Ten-Finger Exercises

Playing Duplicate

Duplicate Bridge players are the elite group.

I've never played it myself, but I like the setup. It seems like a good framework for a lot of different interactions.

In the bridge game, four hands are dealt and played as always. Then other foursomes come and play the identical hands, trying to make better scores.

It's a little like having the beginning of a story as a prompt, and everyone gets a whack at completing it. Or, after your mother-in-law makes some idiotic statement, repeating it to your friends to see who comes up with the best retorts and ends the conversation in the best way. The snappiest comeback wouldn't win the contest, any more than a single finesse would win a hand of bridge. It would be in how you played the whole game. In relationships, the win-win situation would most often get the most points.

Wouldn't that make a good story, something like Groundhog Day, only in this case it wouldn't be the same people living one day over and over. Only the situation would be the same.

Maybe that wouldn't be very interesting after all, she said as she, along with people all over the planet, went to fix dinner. So, how are you fixing your chicken tonight?