North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 01/24/2022

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

Royal STaC. All the scores for F2F games at the club the week of January 24 will be compared across the District and all points awarded are ¼ gold, ¼ red, ¼ silver and ¼ black.

See //web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/clubs/ROYAL_forplayers.pdf for details.

Bobbie Gomer Club Challenge. On Thursday February 10, Yorktown Bridge Club will be hosting the first of several local interclub competitions honoring the great bridge teacher, Bobbie Gomer, who passed away in 2020. Here is your chance to represent North Penn against other clubs in the area -Yorktown, King of Prussia, AMI and Hamilton. It’s a team game, 8 is enough format. See the details regarding stratifications and time on our webpage. If you can put together a team or just want to play, please send an email to: northppennbridge@gmail.com.

0-99er Nite Club Game. An announcement about the return of this popular online game should be coming in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Thanks to all who joined our 16-table Robot Individual (RI) on Saturday, January 22, and special congrats to all who won silver masterpoints!!

The next RI will be on Saturday, February 12 at 4 pm. Be sure to mark your calendar for this unique, fast, and fun online North Penn tourney. It will be our “Valentine’s Happy Hour with the Robots game❤.” See you then!

Proof of vaccination and face masks will remain a requirement at our F2F games until further notice.

Calendar (click here to see a file you can enlarge):

Education

Shuffle and Deal Returns this Wednesday, January 26 at 9:30 am.

Deb is looking for volunteers to assist her in mentoring these up and coming players. Please email Deb at dwickcris@yahoo.com or look for the sign-up sheet which will be posted on the bulletin board at the club.

GNT Is Coming Soon

Click here to view the

District 4 GNT event email.

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

Making Assumptions from What is Not Led

“When you can’t see the ace or the king of an unbid suit, assume the honors are split or declarer has them both.

To a slightly lesser degree make the same assumption when you can’t see the king or queen of an unbid suit.

When partner bids a suit and doesn’t lead it and you can’t see AKQ of the suit, assume partner has the AQ and declarer the king.”

From Defensive Tips

by Edwin B. Kantar

Deal of the Week

by Bruce Schwaidelson

♪♪ The Unusual No Trump is Loved By Everyone ♪♪

Growing up in New York, I rarely got to see my Uncle Dave who lived in far off Flint, MI. In 1982, however, when I was at best an intermediate player and he was a life master many times over, I got up the nerve to ask if he would like to play with me at the upcoming Niagara Falls National. Much to my surprise he jumped at the chance. We lived, ate, talked, and played bridge together for five wonderful days. Today’s DOTW brought back many fond memories...

At the National, I discovered Uncle Dave was a fascinating story-teller but I was never really sure when his tales were totally true, somewhat embellished, or completely fabricated. He attempted to convince me that several years before Tom Jones became an acclaimed performer, Uncle Dave had lunch with him in Detroit and tried to interest Tom in some songs he had written. Since almost everyone played bridge back then, he thought a couple of bridge tunes would help jumpstart Tom’s singing career. (Really?)

According to my uncle, Tom loved the melodies but not so much the lyrics, agreeing to buy two of Uncle Dave’s creations for 30 bucks total(!) with the stipulation that if he ever used them, my uncle would get no royalties and zero credit for writing the songs – they would be 100% owned by Tom to do with them as he saw fit. This may not happen every day, no matter what you say, but Tom supposedly took my uncle’s favorite tune “The Unusual No Trump Is Loved by Everyone”, and made quite a few lyric changes. When he released “It’s Not Unusual (To Be Loved by Anyone)”, both Tom and the song of course became smashing successes. My uncle did not!

At the National, Uncle Dave advised me that while just about everyone plays the UNT convention, it should definitely not be loved! He counseled that when you have the minors and they have the majors, you will usually get outbid. Yes, you might find a nice save at favorable vulnerability, but more often than not, you will push the opponents into a makeable game they would not have bid on their own, and to make matters worse, a good declarer - who knows that the UNT bidder has at most 3 cards in the other suits - will play the deal a trick or two better than if his opponents had simply remained silent. Uncle Dave’s sage advice: if you have to open your mouth, it may be better to overcall in the suit you want partner to lead.

My uncle would have loved today’s deal from a North Penn BBO Tuesday night game. Notice that North upgraded his Aces and decided his nice shape and excellent spot cards including three 10’s was worth promoting his hand to a limit raise. He therefore responded 1NT (forcing), planning to follow it with 3♠. Englebert, sitting East and playing against his longtime rival and nemesis TomJ, trotted out a UNT 2NT call, a bid that Uncle Dave would not have recommended. His suggestion would have been 2♣ as a lead director. West had already passed so it was unlikely that Englebert’s side would win the auction with his less than stellar hand, nor did he want a diamond lead.

West could have jammed the auction with a 4♣ bid but instead went low with 3♣, which promised nothing and could even be made on a 2-bagger. That did not deter ‘Bert, however. After North completed the description of his hand with 3♠, ‘Bert bid 4♣! This left TomJ (South) with a tough decision: he was prepared to pass his partner’s 3♠ call, but not loving his hand for defense, he decided to take the push to the 4-level, buying the contract.

West led a club to Englebert’s queen, and ‘Bert unwisely switched to his doubleton ♥Q. TomJ covered with the king, West took his ace and returned a heart hoping his partner would ruff or at least win the trick with his ♥J. When East followed low, however, his hand was an open book. His shape was surely 1=2=5=5 and South knew exactly what to do. You can follow his fine play here.

TomJ cashed the ♠K to make sure East’s singleton wasn’t the jack, and that was followed by a finesse of the 10. The rest was easy. He cashed the ♠A and came back to the ♦K in order to draw the outstanding trump. The long heart and the ♦A in dummy took care of the South’s club losers, making 11 tricks. Played “double dummy”, 11 tricks can always be made against best defense, but, as Uncle Dave would have predicted, the bidding pushed NS into a nice game they would not have bid voluntarily. Plus 450 was a cold top at North Penn and 94% in the Common Game.

Every other North Penn table started 1♠ (P) 2♠ (3♣) leading to a part-score contract in either clubs or spades. Thus, bidding 4♠ and making exactly 10 tricks would still have been a top in our game (84% Common Game). Would you have bid North’s hand as a limit raise? It evaluates to 10.80 points on the Kaplan & Rubens Hand Evaluator <google it, type in any hand, and hit “Enter”>, and that doesn’t take into account the nice spade fit. What do you think of the rest of the auction?

Speaking of questions, forgive me, Delilah, for asking, but can you guess the other tune my uncle professed to have peddled to Tom Jones? Uncle Dave divulged that one day in a Swiss match he made a Lightner slam double clearly requesting a club lead (he was void). His favorite partner Dee led the ♦A and continued diamonds, allowing the opposing declarer to make his doubled 6♠ contract, thereby inspiring these classic lyrics to his ballad “Dee! Lightner?”:

My my, why lead diamonds? Why, why, why lead diamonds?

-and finally-

Forgive me Dee, Lightner will not be my call anymore!

Sadly, 2 years after our rendezvous, Uncle Dave had a heart attack and died while playing bridge. Niagara Falls was the only chance we had to play together. It was an unforgettable experience.

Editor's note: Bruce advised us that club member Al Ronderos was the actual declarer on this deal. Nicely done, Al.