Help
Some weeks ago a good bridgeplayer moved to my hometown after he has been away for many years, working in a very high position in a very big company, now retired. There was a vacancy in a higher league team of my local club and we both were asked to build up a partnership and join the team. We did, decided for a system and worked hard. Since the system is not all, we went 2 times friday afternoon to a local club. It was not the club we are playing for because they play on monday evening until midnight which is too late for me, I am too tired during the week when I must go to work and the like (mimosa
). We were friendly to everybody, saying "hello" and "goodbye". It happened that some ladies started to teach my partner that he must use this and that pen and use that and not this base for writing. He remained friendly and did what they told him. Another lady told him that, when putting down the dummy, he must sort the suits like "♠♥♦♣", she allowed the trumps to be on his right. I intervened that he can put down the cards except trumps in the suit order that he likes, but she had still another opinion. Who cares... We won very high. The following week the ladies were even more grumpy. After my partner opened a 2-suiter and my RHO bid my 6° suit, I doubled (in the same way I always make my bids) and she was down for 1400. A big lamento started: he made her dizzy with his weird opening, she thought he had ♥s and a minor (which he indeed had), and her partner said "let them have their fun, they enjoy and need it". I know that lady and said that this was not the case, we just play normal bridge and I don't feel any malicious joy, how could she say such a thing? A new pair, 2 males this time. Again a bad action by opps. The one player is from Iran, and he started to claim that especially my partner has something against foreign people. My p did nothing!! Next pair, 2 ladies:
1♣ (nat.) pass 2♠ 1NT by me = 2-suiter in the reds. They asked my partner who explained my bid after he thought perhaps 45 seconds before his explanation. Bidding stopped at 2♠ and again: TD! We made them dizzy and they are damaged because they didn't bid game.
Score stood and they still abused at the next table (their opps were of course on their side although we never played against the other ladies). At this state I went to the other table and said that I can hear them and that it is highly unfair what they were doing. She said "not YOU, your partner...", but he did nothing!! All this besides the "normal" education how to hold the pen etc. At the end of the tourney, which we again won high, an unknown lady came to me and asked where I normally play and in which group, it was the tone of "go back where you belong". The advantage of "my" club is, that we have playing strength groups and a ranking for attaching the players to the group they belong to (here in this club we played in 1 group). But once per month we have a Mitchell tournament where the groups are mixed, and those ladies (the same as in the friday club) talk like this:" the better players play Mitchell because they want to have the points", or "the better players don't play Mitchell because they are arrogant and don't want to play against weaker. How can we learn from them?". So, what you do is wrong!Today our team captain called me and told me en passant that one lady from the friday tournament told another lady who never saw my partner before that he stinks! I am really sensitive for smells, that is simply untrue, the dot on the i. What I learned from this again is, that going to the club is not my world. Remain private team matches. Or trips to nearby Denmark (Italy is a bit far
): there the tourney atmosphere was always relaxed. No wonder that new bridgeplayers are shocked, when already we are! I thought that those things only happen here but I heard it already, too, from other countries. Sorry for the long posting (should you have read until the end...)
Caren
is what I would like to do (so I just imagine that they sit naked at the table, nobody sees/hears that). I don't want to go down on their level just because I am angry and feel ashamed for them and that I took a new player to such a club. What they understand is a zero 
I feel better... Thx friends!