Bridge! And sorry for not writing

I’m really tired. I woke up a bit early this morning, but I still feel unreasonably tired considering it’s only 23:00. On account of this, I’m not feeling up to writing another episode of my short story. Sorry!

Instead I will write about some easier things: some minor stuff about my life right now, and bridge!

I am busy. It’s annoying how busy I am. I’m not taking a heavy courseload. I’m not very involved in extracurricular activities. What’s going on? How come I can’t find time to exercise regularly? I can’t find time to spend with my friends. I can’t find time to do anything for personal enjoyment (besides playing bridge). Am I spending too much time sleeping (really, lying in bed but not sleeping)? Am I working inefficiently? What’s going on??

The one redeeming factor here is that I do get to spend a fair amount of time playing bridge. I love bridge. It’s an excellent game. I might post a few bridge how-to kind of things later on, if I feel motivated. Although there’s a kind of stereotype in the USA that bridge is for old people (especially old ladies), it really is a great game for anyone who likes to think. You don’t need to be old in order to enjoy sitting at a table and thinking analytically (without the stress of it being your job)!

Let me briefly explain why bridge is so cool. What are the key elements of bridge? First, there’s the bidding. A bridge bidding system is about lossy encoding. You have a very limited set of codewords and you want to find an encoding of possible bridge hands into these codewords that loses as little information as possible (more precisely, you want an encoding that loses relatively little information in likely situations — more precision in likely situations may be worth worse precision in unlikely situations). The nature of the codewords means that your encoding system will be very complex, so you have to understand this complex system and be able to use it (mentally).

Then, there’s the play. On defense, there’s more of the encoding, although it’s much more difficult here to encode things precisely so the system is usually much less complicated. But more importantly, there’s a huge element of deductive reasoning. You estimate probabilities, think about a complicated sequence of events, consider psychological factors. It’s like chess in this way, though much more structured, and with a major probabilistic factor that’s not present in chess.

But it’s not just an intellectually challenging game! It’s also a very social game! It has both a competitive and a cooperative element. I think this is why bughouse chess is popular — that version of chess also has both the cooperative and competitive elements. If I am ever married, I hope that my wife will play bridge with me: what better way to express my love for my wife than to send her into the tank by making a non-system bid during a competitive auction?

If you’re a bridge player, consider the following situation: you’re sitting first seat, Jxxx of hearts, a balanced 11-count. You and LHO pass. Your partner opens 1H. RHO overcalls 2C. You have a pretty obvious cuebid and make it: 3C. LHO passes. Your partner passes! RHO doubles. What is going on? What should you do?

To recap: the bidding was (you first) P (P) 1H (2C) / 3C (P) P (X) / ?

Well, that’s all for now. I need to sleep, or I won’t be able to get through my list of 2 errands, 6 homework assignments, 1 lecture, 3 meals, and 1 actual job for tomorrow. (With luck, I might have time to blog for real tomorrow night! I’m hoping to write another episode in the saga of Darius and Hyacinth or to write something controversial, about religion or some such.)