Welcome to Bumblepuppy Bridge

Welcome to our blog. We are Michael Haddox-Schatz and William VanDyke, two software developers who are trying to become better bridge players. Since teaching is a great way of learning, we thought it'd be useful to create a blog sharing our experiences. As for the name of this blog, well...

Bumblepuppy - a game of whist played carelessly or contrary to rules and conventions. (Dictionary.com)

In his book, "Bumblepuppy Days: The Evolution from Whist to Bridge", Julian Laderman tells the story of how whist evolved into the game of bridge as we know it. Somewhere along the way, the delightful term "bumblepuppy" was lost. We think this word still has a place in modern bridge.

A lot of writers focus on amazing plays, but knowing that a world class player needed a moment of inspiration to find the right line makes finding that line feel a little unreachable. Since more than 50% of ACBL members are non-life masters we assume we are not alone in that feeling.

This blog will focus on bumblepuppy bridge. Every hand in this blog is a real hand played by real players. The plays made (or more often, missed) on these pages are plays that an average bridge player is capable of making, given concentration. We've rotated the hands for presentation and change the names to protect the innocent (guilty?), but otherwise these are all actual hands as they were played by actual players.

This is our story. We hope you enjoy these tales, and please comment with any questions, complaints, or suggestions you may have.