Once in a Lifetime

Jason and I played the first match this morning. Beforehand our team met in Justin and Jeremy's room and were listening to some music to get pumped up when 'Lose Yourself' by Eminem came on. In some ways I can relate to this song a lot. Marshall Mathers is from SE Michigan, like me, and has had to come up from basically nothing to where he is now. In the world of bridge, I certainly wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. A lot of good young players come from families that have bridge players in them, if not bridge stars. They hail from areas like NYC and Los Angeles, where good players (read: mentors) abound. I never really had any of that, and I like to think that I've come pretty far in bridge in a pretty short time from limited resources. But most people like to think of themselves as underdogs.



There's a verse from this song that really gets to me:

This world is mine for the taking
Make me king, as we move toward a, new world order
A normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to post mortem

It only grows harder...

In bridge, the post mortem is what you do after the hand has finished and the entire deal is known. Superstars play like they know the hand from the very beginning and to win a world championship... well I'm not calling myself a superstar but the words definitely speak to me. From this point out things are only going to get tougher and I'm going to have to step up my game because, hey, this might just be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

To view the standings you can go here and to view the 'Live Running Scores' you can just click the link at the top. The server is very poor so you may have to hit refresh several times.

That team way in front is mine. As the Knockout phase approaches tomorrow I am feeling confident and excited about our chances.