My Kentucky story
Quite some time ago I mentioned that I had a noteworthy story from Kentucky. Here is that story.
Before I learned bridge, the most sophisticated card game I played was Spades. This was a very popular game on campus (which was not in Kentucky), and particularly so in my dorm. Within my dorm, it was most popular on my hall. We played almost constantly, and got very, very good. We also developed our own variant, with certain rules and scoring which accentuate skill and more accurately reflect the actual difficulty of various contracts. I have not encountered anything approaching "Fifth Floor East AJ Spades" elsewhere.
One year, we found out about a Spades tournament open to any student at my school. So, what the heck, two teams from my hall entered... and we were the last two teams remaining at the end of the day. The other team from my hall was undefeated until we (already with one loss) beat them by one point.
What we didn't realize was that this school tournament was for selection to go to a regional tournament at the University of Kentucky. Bonus! Field trip! It turns out other schools had kick-ass card players as well, and we did not finish with impressive results. Still, it was fun, and it was the first time I'd eaten at a Cracker Barrel (there was one right next to the hotel). The really good card players from my school played bridge, which was also contested at UK, and I seem to recall they didn't win but did much better than we did.
I am not being at all modest when I say I was by far the worst of the four Spades players we sent to the regional tournament, and I was probably not even in the top 10 in my dorm. But I was good enough to get a free trip to Kentucky and this LiveJournal story.
Before I learned bridge, the most sophisticated card game I played was Spades. This was a very popular game on campus (which was not in Kentucky), and particularly so in my dorm. Within my dorm, it was most popular on my hall. We played almost constantly, and got very, very good. We also developed our own variant, with certain rules and scoring which accentuate skill and more accurately reflect the actual difficulty of various contracts. I have not encountered anything approaching "Fifth Floor East AJ Spades" elsewhere.
One year, we found out about a Spades tournament open to any student at my school. So, what the heck, two teams from my hall entered... and we were the last two teams remaining at the end of the day. The other team from my hall was undefeated until we (already with one loss) beat them by one point.
What we didn't realize was that this school tournament was for selection to go to a regional tournament at the University of Kentucky. Bonus! Field trip! It turns out other schools had kick-ass card players as well, and we did not finish with impressive results. Still, it was fun, and it was the first time I'd eaten at a Cracker Barrel (there was one right next to the hotel). The really good card players from my school played bridge, which was also contested at UK, and I seem to recall they didn't win but did much better than we did.
I am not being at all modest when I say I was by far the worst of the four Spades players we sent to the regional tournament, and I was probably not even in the top 10 in my dorm. But I was good enough to get a free trip to Kentucky and this LiveJournal story.