The Hog
The late Ron Anderson could be a good friend or dedicated enemy. He was commonly called the Hog because of his resemblance to Victor Mollo’s Hideous Hog as well as his appearance and behavior. Here is a typical auction Ron had with Kathy Evans in Madison, Wisconsin fairly early in his career but not too soon for his porcine traits to have emerged to be fully dominant.
The opponents passed throughout.
KE HOG
1C 1S*
1NT 2S**
2NT 3S***
3NT**** 4S*******
P
*with a slight snort
**giving partner a hard look
***really starting to snort in earnest
****putting her hand on the table with finality
*****slamming his hand on the table
They were in a four four fit!
Once he and Kathy Wei were playing against me and my student, Seymour Liebowitz in the finals of a regional KO in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. When we had a break Ron took me aside and said,” It’s like a ping pong game. Every time Seymour makes a mistake Kathy does.”
From then on every time one of our partners would make a mistake Ron would say “pong” or “ping”. While the others would ignore him not realizing what he was saying , I had to keep a straight face.
One night we were returning to Chicago from a tournament in Iowa, we came to a toll booth, and the person who had tossed his money in missed! Immediately Ron started pounding his horn and shouting at the poor motorist things like, ” You should be more careful,” and “It’s certainly big enough. How could you miss it?”
The flustered motorist had to get out of his car to retrieve his change and finally put it in the basket and drove away. Ron pulled up. And with a grand gesture tossed his change in, but he also missed! Immediately, the car behind us started blowing its horn. Still sitting in his car without turning around , Ron said, “Sir…
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Are you saying that the Hog bid, rebid, rerebid and rererebid a 4 card suit, while his partner with 4 card support emphatically denied anything resembling support? It’s a great story to be sure, but my weird Shit-o-meter just went off the scale. I’d guess that this is a blend of two or more stories, but who am I to say?
Kathy(now Kate) writes, When the auction was over and I had to put down my hand as dummy I knew I was going to get a lot of flak because of my failure to support Ron’s suit. Ron put on the robes of righteous indignation when he saw my four spades and I was a little embarrassed. It wasn’t until the hand was nearly over that I realized he had four spades too.
When the auction was over and I had to put down my hand as dummy I knew I was going to get a lot of flak because of my failure to support Ron’s suit. Ron put on the robes of righteous indignation when he saw my four spades and I was a little embarrassed. It wasn’t until the hand was nearly over that I realized he had four spades too.