North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 06/05/2023

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

North American Pairs (NAP). This is a major tournament run by the ACBL. It consists of three rounds. Qualifying at the club level occurs in June, July, and August. Anyone who is in the top 50% of their flight, or has at least a 50% score, qualifies for the District level. The District level occurs in September and the top several pairs move on to the championship round at the Spring NABC in Louisville. There is no entry fee to play at the NABC and the District pays part of your expenses.

I have been lucky enough to qualify and go to the NABC a couple of times. It’s an experience you shouldn’t miss.

The flights for the NAP are:

Flight A: Open to any player. The District level round occurs at the South Jersey Bridge Center on 9/30 and 10/1.

Flight B: Open to players with fewer than 2500 masterpoints (as of June.) The District level round occurs at North Penn on 9/23.

Flight C: Open to non-Life Masters with fewer than 500 points (as of June.) The District level round occurs at King of Prussia on 9/30.

North Penn is running two weeks of NAP qualifying in June, July, and August. All our open games will qualify for all three flights, except on Thursday. On Thursday, the open game will be for Flights A and B and the limited game (0-500) will be for Flight C.

Attention 0-299 and 0-500 Players! Effective Thursday, June 1 and continuing on subsequent Thursdays, the 0-299 game will become a 0-500/NLM (non-life master) game. This change will provide the opportunity for Flight C players to qualify for the North American Pairs (NAP) and hopefully attract more participants.

The Longest Day - June 21.

Both games that day will benefit the Alzheimer’s Association. The 0-50 game will begin at 9:30, LUNCH will be at 11:30 and the open game will begin at noon. To date we have received $1,040 towards our goal of $1,600.

Click here to give.

Robot Individual - June 24. This will also be a Longest Day game.

Royal STaC June 12-16. This is one of the few opportunities to win gold points at the club level. Red and silver points will also be awarded.

King of Prussia Regional. It’s time to make your plans for the regional at the end of the month. There are events for all levels from 199er games on up. This is our local regional and needs our support. A schedule of events is available here.

Education

Summer Substitute Mentors Needed. Deb needs some help for some of the summer Tuesday Shuffle & Deal evening classes. She would be most appreciative if you would please call or text her at 973-769-9619.

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

New Fall Beginner Class. Sundays from noon until 2:00. Spread the word!

Joann Glasson’s Lessons: Joann’s last lesson in June will be on Monday the 19th. Click here for details.

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

“It is far more difficult to count tricks when the long suit is in the concealed hand. However, if declarer makes a strange play from dummy at trick one and/or sets about establishing a trick in your nearly solid suit, Christmas has not arrived. Declarer is out stealing with hidden tricks in the closed hand.”

From Defensive Tips

by Eddie Kantar

Deal of the Week

by Rex Saffer

Double Trouble

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, two of its most famous and frequently quoted lines are found in the refrain from the Song of the Three Witches:

Double double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

There are many examples of trouble with doubles in bridge: Penalty, Takeout, Negative, Lead Directing, Responsive, DSI (Do Something Intelligent), Balancing or Reopening, Support, and several more, all encountered during the auction. But in declarer play, we encounter the Double Finesse, not at all uncommon, and the much rarer Double Squeeze. Well, maybe not that rare; we featured one in a previous DOTW article last December 17. Might double trouble strike twice in this week’s installment?

The Deal of the Week

Your author teaches bridge to beginners and advancing players, and this week’s Deal has been adapted from a practice hand used in a recent Popular Conventions lesson to illustrate invitational auctions following a Jacoby Transfer. In the following fictitious scenario, the North, West, and South players are inexperienced students, and the instructor sits East to fill out the table.

The Auction

After a strong 1NT opening, the outcome of an invitational auction depends on 1) What an “invitational” hand is in that context, and 2) Whether opener has a “maximum” or a “minimum”. Invitational responding hands are straightforward to define and require only the ability to tally up 8 or 9 HCP. Identifying some opening 1NT hands as maximum or minimum requires judgment. Clearly, 15 HCP is minimum and 17 HCP is maximum. But what about those in–between 16 HCP hands?

Here is where second–order aspects of hand evaluation are useful. Is the hand full of lovely controls or riddled with quacks? Are honors connected or are they split between different suits? Is there a nice 5–card minor? Are there useful “spot” cards, those 10s and 9s that might be promoted to 3^rd or 4^th round winners? Yes Virginia, there are hands with a “good” 16 HCP and others with a “bad” 16 HCP.

