Hope all is well with you Susan..

Frazer came in as caretaker from the opposition and this allowed Hawke “the hack” entry when the people spoke. Hawke was certainly no intellectual unlike Gough Whittlam, whose famous exit as Prime Minister echos around most Uni halls even today, “God may well save the Queen, but nothing will save the Governor General”

Howard’s exit is significant. First, he was a Bush poodle who pandered to his every whim, ignoring the people all the while. The defeat was significant in as much as the Australian ecconomy is strong and why change something that ain’t broken. It is heartening that the people saw beyond that. Howard took every opportunity through his stooge ’shock jocks’ to inform his people how great and important and wonderful he was. He was rewarded admirably. He is the first Australia Prime Minister since 1926 to fail to get re-ellected as a member of Parliament.

As we say, in our local town, “make sure the door doesn’t hit you in the ass on the way out”.

Blair’s gone, Howard’s gone and then there was……

He plays very well in the western corporate media, which of course, is his purpose.

The Yeltsin pillage days are gone forever.

j/k

More important questions remain.

Ask him about NSA warrantless spying BEFORE 9/11.

That’s of major importance.
If he’s willing to say his decision to stop flying commercial planes before 9-11 was a matter of convenience, he’d certainly forego any disclosure concerns. He’s certainly allow the entirety of his notes and comments surrounding the time that decision tookplace to clear FOIA, no?

P.S. Those women are SO brilliant. They’ve all played world-class bridge for years and years. It’s too bad more young American girls never hear about what they achieved. (Used to be that bridge was a popular pastime / maybe it just requires too much thinking for people these days? But a lot of people play it poorly and don’t even know it — they just love the social aspect of the game, and that’s cool too. But even the social appeal hasn’t kept bridge as popular. Wonder why.)

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US women’s bridge team will not be suspended for making an anti-Bush statement during an international competition last month, the game’s US federation said Tuesday, ending a crisis in the normally sedate world of bridge.

“The US Bridge Federation and the players on the US Venice Cup world championship bridge team… have resolved all issues relating to events that occurred at the closing ceremony of the 2007 World Bridge Championship in Shanghai,” the federation said in a statement posted on its website.

“The US Bridge Federation board has dismissed all charges against the players on the Venice Cup team,” the statement said.

The women’s team, made up of six players and team captain Gail Greenberg, held up a sign that read “We did not vote for Bush” when they collected their gold medals at the world championships in China.

Their action drew applause and approval from the crowd — and the wrath of the USBF, which threatened them with a year’s suspension from competition, which would have deprived many of the women of their source of income.
The statement announcing that the crisis had been resolved was signed by all six players on the victorious women’s team, but not by Greenberg, the team captain.

According to Greenberg, she was told by telephone in the early hours of Tuesday morning that the USBF has dismissed all charges against the six women, provided the players do not make similar statements in future.

“I wasn’t going to say, at 2:00 am, to put my name to it, and when I got a copy of the agreement, I saw it was also contingent on none of the parties taking legal action in future against the other,” she told AFP by phone.
“I have this fear within me that the moment I sign this and the USBF no longer has any fear of being sued, they would be able to write and say what they wanted about us for this ‘unpatriotic’ thing we did,” she said.

“The people who felt strongly about what we did and said things like ‘no punishment is too great’ aren’t going to disappear from the face of the earth,” she said.

One of the players who signed the agreement, Russian-born Irina Levitina, said she was relieved the crisis has been resolved.

“All bridge players should be happy this is over,” she told AFP.

… ALL

Hope Keith does a follow-up report. One of HIS arguments was that, if the group didn’t allow free speech, then they shouldn’t have the right to claim that they represent the United States at world competitive events.

P.S. Bridge is a tougher game than chess, hard as that is to believe. One example that bridge geniuses use to make that argument is that children can learn, and become very good, at chess. But no child can play bridge well. Teenagers can begin to become good players, college students moreso … but it takes a fully-mature brain of immense analytical and mathematical skill to play at a world-class level.