Talk - Tense and Nervous
Tense
I was playing with a new partner. I was declarer and accidentally took the lead with Ace in hand when my 10 was enough to win the trick. Partner was no slouch pointing it out after the hand was over, but my response amused an opponent who sent me a private message:
partner: you could have won the first trick with the 10 pd ! ! !
will: I wanted to introduce some tension into your life
opponent to will: good answer
Nervous
I was playing with a partner who was overconfident of his own abilities as shown by bidding too high, and taking unnecessary risks in play. Even worse, due to raw luck and easily-awed opps we were getting some high scores. I knew the roof was about to come down so I took the money and ran. Later I came across these lines in a spy novel (Faith, by Len Deighton) that fitted my feelings perfectly:
The kid thought I was nervous and he was right. If he knew what he was doing, he'd be nervous too.
Followed by:
There was once an old chap at the training school who started the very first day's lecture saying: our job here is to change gallant young gentlemen into nervous old ladies. The kid needed that lecture badly.
Similarly, General Savary speaking of Napoleon's dashing and exceedingly ambitious Marshal Murat, said:
It would be better if he were endowed with rather less courage and rather more common sense.