Louis Huber - Story from a Junior Master

My father and mother taught my brothers and me to play bridge in the 1960’s. Goren system. 

I played rubber bridge in college ( I particularly remember playing all night when my stoned fraternity brothers next door played Layla over and over and over). I learned about weak 2s then. 

At my first job, in the late ‘70’s, we had a foursome that played at lunch and we dove in to Precision. That ended when I changed jobs. 

My wife and I played social bridge with friends and a neighborhood group when we bought our first house in the mid 80’s, but she really didn’t enjoy it and I decided to keep her and ditch bridge. 

On a recent cruise, we met a couple from our hometown. He started playing at The Bridge Studio and needed a partner (his wife didn’t enjoy bridge either). I decided to give it a try and went to a session with him. 

We agreed to play five-card majors, 15-17 no trump, Stayman, Gerber, and Blackwood.  Otherwise we would just go with how we played in the old days. 

The folks at the Club were very tolerant of my first efforts at Duplicate. I had never seen a bid box before. I made lots of mechanical mistakes playing the cards. I was really nervous. 

But , when playing on the first day, the 10 of diamonds was led to me from dummy. I sat wondering what to do. Then I distinctly heard my mother’s voice in my mind say, “Cover an honor with an honor”. I covered with my Jack and we went on to place first in our group and second overall. Thanks, Mom. 

We went on to play later that week at the Regional in Overland Park and somehow eked out enough points to make Junior Master. I still don’t understand scoring. 

Louis Huber.