West’s responding hand surely is worth more than the 8 HCP embodied in the two aces; a 6–card major, however threadbare, must be worth something. But is the hand strong enough to force to game? Take a small club and make it a spade, and some would say it is. But holding a worthless doubleton club, West thought it best to settle for an invitational 3♥ rebid after the transfer.

In turn, Opener had to decide if the East hand evaluates to a good or a bad 16 HCP. It is a flat 4–3–3–3 “pancake”, but the only queen in the control–rich hand is accompanied by the ace in its suit. Knowing there were nine trumps between the two hands tipped the balance, and East accepted the invitation and raised to game.

The Play

South led a 4^th best diamond, and declarer paused to take stock. On a bad day, the defense might score two heart tricks, a diamond, and a club, but ten tricks seemed likely, perhaps with an overtrick if trumps behaved nicely and fate had dealt the ♣K to North.

Declarer ducked in dummy and won North’s ♦10 with the king, speculating that with the ace still visible in dummy, the defenders might be deterred from a diamond continuation upon regaining the lead. But first the trumps; declarer banged down the ace, continued the ♥10 to unblock in case trumps were needed for transportation, and was unable to suppress a tiny smile as the two remaining honors crashed and mutually annihilated. North could have held declarer to eleven tricks by returning the ♦5 but was intimidated by the ace in dummy and switched to the ♠Q.

Declarer won in dummy, took the successful club finesse, cashed the ace, and ruffed a club, the ♣K falling in the North. Now what? Declarer paused to count. South presumably had started with four clubs to the jack, four diamonds (the two and three were visible), and two hearts. This left space for three spades, placing five spades in the North hand, along with the remaining three diamonds. Declarer owns a well–worn, dogeared 2^nd edition of Clyde Love’s masterful treatise Bridge Squeezes Complete and recognized one of the positions in Chapter 2 on double squeezes.

North had to guard spades and diamonds, South clubs and diamonds. The black threats were declarer’s ♠8 and ♣6, and dummy’s ♦8 provided the required threat in dummy. There were sufficient entries, so all that remained was to run winners and watch the defenders squirm. Declarer cashed the ♠A and two hearts and came to this position:

On the play of the ♥6, North was squeezed first and had to let the ♦5 go to maintain the spade guard. Declarer discarded the ♠8, that spot card having done its job, and South shed the ♦7. A spade to the king now fed South into the wringer, who had to jettison the ♦9 to hold on to the ♣J. The ace and eight of diamonds took the last two tricks. Click here to view or play the Deal yourself in the BBO HandViewer. Use the Next button to advance trick by trick or the Play button to select cards yourself and explore alternate lines of play.

Closing Thoughts

Note that North can break up the squeeze by returning the ♦5 at trick three. This forces out the ace in the West hand and removes the entry declarer needs to bring the diamonds home in the endplay. Returning the ♦J will not work, as this only alters the roles of the threat suits. Now North must guard spades and clubs, South diamonds and clubs. Declarer takes the club finesse but leaves the ace as an entry to the black suit threats. After cashing the spade ace and king, declarer’s foresight in unblocking the hearts is rewarded. The carefully preserved ♥4 allows declarer to run the rest of dummy’s trumps. Click here to see the ace and six of clubs take the last two tricks.

We also note that South’s opening lead of the ♦4 is the only one that holds declarer to eleven tricks on best defense. Any other lead results in a successful squeeze. Click here to see a line of play delivering the last two tricks in diamonds on an opening club lead.

In the squeeze variations illustrated here, the defenders must hold on to winners in the single threat suits and are forced to abandon their protective cards in the jointly guarded suit, sometimes called the “pivot” suit. A spot card in the pivot suit takes the ultimate trick. Most, if not all double squeezes have this in common.

All the best,

Rex

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Two Life Masters playing as partners got into a vehement argument after a certain deal. The dispute waxed hotter and hotter until one of the masters raised a hand and said, "Wait. We'll put it up to our opponents and let them decide who's right."

"That's silly," answered the other. "Anyone can see they don't know the first thing about bridge."

"And anybody can see that we're sloppy too," answered one of the opponents. Whereupon he picked up an ashtray and dumped its contents all over the contemptuous one's head.