Mike Lawrence

One of the bridge world's most successful players/writers/teachers is Mike Lawrence. Some years ago, Mike and his wife Karen made a huge change in their lives - they left Berkeley, California, moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and virtually disappeared from the American tournament circuit - causing Mike's fans to wonder, Where's Mike?!

We asked Mike to tell us why he and Karen decided to relocate to Nashville, and what their new life is like. Mike writes: It was really not so much a question of moving to Nashville but of getting out of Berkeley. The city has the nickname Bezerkly and it is appropriate.

Two stories

On one occasion my wife observed a lady walking around our garden. This should not have been possible since we had an enclosed garden. My wife went out to get rid of this person and found that she was accompanied by a large disheveled dog. When the lady saw my wife she ran to the top of the garden where it turned out she and her boyfriend had set up a tent. They were living in the yard. When my wife asked them to leave (they had broken the lock on a gate to gain entrance), they refused. My wife called the Berkeley police department to ask for help in getting rid of these people and they (the police department) told my wife that she should be more tolerant. No help was offered.

My wife had to get rid of them herself.

The city has a way of telling you what you can and can not do and they make you pay them for doing it. For instance, at one point we were obliged to spend a couple of thousand dollars making the house weatherproof. Then we had to pay a Berkeley inspector to approve the work. When we sold the house, the new owners observed that the window and doors were stuck, a result of the weatherproofing, and they told us that they were not worried. They would rip it out as soon as the sale was approved.

Our research as to where to move was not terribly logical. We considered a number of places and Nashville won by a nose. It is a lovely place. We have a number of friends here, plus the area is stress-free, something that Berkeley was not.

We have a huge property and it is rife with wildlife. We are not exactly on a first-name basis with every bird and squirrel but we have come to know each other. We have almost all forms of wildlife ranging from foxes to coyotes to snakes to raccoons to opossums to skunks to deer to turtles to frogs and quite a few more that we know of by reputation.

Business-wise, we are involved in producing bridge books and software. Recently I have been working on a new site, www.bridgeclues.com that offers two bridge columns a day. If you look forward to the newspaper column, this is a much improved version. The two hands offer questions and answers. The material changes daily and it is free. A terrific combination.

When not doing the above, Karen and I do cruises, averaging just over one a year. And, of course, I teach. My favorite format for classes is to visit a city for a week, giving large lectures and/or small supervised classes. I have taught in almost every state and in around twenty countries.

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Good news: We got Mike to get out a pen and write a few articles for us. The first one, a recap of penalty double situations, will help herald in 2005 in the January edition of Bridge Today E-Magazine.

In addition, we found out that Mike has not one brand-new product, but two. The first is a CD on counting and bidding. The second is a book called I Fought The Law of Total Tricks. The CD, Counting at Bridge TWO, Bidding, Play, and Defense, is already available. The new book, I Fought The Law of Total Tricks, was written with Bridge Today writer Anders Wirgren, and will be available the first week of January.

You can obtain Mike's new software, Counting at Bridge Two, Bidding, Play, and Defense" for $38.95 postpaid to anywhere in the world.

Mike and Anders's book, I Fought The Law of Total Tricks is available for $21.95 postpaid to US addresses (with additional postage to other addresses). Mailing for this will start in the first week of January.

Resellers are welcome to email Mike for discount rates on these and other products.

You can contact Mike with book/CD orders or just to say hi via his web site at

www.bridgeclues.com, or email him at

77bridge@best.com