North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 03/27/2023

Tuesday Night Advanced Beginner Lessons

Deb Crisfield will be offering two more classes on Tuesday night. These classes will take the place of the regular shuffle and deal and are open to everyone but geared toward the newer player. No advanced sign up necessary. Drop-ins are welcome. $20 per person per class.

April 25th: Responding when your partner makes a preemptive bid

May 2nd: Competitive bidding decisions

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

Andrews Appreciation Game. 51 players turned out for the game last Saturday. It was a great day of bridge. I especially enjoyed seeing everyone from the Shuffle and Deal, open, and limited games together at the club. Special thanks to Mitch for all the work he put in to set up and run the game. And thanks to the volunteers for their time and delicious food.

March 30: 0-299 game at noon. Please sign up in advance as follows:

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

April 3-14. Charity Games.

April 15. Robot Individual - 4 p.m.

April 24-28. Club championships. Wednesday, April 26 is the ACBL-wide charity game.

Upcoming Tournaments

April 28-29 Allentown Sectional
May 1-5 Rehoboth Beach Regional

Education

Shuffle and Deal. Tuesday evenings from 7-9 p.m. and Wednesday mornings from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Everyone welcome!

Joann Glasson’s Bridge Lessons. Next lessons are April 10 and 24. Click here for details.

Online Bridge Lessons with Lisa Mita. Click here for details regarding Lisa’s Play of the Hand classes beginning March 27.

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

Defensive Inferences

“When you are defending notrump and dummy has a long suit and declarer chooses to play another suit assume that declarer has the missing cards in the long suit.

When declarer shows two suits in the bidding and the first suit is a major, and then turns up with three cards in a third suit, assume he has a singleton in the fourth suit.”

From Princeton Standard Defense

by Joann Glasson

Deal of the Week

by Rex Saffer

Stuck In the Middle

Well I don't know why I came here tonight

I've got the feeling that something ain't right

I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair

And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs

Clowns to the left of me

Jokers to the right

Here I am stuck in the middle with you

Stealers Wheel, 1972

Front man Gerry Rafferty was singing about becoming a successful, self–made man and having fickle friends show up asking for favors. But as a passed hand, he just as well could have been the “sandwich” between two comedic opponents in a competitive auction.

A sandwich position is one between two opponents that are both bidding. A 1NT overcall in this seat cannot mean that we have a balanced 15–18 HCP with a stopper in at least one of the opponents’ suits. Well, it is arithmetically possible if we are an unpassed hand, but that would make little operational sense since the opponents already have shown possession of about half the points in the deck. How much can partner have, anyway? Necessarily, we cannot hold those values if we are a passed hand. Some partnerships play a “sandwich 1NT” to show 5–5 in the two unbid suits.

But 5–5 hands don’t come up all that often, just 4.1% of the time or only about once a session. We hold 5–4 hands much more often, a whopping 24.7 % of the time. What with increased aggressiveness at the tables these days, we frequently see all sorts of two–suited overcalls made with 5–4 distributions. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to distinguish 5–4 hands from 5–5 hands? In the sandwich seat, we can.

Hess cue bids (sometimes called High/Lo bids) provide the discriminatory power when the opponents have bid two suits. A cue bid of their higher suit shows five of the higher unbid suit and four of the lower. A cue bid of their lower suit shows five of the lower unbid suit and four of the higher.

We now can guarantee 5–5 in the unbid suits with a sandwich 1NT overcall and show 5–4 in the unbid suits with a Hess cue bid. If we include a takeout double to show 4–4 in the unbid suits, we won’t be stuck in the middle any more.

The Deal of the Week

Our Deal is constructed from a recent Common Game board:

The Auction

North opened a routine 1♣, followed by an equally routine 1♥ response in the South. E/W were using sandwich 1NT overcalls but had agreed to a rigorous 5–5 in the unbid suits. A Hess 2♣ cue bid is tailor–made to show West’s diamond/spade two–suiter, and at the same time it takes away North’s 1NT rebid. Obeying the Law of Total Tricks, West jumped to 3♦, and that ended the auction.

Might West have competed in the sandwich seat with a double to show diamonds and spades? Sure, but the Hess cue bid provides granularity for a more precise description of the hand.

The Play

Declarer had just enough transportation to ruff two spades and a club in dummy before drawing trumps, taking ten tricks and almost all the matchpoints. At the other tables, all but one West passed South’s 1♥ response (the sole holdout doubled), and North’s 1NT rebid was passed out. Most defenders ran off five diamond tricks and two spades for down one, but it doesn’t take a Math degree to conclude that +130 is better than +50.

Closing Thoughts

Hess cue bids are part of an effective structure for players in the sandwich seat to show the two unbid suits.

1NT: 5–5 in the unbid suits

Hess cue bid: 5–4 in the unbid suits

Double: 4–4 in the unbid suits

How much strength is needed to compete? Perhaps as little as 6 to as many as a good 11 HCP, depending on distributional values, texture, and the vulnerability. As always, so–called “Rules” are no substitute for judgment at the green felt table.

All the best,

Rex