North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 01/23/2023

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

New Weekly Game for 0-299 Players Starting Thursday, February 2. Do both you and your partner have less than 300 masterpoints? If so, don’t miss the opportunity to play in North Penn’s NEW weekly 0-299 game every Thursday at noon. A FREE lesson will be conducted before each 0-299 game at 11:00 a.m. The theme for the February lessons will be “Declarer Decision-Making.”

Please sign up in advance so we know how many tables to expect. You can sign up in three ways:

Email Pat Andrews at pat@andrewsartworks.com
Email the club at northpennbridge@gmail.com
Sign up in the book at the club, specifying that you want to play in the 0-299 game

Grand National Teams. Now is the time to put together your team for the GNT’s next July in Chicago. You have to register by January 30 if you want to play in flight B (0-2500.) The match is online, so you can play from anywhere. Click on this link for the flyer.

Game Day at the Club. On Saturday, we hosted three tables and played Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan and Mahjong. I had a good time and hope you will join in the fun next time we schedule a game day. Interest was expressed in regularly scheduling a Mahjong game. If this is of interest to you, please contact Beth at beth.milton@comcast.net.

Education

Joann Glasson’s Bridge Lessons. The final January lesson will be next Monday, January 30. For information regarding the two February lessons click on this link. The dates are February 13 and 27.

Tuesday Night's Beginners Lesson. Time - 7:00 to 9:00 pm. The subject will be Stayman and Transfers. Drop-ins welcome.

Shuffle & Deal continues Tuesday evenings and Wednesday mornings.

Partnership

To add your name to the player list or to request a partner for a game, please send an email to northpennpartner@gmail.com.

Calendar

Click here to see a file you can enlarge.

We update our Facebook page regularly so be sure to check it out. It’s a great way to stay in touch with all the happenings at North Penn.

Tidbits

“Pay attention to the card chosen as the opening lead and make the most of the inferences given to you by that lead.

There is a wealth of information from the opening lead and a discerning declarer can draw valuable inferences in this area.

1. How fast was the lead? A defender with a naturally attractive lead will play at normal pace. When there is significant hesitation before the lead, declarer may deduce that the defender has no clear-cut lead and has some holdings which are unattractive.

2. Was the choice a trump lead? That normally indicates that trumps are splitting evenly. A trump lead is uncommon from four trumps.

3. Is the lead in a suit bid by dummy or declarer? If so, beware. That usually indicates a singleton lead.”

From 100 Winning Bridge Tips

by Ron Klinger

Deal of the Week

by Bucky Sydnor

Need Help With Your Hand As Declarer?

Call 1-800-O-P-P-O-N-E-N-T-S

I’m in 3rd seat in a F2F game, with favorable vulnerability, and pick up:

-----♠107--♥A106--♦KJ4--♣AQJ95

The auction goes

------p- – p – 1N – Dbl (single-suited)

-----2♣ –-p –.2♦ – .p

-----3N – all pass

LHO leads her ♠5 lead and here is the full deal:

We are almost certainly down 2 immediately if LHO holds A or K sixth of spades and RHO holds the other high honor (the placement of the J should not matter with good defenders, which these were, as they should unblock). Then I see a small glimmer of hope: maybe LHO made the text book lead of 4^th best from AKx5xx. I call for Dummy’s ♠Q and it holds.

Generally, I no longer lead low (4^th best) from AK against a NT contract. What changed that for me was a comment by Bobby Wolff: “I’m tired of losing my opening lead from AKxx(xx) to Dummy’s doubleton queen”. I took Wolff’s comment to heart; under the right conditions, I lead the K. (I must not lead the A against NT contracts as the lead of an A is a special lead. It comes up rarely but it is worth learning.) Leading the K is not textbook, but textbooks are not as great as Bobby Wolff is.

Back to today’s deal, having escaped disaster, my contract is assured; I now have 9 tricks off the top (1 spade, 1 heart, 2 diamonds and 5 clubs).

I run my clubs, pitching Dummy’s spade on the 5^th round. LHO pitches 3 spades, so on my run of the clubs I learn that my LHO started with at least 6 spades and 2 clubs. After 6 tricks, here is the actual layout with my hand on lead:

--------------------♠- ♥Q954 ♦A108 ♣-

-------♠AK ♥J7 ♦Q73 ♣------------♠2 ♥K83 ♦965 ♣-

--------------------♠10 ♥A106 ♦KJ4 ♣-

I now need to decide how I will play my red suits. Noticing that I have at least 2 spades to lose anyway, and that I could add to those 2 losers by making the wrong guess in the red suits, I realize I can let my LHO play the red suits for me. I lead a spade, pitching a heart from Dummy. She can take what turns out to be her 2 spade tricks but then she has to lead a red suit for me.

Surprisingly, after she wins her ♠K, with her partner following, she fails to cash her ♠A. That was a mistake in two ways. She may never get back in and so may never get it (which happened). Secondly, playing her ♠A squeezes me some, forcing me to make a pitch from one of my red suits, thereby making the management of both those suits harder for me.

Instead, she comes out the ♥J, covered by the ♥Q, ♥K, and ♥A. I cash my 2 additional heart tricks ending in Dummy. When LHO pitches the ♠K on the 3^rd round, I now know that LHO’s hand started as 6=2=3=2; both opponents are now down to 3 diamonds.

I lead a low diamond to my ♦A, and then a low diamond to Dummy, finessing. When that wins—LHO did not have to have the ♦Q, I just guessed right—I have 12 tricks and a top.

But I must not let it go to my head. There was some good fortune (luck!) involved both ways. When LHO did not take her opportunity to bid 2♠ over my 2♦ response to Stayman, she successfully concealed her long suit. My partner and I did not know for sure that her long suit spades. Partner, holding ♠Q7, felt his doubleton Q would be help if I held ♠Ax, Kxx or Jxx; he knew none of the other suits presented a problem. Since we did not know her suit, we could not take protective action.

Then, when LHO underled her ♠AK, I was on the receiving end of the luck. When my ♠Q wins the trick, my contract is assured. (At another table in 3N, West, it seems, also underled his ♠AK, but Declarer grabbed his 9 tricks and lost the last 4.)

Meanwhile, our side’s diamonds gave me a two-way finesse for the ♦Q. Not giving me the free finesse by leading diamonds was more than reasonable for LHO. But bridge is full of wonders, and here is one of them: if she gives me a free diamond finesse, they are certain to get a heart trick. Unluckily for LHO, our heart suit had great spots in both hands.

A couple of lessons from this hand include:

Consider not leading low from AKxx(xx) against a NT contract when possibly profitable.
Cash your winners when you are in for the last time (seemingly a no-brainer but …).

A third lesson, which I want to emphasize, is this—sometimes your opponents can help you make your contract, or some extra tricks. Look for those opportunities.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Playing in Toronto I wind up playing against a good friend of mine's (Steve Aaron) mother. We wind up defending 3D which I might have doubled and we beat it a trick. I tell her I would have doubled her if she wasn't Stevie's mother. Next hand I wind up in 4S and as my partner puts down the dummy he says: Forget about Stevie's mother and make this hand."

Bridge humor from

Eddie Kantar