Why

Partly for the fun of it, also to get rid of all the Bridge junk cluttering my brain for many years.

Or, as was once much more elegantly stated:

"I felt that the time had arrived, when I ought to give to the public, who had so honoured me with their favour, an unequivocal mark of my gratitude, by consecrating my leisure hours to their services" (Houdin, The Sharper Detected and Exposed, 1863).

What



I've collected a few old books on Whist and Bridge and come across the phrase 'Card-Table Talk' in two or three of them:

  • Card Essays, Clay's Decisions and Card-Table Talk by "Cavendish", 1879
  • Whist Scores and Card-Table Talk by Rudolf Rheinhardt, 1886
  • The Whist Table by "Portland", 1892
It seemed like a meaningful phrase, and got me thinking about what do players talk about when they play?

How

Written with the invaluable help of:

1. The book HTML For The World Wide Web, by Elizabeth Castro.

2. The free Web editor Arachnophilia by Paul Lutus (creator of the AppleWriter). Provided from his Arachnoid.com under the conditions of its unique CareWare concept.

Update History

  • 22-Feb-10: Added another film: The Dogwalker, some more repartee here and a new main page picture and a new quotation.
  • 01-Dec-09: New main page picture, added a new Gee link
  • 29-Nov-09: Fixed the broken links, removed out of date ads.
  • 01-Jun-09: New ad, new main page picture, and restored some classic banter with K here.
  • 01-Jan-09: New picture - a photograph for the first time, and a new film.
  • 22-Oct-08: New ad.
  • 26-Sep-08: New picture, quotation, and ad.
  • 18-May-08: Added three new cards and some talk witticisms here, here, and here.
  • 20-Mar-08: Added a few new cards, interesting links about cards and icons for each card.
  • 22-Feb-08: Added a page about different playing cards in the pack and another for miscellaneous stuff (Go Johnny Go Go Go Go!)
  • 11-Jan-08: New picture and new quotation only.
  • 14-Dec-07: Added an advert for gambling-win.com.
  • 7-Dec-07: Fixed a couple of problems here and there.
  • 3-Nov-07: Added a tips page for okbridge players a tricks page with some of the evil things I have done, a library of all quotations ever featured, and some common, if baffling, terms and expressions used by Bridge players.
  • 5-Oct-07: Added information about the pictures and some more to "Talk - Tense and Nervous" (about Marshal Murat)
  • 10-Aug-07: Added a a new Bridge film review for Metropolitan
  • 12-May-07: Added a bunch of new sayings from Allan Lewis. Also added a link to Claire Bridge.
  • 23-Mar-07: Added a new picture (good ones are getting hard to find) and a quotation. Plus a link to something on cheating in Bridge that mentions the illegal (but interesting) Chicago Convention. Lastly, a link on fanning your playing cards !
  • 13-Jan-07: Added some good quotations, and a couple of new films/corrections from Ray Lee.
  • 19-Nov-06: Added a couple of links, one to a large gallery of card-player pictures and another to a report of a case of cheating on okbridge. Found 12 more films that have Bridge in them - haven't seen any of them though.
  • 16-Sep-06: Added a link to the Institute of Poetic Patience who publish poems on the back of playing cards. Also added some icons, tidied up text here and there, and fixed some picture page links.
  • 26-Aug-06: Added the film Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. That's it, I don't believe there are any more films featuring Bridge.
  • 18-Aug-06: New pic, new quotation.
  • 23-Jul-06: New pic, new quotation, new film.
  • 28-May-06: Added the partner talk page and fixed some bits here and there.
  • 11-Mar-06: Added an solution to the Nine Sharp Challenge.
  • 25-Feb-06: Added the 9♦ page.
  • 29-Jan-06: Added the Innuendo talk page (later taken away on grounds of poor taste) and the Animal Crackers film page.
  • 31-Dec-05: Added news of Marathon Bridge.
  • 17-Dec-05: Added a new talk page.
  • 27-Nov-05: Added a new film page and made minor updates to the talk pages.
  • 5-Nov-05: Added the cheating page. Got listed on the Open Directory Project and in Google. Amazing!
  • 18-Sep-05: Added a favicon, talk and film pages, new picture, and a talk glossary.
  • 4-Sep-05: Added a talk page, a film page, and new picture.
  • 30-Jul-05: Added four more talk pages.
  • 29-May-05: Added picture and quotation of the month, two more film review pages, and another curiosity.
  • 15-May-05: Added two more talk pages and revised some of the others.
  • 5-May-05: Added a Sayings page, new picture of the month and a new quotation.
  • 24-Apr-05: Added curiosities and two new talk pages.
  • 28-Mar-05: Added two talk pages and changed the quotation of the month.
  • 20-Mar-05: Added a new film review.
  • 13-Mar-05: Added new picture and archived the old one.
  • 5-Mar-05: Added the first film review.
  • 20-Feb-05: Basic parts all in place. Much developed style sheet - I think I know how it works now.
  • 8-Feb-05: Set up the style-sheet and discarded my original template. Looks good but there is a bug concerning link colour in the navigation bar spilling over to the content that means I can't have it just the way I want it.
  • 2-Jan-05: Registered the web-site and got a host. Appalled at the template.