About Bruce...

          Bruce Thompson is a retired university professor. He taught graduate students at the University of New Orleans applied statistics for 11 years. He then moved to Texas A&M University (TAMU), where he taught applied statistics again to graduate students for 27 years. He retired in 2016 holding the academic titles, Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology, and Distinguished Professor of Library Science. He also held academic rank at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston). If you have an acute, inexplicable, peculiar desire to know more about Bruce, you can watch a video of him lecturing at the Texas A&M University Writing Center about "Writing for Scholarly Publication".
          Upon retirement, Bruce moved to Savannah, at which point he joined the Savannah Duplicate Bridge Club (SDBC). He subsequently passed the ACBL test enabling him to direct Club games. Prior to the SDBC Club burning down, and the pandemic, he directed "human" (in-person) Novice games. Each game was preceded by a brief lesson.
          During the pandemic, Bruce began directing on-line SDBC Bridge Base Online (BBO) 99er games. Because in-person instruction was not possible, Bruce began writing bridge lessons that could be e-mailed to players. For a couple of years these went out to roughly 60 players on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. This led to the creation by Bruce of Esther.
          Because the "Esther Bridge Lessons" were written over the course of a multi-year pandemic, there are lot and lots and lots of them! So, check back frequently, if not hourly, to see if more lessons have been uploaded by Bruce. As Esther recently opined, "Bruce, you Malodorous Misanthrope, if you really cared about novice and rising bridge players, you would stop sleeping, and eating, and focus instead on writing, and uploading!"

About Esther...

          Esther Klinktoast-Houstonhousen is a Quintuple Gold Emerald Life Master (20 Million+ ACBL MasterPoints), who engages in dialogs with Bruce about various duplicate bridge topics. These dialogs thus create the "Esther Bridge Lessons", which typically run 3 to 7 pages in length. Most include duplicate bridge Boards or Hands.
          Esther, as you can see in her lessons, seems to constantly vacillate between adamantly demanding to be called "Ms. Klinktoast-Houstonhousen", or at other times, "Esther", because she is "a warm and caring person." Notwithstanding this vacillation, Esther at least is consistent in her alliterative amalgamation of constantly insulting her interlocuter, Bruce, in these humorous, but also insightful lessons replete with bridge wisdom!
          The "Esther Bridge Lessons" are copyrighted by Bruce. However, interested persons are granted permission to reproduce any lesson for non-profit, personal use.The publication, or the re-publication, of any Esther or other lesson linked here is expressly prohibited, unless pritten written permission is obtained. This is so that Esther can track the use and impact of these quite substantial efforts.