Birth of a bat

"I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights" - Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood.

For 127 years, major league baseball players (mostly) have had their bats made by the Louisville Slugger Company. If you're a baseball nut like me fan, it's worth going to their museum and touring the factory, something I did today.

The bats are made of ash or maple - hard wood. They were made by hand until 1980 and it took a craftsman about 20 to 30 minutes to make one bat. Now it's computerized and takes about 30 seconds. After the bat is created, it has to be inspected, sanded and painted with regular paint or a varnish, depending on the ballplayer's preference.

There was a museum, a 15-minute film and a tour of the factory. The tour cast $10 (only $9 for seniors 60 and older - yes!) and the other stuff was freee. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed in the factory.


Above: A model shows how bats used to be hand-lathed.


Above: There was a model of Ken Griffey, Jr., using a Louisville Slugger bat. A wanna-be jumped into the photo.


Above: Outside, a young boy looks at a bat that is as big as his dreams.

Photos by MOJO and one passer-by, taken with my point-and-shoot.

Think big

Above: Nira Talova and Rene De Waele, a married couple living in Rotterdam, Netherlands, have founded Bridge Big, a new online bridge site. They met at a Junior tournament in Poland. He was from the Netherlands, she from Israel.

Rene De Waele had a PhD in physics and a great job, but he gave it all up. Why?

"Bridge is our passion," said De Waele, referring to him and his wife Nira Talova. Both have played poker online and seen the explosion. Why not try a similar concept for bridge.

"When people play online, if you don't care about masterpoints, there's nothing to play for," said Talova (she has an MBA and handles the business side).

"Bridge is a beautiful game, why not spice it up?" asked De Waele.

Their concept is to have bridge games where the entry fees (minus a small amount for the "house") are returned to players as prize money. Poker has multi-table and sit and goes, why couldn't the same concept work for bridge they wondered. Players could play in tournaments for a $1 entry fee or for bigger stakes such a $20 entry.

They were thinking big and decided to call their company BridgeBig. A demonstration was given today at the Louisville NABC. The hotel wireless connection was flakey, but the software was well-received by the players.

To help promote their product, the pair talked to world-class player Zia Mahmood, who is now an official backer.

One of the biggest problems when money is involved is cheating. The couple have procedures in place that they say address that. You can go to their web site to find out more details if you go here.

The software is in beta status now. When the kinks are worked out, there will be an opportunity for beta testers to play and give feedback, perhaps in mid-April. You can go to their web site and read more, or sign up to be a beta tester if you go here.

And the river riseth

Above: The stairs to the Riverwalk is flooded. (Click once or twice to enlarge.)

Bridge players who drove to the North American Bridge Championship last Saturday were in for a shock. The ground-level parking area at the Galt House was under water -- the Ohio River had flooded. Players were directed to another parking area.


Above: Notice that the (base of the) street lights are underwater.


Above: The Ohio River has flooded the ground-floor parking area at the Galt House.

Photos taken with my P&S.

Fans go gaga over her

Lady Gaga is in town! The KFC Center is next to the Galt Hotel and the fans are here in force. I'm not sure which group is more weird: the bridge players or Gaga fans?





Photos courtesy of Jonathan Steinberg.

I plead the fifth

Above: The Galt Hotel is home of the Spring NABC. The Rivue Tower is on the left, the third-story walkway connects to the Suite Tower (not shown).

Brent and I had a good game Thursday afternoon (58+%), and a so-so game at night (52%) to finish fifth in the North American Open Pairs. We had mixed feelings. That was a good showing, but you're always left with an empty feeling unless you win. Most of our success was from taking a lot of tricks on defense, my favorite part of the game.

The Bart convetion came up twice. We got great boards on both. If you don't play it, consider adding it to your arsenal. Maybe I'll write up one of the hands when I get home -- too busy now as it's back to work.

You can read all the results in the Daily Bulletin at: http://www.acbl.org/nabc/2011/01/bulletins/db1.pdf

Above: Today, the bugler of Churchill Downs (Steve Buttleman)and a Col. Sanders look-alike (Don Decker) showed up to officially kick off the tournament. I don't know who that funny-looking old man in the middle is.

Photos by MOJO and taken with my point and shoot.

Above: The Galt Hotel has two towers. There is a walkway on the third floor that connects the two.

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Twenty-eight pairs qualified for today's final in the North American Pairs. Brent and I had 52.5% and 54% and stand in 17th place. Got 'em just where we want them, lol.

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The weather has been miserable, but is supposed to change Friday. We're right on the Ohio River and my room overlooks it - nice! More later.

Lucky in Kentucky

The North American Bridge Championship begins this week in Louisville KY. Their slogan is "Get Lucky in Kentucky." A lady wrote in and said getting lucky meant something else to her and she was offended. One thing I won't miss about my job when I retire next month is having to listen to morons. If this lady goes, maybe we should call it Yucky in Kentucky.

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There are events for everyone including me! I haven't been able to play at NABCs for the past eight or nine years because of my job, but the North American Pairs starts Wednesday and Brent and I are going to give it a go.

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I won't have time to blog regularly, but I'll try and post some photos later. If you're a bridge player, it's not too late to make plans to come.

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Images taken from the ACBL web site.

Ruff and a sluff at trick one -- ouch

Playing on OKbridge tonight, I picked up:
♠A ♥A K Q 10 8 7 5 3 ♦J 8 2 ♣K.
Right-hand opponent passed and I opened a precision 1♣. LHO jumped to 2♠ and I almost fell out of my chair when partner, Kate, bid 3♥. With Brent I play transfer positives, even in competition, but with Kate this showed 5 or more hearts and 9 or more points.

RHO jumped to 4♠ (naturally) and I bashed to 6♥. LHO bid 6♠ (don't you just love it when they preempt and bid again when their partner could have anything) and Kate doubled.

Here are all four hands (rotated):



The opening lead was a heart. Declarer ruffed in dummy, discarded a club and led a diamond to his 10 and Kate's king -- we could no longer set the contract more than four. Plus 800 was -1.87 IMPs. If I had bid 7♥, East would have to find a diamond lead to set the grand slam.

The board was played 65 times and you can see all the results if you click here.

Robots love to falsecard

Playing with the robots is always an adventure. I believed I had learned most of their "tricks," then this deal:

♠2 ♥A K 9 ♦A K Q 10 5 4 2 ♣Q J.
I opened 1♦, left-hand robot overcalled 2♠. pard passed and right-hand robot bid 3♦. I have a nice hand, but limited defense, so decided to bid 5♦. I've found if you pass and they bid game and then you bid 5♦, they always double. It passed out.



LHO led the ♠K followed by a low one to RHO's ace and my ♦10. I led a trump to dummy, West throwing a club, ruffed the last spade high and drew the last trump as West discarded a second club.

West's void in diamonds was good news. I'm going down one or two, but they can likely make game.

I exited with the ♣Q. West took his king, led another to East's ace. East led a third round of clubs, ruffed. West had shown up with five clubs, likely had six spades, so had a doubleton heart. I decided to play East for the ♥Q 10. I led a diamond to dummy, advanced the ♥J and East played the 10 under it!

Against a human, I would sneer at him and finesse, but a robot? Here's the deal:

I was down two for a 48.9% board. Notice that 4♠ was cold.

You can see all the results if you click here.