What I really need is something like:
SELECT -col1, -col14 FROM table LIMIT 50;
Where the minus sign means I don't want these two columns. I still don't see a way to do it easily (for Vertica and in Datagrip).
That's very close to SELECT *, which has it's own dangers.
I agree that it would be nice for exploration and testing, but probably should not be used in production.
There are also easy-to-google SQL Puzzles, if you're looking for something more advanced.
I would also recommend learning about query plans and how to read them, they're invaluable for query optimization.