North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 02/12/2024

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

Club under Construction. The new carpeting and flooring have been installed and are a vast improvement. Sorry for the glue smell, but it should dissipate soon.

Wednesday February 14 Valentine’s Day Extravaganza.

9:30 a.m. Shuffle and Deal. If you Stay and Play in the afternoon, your card fee will only be $6.

11:30 a.m. Lunch consisting of sandwiches, sides and desserts. All are welcome.

12:00 noon Open game. This is a Royal STaC event, awarding gold, red, silver and black points. You can win big across the entire unit!

8:00 p.m. Live onstage performance of “Love Letters” featuring Susan Morse and her husband David at the Sedgwick Theater in Mt Airy. Click here for details.

Sectional Tournament at Clubs (STaC). February 12-16. Because it is a Royal STaC, you can win gold, red, silver, and black points.

Achievements

Congratulations to the following members who have advanced in rank:

Sherry Scena ------------.Bronze Life Master

Marc Topaz---------------.Life Master

Barbara Daly--------------Advanced NABC Master

Stephen McReynolds-----.NABC Master

Jane Bonenberger--------.Regional Master

Leah DePaul--------------=Sectional Master

Tim Headley---------------Sectional Master

Rohit Desai----------------Club Master

Paul Baron-----------------Club Master

Karen Maglaty------------.Junior Master

Helen Shanbrom Ace of Clubs

This award is given to players for points earned at clubs over the course of the year. Congratulations to the following members who won their group for Unit 141 in 2023: Ellen Luchette in the 300-500 group, Everette Harris in the 1500-2500 group, and Elaine Clair in the 5000-7500 group. You can get the full list of everyone in the club who finished in the top 5 on the Member Achievement section of our website.

Partnership

We are in the process of re-activating our online partnership desk and will now be monitoring it on a daily basis. Please use it for requests for our Open games; partner requests for Tuesday and Friday limited games should go directly to Mitch Snyder.

If you are in need of a partner for a Monday, Wednesday or Thursday Open game, please email northpennpartner@gmail.com. We will do our best to match you up with others who are looking for someone to play with.

Comedy Club

You laughed at his play of the cards, now come laugh at his jokes. Steve Gewirtzman is appearing at the Helium Comedy Club on 2/17 at 3:30.

Upcoming Tournaments

February 12 - 18 STaC week.

February 23 - 25 the Wilmington Sectional.

March 5 - 8 Online Regional

March 13 - 24 NABC in Louisville, KY

Education

Sunday Shuffle and Deal. 12 noon to 2:00 p.m

Joann Glasson’s Classes Return. Joann’s next two zoom lessons are Monday, February 19 and Monday February 26 at 10:00 a.m. Click here for details.

Tuesday Evening Classes Resume Starting March 19^th. Be sure to mark your calendars for Linda O’Malley’s continuing Tuesday evening series on forcing bids. STAY TUNED FOR MORE DETAILS.

King of Prussia Bridge Club Lessons. For lesson details go directly to the Latest News item on their website: https://www.bridgewebs.com/kop.

Calendar

Click here to see a file you can enlarge.

Ask the Expert

Email your questions, or a pesky hand, or something you’d like to know about bidding or playing to Toysie at toysiewalker@gmail.com. She will forward them to the panel, one will be chosen, and the question and answers will be printed in the following week’s newsletter.

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

“Tips to Avoid Mistake 15

(Failing to diagnose a defensive blockage)

The Rule of 11 and a knowledge of standard leads from an honor sequence often allow you to diagnose that winning the first trick will cause a blockage.
When your RHO holds a doubleton honor in the suit led, he must decide whether to unblock the honor or retain it.
Unblocking may promote the value of your own cards, perhaps creating a second stopper. Retaining the honor may block the defender’s suit.”

From 52 Bridge Mistakes to Avoid

by David Bird

Deal of the Week

by Bucky Sydnor

It's My Lead. What Do You Think I Should Do?

I have a deal for you from the Daytona Regional last November. We were playing matchpoints, I am first seat, all white, and pick up the following:

♠1062 ♥AQJ1086 ♦7 ♣Q94

I opened 2♥—the more aggressive players may open 3♥ with such a good suit and a distributional hand—and the auction was brief:

2♥ – Dbl – P – 3N

all pass

It’s my lead. What do you think I should do?

Here are my thoughts. I have 3 options, knowing that RHO’s 3N clearly shows the ♥K. So, I can lead the ♥A to guarantee Declarer doesn’t take 13 tricks while setting up his king. But the bidding does not suggest they have 12 tricks without my giving them a heart trick.

Secondly, I can lead the ♥Q, letting Declarer win his king and hope that partner has a side entry and at least 2 hearts. The reason I’d underlead my ♥A is that if the hearts are distributed 6-3-2-2 around the table, and my partner has one of the doubletons, then, if I lead my ♥A and a second heart he would be void. So even if he had a side entry he could not lead hearts to me. (If hearts are 6-3-3-1, and he has the singleton, I am really screwed!)

Finally, I could lead a suit other than hearts. That creates 3 more options as I would have to pick which of the other 3 suits to lead.

My choice was to lead the ♥Q. It did not turn out well.

Here’s the deal:

Declarer won his ♥K and ran the diamonds. My partner had to find 3 discards to go with his 3 diamonds, and felt he had to save 2 hearts (since I failed to discard the ♥A at my first chance, alerting him to the heart situation), so he pitched one heart and 2 discouraging clubs. Declarer pitched a spade, a heart, and a club. I felt that the defense I had chosen meant I needed to save as many hearts as possible, so after following with my lone diamond, I pitched 3 spades and 2 hearts. That left the following layout:

Declarer now had a read on the spades so he cashed Dummy’s ♠K and led the ♠J. Partner ducked, hoping in vain Declarer would somehow misread the situation, but Declarer of course didn’t. He let the jack ride. He then came to his hand and cashed his top clubs, conceding the 13^th trick to my ♣Q. (Had declarer held onto all 4 of his spades, pitching both clubs instead, he would likely have made all 13 tricks.)

So, what was the best lead? The ♦7. It holds Declarer to “only” 11 tricks. Leading either black suit also allows him to make 12 tricks.

Opening leads are a challenge, but it may help one to know that, like baseball batting averages, if you make opening leads that succeed 40% of the time, you are a bridge prodigy. Peter Weichsel, an American world class player, said that at the highest levels of bridge, opening leads can be a dominant factor in the outcome of matches.

Two books on opening leads by David Bird and Taf Anthias* strongly imply that even a 35% success rate is astounding. So, do not beat yourself up when your opening lead fails. But if it was a poor choice, do learn from it—100% of the time.

*Winning Notrump Leads (2011), Winning Suit Contract Leads (2012)

Postscript: I would note that the opening lead problem above is not one you will encounter frequently. Moreover, there are some very standard opening leads that are important to learn; there is no need to reinvent the wheel regarding them. If you struggle with which card to lead, Caroline Sydnor (yes, she was my mother) created a “Flashcard of Opening Leads” that is available from Baron Barclay. Here’s the link.

If you need, or want more help, THE book in my opinion is Eddie Kantar Teaches Modern Bridge Defense, the first two chapters of which cover opening leads, while the rest of the book will teach you everything you need to know to excel in defense until you become an advanced player. For a focus on just opening leads, two top authors with books on opening leads are Larry Cohen (Kindle version only) and Michael Lawrence.