Talking Bridge ....

Things I wish people wouldn’t do

• - Arrive late, or at the last minute, and then promptly adjourn to the bar.

• - Mill around at the start refusing to sit down, thus frustrating the Director’s attempts to get the movement organised.

• - Ask for the umpteenth time, "How many do we add?", having not bothered to concentrate on the Director's opening announcements.

• - Arrive at a table discussing a previous hand with their partner rather than saying "Good evening" to the new opponents. Most people (including me) have done this in thoughtless moments, but some don’t even seem to realise what bad manners it is.

• - Tap the table instead of producing a pass card. This action usually means that the player doesn’t expect another bid, which can sometimes be useful (and unauthorised) information for partner when the bidding unexpectedly continues.

• - Put bidding cards away before the opening lead is faced (see ‘Bidding Box Procedures’ in this series).

• - Have a card detached, ready to play, before it is his turn (see Law 74.B.3). The fact that he doesn't have a problem might be very significant to a partner trying to work out who has what.

• - Tell the defenders, "It doesn't matter what you do", without actually making a claim. If he isn't confident enough to table his cards, why should he expect the defenders to trust him and stop thinking? In fact, if this "half-claim" causes the defence to misplay the hand they probably have redress, but it's still an irritating thing to do.

• - Write illegibly on the travellers (or not at all in some cases!). Making phone calls the following day to establish what happened can be very tiresome.

• - Whilst we're on the subject of irritating, shouldn't-have-to-happen, next-day phone calls, when somebody sees an obvious mistake on the traveller, I do wish he'd draw the Director's attention to it, rather than marking the traveller with a question mark. That way, there's a chance of sorting out what really happened before the offenders have gone home.

• - Insist on reading out previous results on the traveller to the other players at his table (can’t they read?) in a voice that can be heard the other side of the room.

• - Ignore North when being proffered the traveller for checking (too busy discussing the play), wait until the traveller has been returned to the board and then ask to see it. Come to that, it’s not a bad idea to agree how many tricks have been made before getting too involved in the post-mortem!

• - Stuff the traveller back in the board in such a way that a pair of tweezers is required to extricate it!

• - Chorus "It’s not our fault", when the Director points out that the table is running late. He probably knows perfectly well whose fault it is, but he still needs all four players to get a move on.

• - Sit chatting after the move has been called, and justify this by saying "We’ve nowhere to go, our next opponents are still playing". Their seats, of course, still need to be vacated for the pair following.

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