Marathon

Overview

This is all about an attempt of mine to play Bridge non-stop for 24 hours. In the following sections you can read where the crazy idea came from and then some of the preparation that was done. Then there is a log of what happened on the big day, and a few words on the aftermath. Finally there is a summary that gives the key statistics.

Idea

In September, 2005 I sent this e-mail to an okbridge friend:

Today I had an idea which is to play for 24 hours straight on-line and record the experience (and scores hour by hour) as a sort of blog in cardtabletalk - if I can read my handwriting at the end of it. I'd call it Marathon Bridge.

Where did this idea come from? Well, 2005 was the year I'd run a half marathon for the first time, which set me thinking - is there an endurance version of Bridge that I could try? When, later I learnt about the astonishing sport of Chess Boxing my idea didn't seem so strange after all.

I thought I could do it in the interest of science, a sort of Bridge version of Super Size Me, and two things interested me about this experiment:

1. Would I be able to stay awake?
2. Would I be an even more useless player at the end?

For answers to both questions, read on.

Preparation

Some sort of preparation for this session was clearly required. My main fear was that I would be sitting there for hours waiting for enough players to join to make up a four. So I emailed my list of okbridge friends announcing the event and begging for their support as either partner or opponent. The list was not a long one since most are either in prison or only play on Bridge Base Online now, but nevertheless I got an encouraging response from the few left.

The chosen date had to be considered carefully, taking family and work commitments into account, and finally I plumped for a day between Christmas and New Year when we would be on holiday and there would be time to recover.

The start time took longer to decide. It should be directly after a period of rest but also cater for the fact that 24 hours later I would need to sleep (a LOT) and would want to get my body clock back to what passes as normal as soon as possible. The final choice was 5am.

The games would be Non-Competitive of course, meaning that player's ratings would not be adversely affected by partnering me as a zombie.

Last minute preparations included a 1 hour run up and down the hills round home, with the worrying thought that a running a marathon would have been less effort than a Bridge Marathon - at least it would be over quicker. This healthy step was rather undermined later in the day by the aperitifs before a fine evening meal, accompanied by numerous glasses of Burgundy and rounded off by a Scotch before setting the alarm to 4am and retiring for the night.

The Big Day

4 am: Get up, shave and shower, collect the following items: bottles of water, aspirins, vitamin tablets, notebook, pen. Realise I will probably need benzedrine as well, and wonder if I could send out someone to get some later.

4h49 am: Start! I find a friend to partner me and we get going quickly against a couple of good opponents. Elation at winning 9 IMPs in the second game is tempered somewhat by losing 11 in the sixth.

5h52 am: Record an enigmatic comment at this time that says 'Cold feet'. Not sure if it is due to pre-dawn temperatures or to my timorous bidding. I remember putting some ski socks on anyway.

6h10 am: Amusing interchange between the opponents after they screw up and we win 4 IMPs:

6h43 am: After our total score hovers around the zero mark for a while, partner plays brilliantly and we creep up to +13 IMPs. Suddenly and swiftly we lose the lot in 3 games - story of my life, really.

7h43 am: Dawn is breaking and bad luck causes a downward spiral that doesn't look like it is bottoming out.

8h41 am: Sun is definitely up now but the downward spiral hasn't bottomed out, we are now -41.81 IMPs. Am quite pleased however to pick up a genuine Yarborough (no card higher than a 9) which occurs only once every 1827 hands! Partner doesn't seem to share my excitement though. Muse that if I get another Yarborough then I should stop as I will probably have been playing too long.

9h04 am: New partner and ... family are awake and bringing me breakfast!

10h30 am: Amazing recovery, after a bull run for nearly 2 hours my score is only -4.33 IMPs. It is game 60 and I've been playing for about 6 hours now. Unfortunately my brilliant partner has to go. For the first time I am partnering a stranger. We get the worst result of the session: -13.73 IMPs (we double their 4 Spade contract and they make it - vulnerable - ouch).

11h49 am: Reach the lowest point (-48.29 IMPs) though of course do not know this yet. I don't think I can last the 24 hours and wish I'd announced it as 'Bridge Around the Clock' instead, which - if you listen carefully to Bill Haley and the Comets in 'Rock Around the Clock' - can be interpreted as only 12 hours.

