Bridge at 2004 Mind Sports Olympiad, Manchester


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Manchester Bridge Club
30 Palatine Road
West Didsbury
Manchester
M20 3JJ

Tel: 0161-445 3712

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Bridge at Carcassonne

IRENE DAVIES AND KAREN REISSMANN

If you are on holiday abroad I suggest that you make the effort to go native and play bridge there. Karen and I visited Carcassonne Bridge club while on holiday in the South of France. It was brilliant!

We looked up the club on the internet first and found out where it was etc. Karen and I both scraped a pass at "O" Level French so it was with trepidation that we turned up at the club to see if we could play. No one spoke English but they were very welcoming and we worked out that there was a two session Tounoi the next day with Breakfast!!. It turned out that it was a Bank holiday tournament across France. (The French have a Bank Holiday every week in May)

We wrote our system out in French the night before. ( Not easy. "O" Level French doesn't cover bridge, but watching a French commentary on BBO did help.) We practised what to say in French if we were asked what a bid meant. The French players were amazingly welcoming. They put us NS with English bidding boxes and each pair that came to the table shook our hands and were really friendly.They were surprised by our "faible" (weak) 2Diamonds but were very pleased that we were not playing the English No Trump (12-14). We had a good first session despite being nervous.

After the first session we went down into another room decked out with trestle tables and groaning with food and booze. This was Breakfast! There was Pastis, Cassiss, Whisky etc first, then a brilliant french buffet with plenty of wine, fromage and beautiful patissieres. Then they presented us with a present each of a Carcassonne Bridge Diary. Then the final installment of breakfast was the local sparkling white wine (Limoux) which we had to down quickly before returning to bridge. I have never played bridge before when drunk, but the French players clearly had. Les Anglaise bombed in the second session, but still finished halfway. We finished just before midnight. (Yes, even later than Manchester Bridge Club!). It had been a great day we really felt part of the life of Carcassonne. We hope to return to play there again. It was so much fun.

Some French Bridge terms:
Clubs = Trefles
Diamonds = Carreaux
Hearts Coeurs
Spades = Piques
No Trumps = Sans Atout (or Sans/SA)
Egale = made.
Jack = valet
King = Roi

LINKS: Carcassonne Tourism

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