BBO's Interview of me

Fluff and iFluffette


The Little Prince

Fluff (Bernard Marcoux) has always been a writer. He wrote to friends, to writers, to filmmakers. But also about Balzac, a master's thesis. Or even about bridge, for years. He was, in another life, a teacher of French and Literature. He has published three novels and numerous bridge articles all over the world. You can read his bridge stories on his blog, The Most Beautiful Game.

On BBO, Bernard delights us weekly with his bridge stories that combine art, music, humor and a sincere admiration for bridge. Or, if you're not reading BBO News much, you surely noticed him in the vugraph theater where he is a frequent commentator. Bernard and his wife, iFluffette - main character in most of his stories - can be often found in Main Bridge Club playing with friends.

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How did you learn to play bridge?
In my first wife's family everyone played bridge except her and I. One rainy Sunday, my mother-in-law asked us: Do you want to learn bridge? We said Yes. I learned I needed 13 points to open and that I should never lead away from a King. When we would go there for the weekend, we played a bit, but i didn't get hooked.

A few years later, a colleague teacher told me he had played bridge the night before. I said: We play bridge too. We then started to play with them. He had a neighbor who was a bridge teacher. He would come to my friend’s house on Friday nights and give us lessons for free. We insisted and gave him $15 (!) for each lesson.

Once he put the dummy on the table. He said "You are playing 6♠. You need to go to dummy twice, once to take a finesse in trumps, and one more time to finesse in hearts. Dummy has only QT in some suit. So needing 2 entries, you have to play small to the T first, and then later small to the Queen." I was amazed, baffled, hooked.

Then I started to go to clubs, with my wife first, and then alone, driving an hour to go to Montréal at night, and then back home.

At that time, I was playing chess by correspondence (I had 2 kids); I won the right to play in the Canadian Championship. In 1972, I had won the Beauty Prize for the best chess game played in Canada by correspondence. After starting bridge, I just gave up chess... 2 years of hard work to qualify and then I just quit chess, never to play again. Read A diamond is forever for the story.

In 1977 I met a guy who loved bridge also and we decided to form a pair. I bought books and books and books, reading all Goren at least twice, taking notes, transcribing everything. Then we started playing Precision. I bought books again, transcribing all the sequences on sheets, studying them.

In 1980, we won the Open Pairs, flight B, at the Can-Am, the big annual bridge tournament in Montréal. This got me more than 25 ACBL gold points, all I needed to become Life Master. My teacher praised me to all the players in his clubs, and he kept telling me how proud he was of me.

I played with this partner for 7 years.

Then I met France (iFluffette on BBO), who is now my wife. She was a beginner. I still play with her, 30 years after.

How did you get to BBO? Do you still play live, or you prefer playing online?
I got to BBO after playing on OKbridge for some years. I know Fred too, I translated Bridge Master 2000 in French for him. I play often on BBO, but I prefer live bridge.

I wrote an article about a hand Fred played and won the Bols Bridge Press Award 1996 for that article (A Man About Universe).

We play mainly at local clubs now, here in the Laurentians, 70 km north of Montréal. We go to play in Montreal when there are tournaments. We used to go to the Nationals a lot in the USA. We also played in the World Championships in Geneva (1990), Lille (1998), Montreal (2002).

We played in Europe quie often, Biarritz twice, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Barcelona many times since we have friends there. We even played in Japan. Bridge is international, no need to speak the language, spades are spades and 2 is always 2.

We like to play in Europe, the surroundings are always nice, the tempo of play is relaxed (one session a day). You can go out to dinner at nite, bridge finishing around 8PM.

You used to be a teacher... Did you ever try to teach your students how to play bridge?
I used to teach French to teenagers, did that for 32 years. Some knew I played bridge, but I never tried to teach them bridge.

Tell us about your writing.
I write novels, I have published 3 to this date, but the publishers are very reluctant. If you are not a star or at least known, they only see if the profit will be there. As I am not very well known, my books are not considered best-sellers, so they won't publish my books.

I try to write like John Irving, my novels and characters live in the world today. My novels are not historic nor science-fiction nor anything. When people ask what king of novels I write, I say: novels. I write fiction, which could be labeled as social realism maybe.

I am proud of my bridge articles, but much more proud of my novels. I taught French for 30 years and I could not imagine being able to write a 300 page novel, and yet, after I quit teaching, I wrote 2 novels of over 300 pages.

In total, i wrote 5 novels, which amount to almost 1,000 pages altogether. I am very, very proud of that accomplishment.

My bridge articles were and are published all over the world, mainly now in Argentina and South America. They were published in Barcelona and Peru until recently. And now in BBO News weekly.

Any favorite bridge story you'd like to share?
I would have many bridge stories to tell, but most of them appear in my articles. All my articles are taken from real hands that happened at the table. My main character is often my wife.

I try to dwell in all my travels and books I read, to imagine and write an article.

I dont write bridge articles anymore. When i started to write "serious" things like novels, I gave up writing about bridge.

What do you like to do in your free time - besides bridge?
I used to read a lot, I have a degree in literature (MA finished but thesis on Balzac refused because time delay), but I read less and less. I lose interest very quickly. They say you start to paint or write or compose music because you don't find on the market what you really like. Modern novels don't move me, I can't relate, they are not amusing nor touching. Only action, action, nothing more.

To like a novel, you have to be able to relate, to feel like the characters, you have to laugh and cry. My novels make readers laugh and cry, like the ones by John Irving. The same event will make you laugh on page 100 and cry on page 250.

Other than that, I like movies, theater, modern dance, but as we live 70 km north of Montreal, we find it is too far to go for a show at nite and then come back.

So we dont go out very much. When we play bridge in the afternoon (from September to June), we come home and don't feel like going out anymore.

How is bridge with your wife? Any bridge related frictions?
Playing with my wife all these years has caused many fights, but we are still together (30 yrs) and still playing together. We work on our system all the time, I read stuff in magazines, and we try new things. We have many understandings and conventions we like to play, so playing with another player is very difficult, we feel crippled, not being able to use our things.