12h07 am: Good friend, and good player, arrives to be my partner. We score the best result of the session: +15.02 IMPs (we double their 5 Diamond contract and they go 5 down) despite me completely misunderstanding the bidding.

12h45 - 4pm: Overall score stabilized for around the next 4 hours - but unfortunately at the desperately low level of -30 IMPs. A bright spot is lunch, though. It starts to snow, a fact I mention to the table - they aren't particularly interested and suggest that I should expect this in Switzerland.

4 pm: The phone rings. Its my brother in law. He wants help saving his email addresses when he reinstalls his computer. I explain that I am a little tied up at the moment.

5 pm: The sun has set. Have the thought that if I'd said 'from dusk to dawn' instead of 24 hours it would have been a mere 9 hours and I could have stopped by now. Family want the log fire lit and only I have the know-how. While I am dummy I dash outside and grab some firewood. Eldest daughter accurately observes that I am covered in snow. Omar Sharif doesn't have handicaps like this, I grumble.

6 pm: Recovery! another good run that takes us to -5.59 IMPs at 7h58 pm.

8 pm: Recovery turns out to be a false dawn as we plunge back to -33.27 IMPs. It's game 189 and I've been playing for over 16 hours. Pizza is kindly served and I risk a glass of wine hoping secretly that it might make me fall asleep.

9 pm: Am getting a bit cramped sitting on my butt for 17 hours. Play a few games standing up. Lose them all and decide to sit down again.

10h05 pm: Have a plus score for the first time for 16 hours. It's not only due to my star partner who has come to rescue me, it is due to our dream opponent new to okbridge, and possibly new to our planet too, who is not only giving us some great scores but also not giving up and leaving (unlike her partners). It's a relationship to nuture, though not as cruelly as a friend suggests: "I put people like that on my Friends list". The games are rather dull but it reminds me of Woody Allen when he said:

This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy; he thinks he's a chicken." And, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?"
The guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs."

Well I need the IMPs.

11h45 pm: Wife heads off to bed, I am alone again.

1h46 am: We reach our top score of the session: +62.44 IMPs.

2 am: Decide to donate some money to charity for every hour I manage. A charity that will hopefully provide me some medical care.

3h30 am: Wife reappears and offers to make me a cup of tea! I insist she goes back to sleep instead.

3h46 am: I'm in my last hour now. Trouble is the opponents are very good. We're +45.08 IMPs and my partner has just proudly boasted of having once lost 100 IMPs with ease in a single session of her Bridge career. This is not good for my morale. Still by being very careful we not only don't lose IMPs we even start gaining them.

4 am: This is an evil time of day - too late for some things and too early for others. Only Faron Young could be comfortable at this hour - as proven by his rendition of "It's Four In The Morning". I mention this fact to the table. Although they're all from the US they've never heard of him. Doh!

4h39 am: It's down to the last two games now and I have my long promised Scotch. Despite my partner's skill we're going to end on a plus - surely noone can lose over 45 IMPs in two games?

4h51 am: Done! I feel I could play some more but decide it would be wise to go to bed instead. Final score is +58.52 IMPs after 269 games.

Aftermath

I hadn't felt particularly sleepy during the session even at the end. After it was over I went to bed at 5am but was wide awake after only 3 hours sleep. The rest of the day I felt pretty normal (i.e. wrecked) except at 9pm I really did have to sleep. I noticed my first and index fingers were swollen from typing and clicking, but this passed after a few hours. I did slouch a lot and a couple of days later I suffered a seriously aching back as a result.

After checking the scores I conclude that I didn't get worse as the day wore on, although with changing partners and opponents this is hard to tell. The worst moment of inattention happpened early in the session, after about 7 hours, when I opened 1NT having failed to count my hand of 21 points correctly.

I did do something for charity from it: for every hour I played I made a donation to CARE International an international relief and development agency that helps find lasting solutions to poverty.

Would I play for 24 hours again? No way.

Summary

Here are the stats:

Start: 27th December 2005 04h49

Finish: 28th December 2005 04h51

Games Played: 269

Overall Score: +58.52 IMPs

Cumulative Score:

Best Result: +15.02 IMPs (Game 79)

Worst Result: -13.73 IMPs (Game 71)

Most Common Result: Between 0 and +1 IMP (36 occurrences)

Standard Deviation: 4.75