North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 04/22/2024

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

Early Arrival Request. Please either sign-up in advance or arrive at least 10 minutes before game time. The director needs to make decisions about the movement and possibly call a player to avoid having a sit-out, all of which can’t happen until we know who is playing. It is only fair to other players to show up on time and avoid delaying the start of the game.

April 24 0-99 Game.

May Events

May 2 Handicap Swiss Team Game.

May 8 Four is Enough Game. Elaine Clair and Mitch Snyder will be in charge. Please contact Elaine at eeclair37@comcast.net or Mitch at msofearl@comcast.net if you need a partner, if you are already partnered or if you have questions. You can also sign up in the book at the club.

May 6-10 STaC Week. Silver points will be available at the club.

May 11 Robot Individual.

May 13-23 Grassroots Weeks.

May 17 0-500 Swiss Team Game.

May 22 0-99 Game.

May 27-31 Club Championship Week. Extra points at no extra cost.

Upcoming Tournaments:

April 26-27 Sectional in Allentown, PA

April 29-May 4 Regional in Rehoboth Beach, DE

May 6-10 STaC week at the club.

Education

Shuffle and Deal Schedule for the Rest of April:

This Sunday April 28 will be the last date for Sunday S&D for the season. There will be no Sunday S&D over the summer.

Wednesday, April 24, 9:30 - 11:30 am

Remember, our Shuffle and Deal sessions are open to all who have an interest in supervised play (not just new players.)

Joann Glasson’s New Lessons. Monday May 6 and 20 at 10 a.m. on Zoom. Click here for details.

Partnership

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

Requests for Tuesday and Friday limited games should go directly to Mitch Snyder at bridge4all@comcast.net

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

Tidbits is taking a hiatus. No return date has been set.

Deal of the Week

by Bucky Sydnor

(sydnoriv@yahoo.com)

It's My Call (and yours)

I was dealer, red against white, holding

♠53 ♥A432 ♦J ♣A109843

While the hand has great possibilities for 3♣, the 4-card heart suit headed by the ace along with a second ace argue against it, so I passed. The auction then goes

P – 2♠ – Dbl – 4♠ back to me

What would you call here? After 4♠, if I double, my partner may well leave it in, thinking I have some valuable spade cards, or at least enough to get us +100 (down one) rather than us going down one in a 5-level contract for -100. Certainly, she’d have a big decision to make in uncharted territory.

So, I decided to bid 5♣. The auction then goes

P – 2♠ – Dbl – 4♠

5♣ – P – 6♣ – P

Once again, what would you call here? I passed, fearing my pard had a losing spade trick and 6♣ was high enough. But that thinking was flawed. It’s impossible for partner to have a spade loser, unless she’s a very foolish bidder, and she’s definitely not that.

Why no spade loser? Because I am holding two aces. She cannot possibly bid 6♣ off two aces and a spade loser. That’s expecting me to cover too many losers. Rather, to bid 6♣, she either has the singleton ♠A or a spade void. With either holding she only needs to assume I have one ace for having freely bid 5♣. So, with my two aces and a 6-card club suit, I should have bid 7♣. I just didn’t think it through.

Here’s the deal:

It’s amazing what one can figure out during the auction. (And equally amazing how occasionally one can get the wrong picture.)

Meanwhile, if N/S had been listening in on the auction, they might have found a great save in 6♠x. To be sure, it’s amazing what one can figure out during the auction.

At our 7½ table game, only 3 pairs got to 6♣ and 2 N/S’s saved at 6♠x, so we came out with a top. If they had bid 6♠ at our table, I wonder if I would have finally realized I should be in 7♣?

It’s amazing what one can figure out sometimes during the auction. Just not all the time, even when all the information is right there before you.

Postmortem: My partner and I discussed the auction with several people who are better players than we are. The results were varied, to say the least:

W should double 4♠, expressing ambiguity about going to the 5 level, thereby letting partner decide.
W should bid 5♣ and E convert to 6♣ and W should pass.
E should not bid 6♣ but 5♠. W should figure out this is a grand slam try in clubs and bid 7♣. [But I wouldn’t have at the time.]
I like all the bidding except W’s final pass: he has a clear-cut 7♣ bid.

I even wrote to Billy Miller, the Bridge Bulletin’s “Dear Billy” columnist, and he thought passing 6♣ was fine. If partner had wanted to get to a grand she should have bid 5♠ over 5♣. (Thanks, Billy, but I still think I have enough information for 7♣ to be my bid.)