“This reminds me of a story,” said Dorothy Truscott. “There were these two bridge players, and you know what these bridge players do all the time–they sit around and talk about how bad their wives are at bridge.”
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And underneath that room there was yet another room filled with bridge tables.
For nearly 12 hours a day for nearly two weeks, all of these rooms were filled with bridge players, four to a table, all playing in the North American Contract Bridge Tournament, one of three sponsored each year by the American Contract Bridge League.
“‘Listen,’ the first bridge player said. ‘My wife is such a bad bridge player that when she’s got ace-queen in the dummy, she plays the queen to finesse against the king.’
“At this I laughed, because how could anyone be worse than Veronica?
“He tells the story of Mrs. Vanderbottom, a woman who had lots of money but very little card sense. Eddie had been teaching her for ten full years, and she never got one thing right.
“‘Mrs. Vanderbottom,’ Eddie Kantar screamed. ‘For ten years I’ve been teaching you! What are you doing? I told you to play off the top!’
