Cast of Characters

Bridge isn't played by robots with names "North", "South", etc. It is played by real people with real foibles and real emotions. While the hands in our blog are real, we don't want to infringe on people's privacy so we use fictional players. Below is the list of characters who we use in this blog. While most people contain a mixture of the characteristics of the archetypes below, I suspect you'll recognize some of these players from your local clubs.

• Aggressive Annie - loves any excuse to bid. She'll accept any invite and it sometimes that her only requirement for opening a hand is having 13 cards.
• By the Book Betty - plays according to the letter of the law of the most recent book she read. She has trouble with those hands that require judgement to see what category they fit into.
• Cautious Charlie - loves any excuse to pass. He might pass a 13 point hand if he doesn't like any of the suits. If he knows you have an 8 card major fit and 26 combined high card points he'll only reluctantly bid game.
• Eager Eddie - always plays winners right away. If he doesn't have winners, he tries to find his partner's winners. He despairs when he knows any lead can be won by the opponent.
• Free-wheeling Freddie - loves preempts and seat of the pants bidding. He is the opposite of Betty. He is very creative about coming up with justifications for bids that the rest of us can't even dream of.
• Hand Hog Harry - would always rather be declarer then let his partner play the hand. He is quick to jump to 3NT, and always has a reason why it is better to rebid his suit rather than support partner.
• Ill-fated Irene - never gets good cards. She always gets bad trump splits and her finesses always fail. (at least if you listen to her version of the hands).
• Lucky Larry - bids and plays based on gut. Rules like "8 ever, 9 never" are for those uninspired players. He plays bridge like he's in a casino, aggressive when on a hot streak, but conservative when he thinks the cards aren't coming his way.
• Meek Molly - seems to lack confidence and is quick to apologize whenever something doesn't seem to go right. In actuality, Molly is actually a fairly decent player and it is rare that the "mistakes" that she apologizes for to be an actual mistake.
• System Happy Stella - never met a convention she didn't like. Unfortunately, with all these conventions she, or her partner, will often get them mixed up or not be on the same page about how to handle follow up bids or competition.