North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 06/13/2022

From the Club President

Pat Andrews

The Longest Day is Almost Here! Please join us next Wednesday, June 22 as our Club members play bridge to support The Longest Day. The table fee for the Open game starting at noon that day will be $15, $5 of which will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association. In addition, the ACBL will contribute all sanction fees from our games to Alzheimer’s. Lunch will be served at 11:30 and extra masterpoints will be awarded. We hope you and your partner will be with us as we play to fight a disease which affects the lives of so many. Over six million people in the US have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and more than one in three seniors die having been diagnosed with it. Ten years ago, the ACBL partnered with the Alzheimer’s Association to raise funds in support of their research and care and North Penn joined the effort in 2019. Let’s keep the momentum going with a great turnout for our Longest Day games.

Reservations. We need to know how many will be attending so we have enough lunch. Please make a reservation by email, telephone (215-699-4932) or sign up sheet at the club.

Donations are still coming in; to date we’ve collected $1,750 from our club members.

Over the next week we’d love to see this number climb.

Here are the donating options:

Online by clicking here: NP Longest Day Fundraiser

By check made out to the Alzheimer’s Association. Checks may be dropped off at the Club or mailed to Pat Andrews, 6624 Old Carversville Road, Lumberville, PA 18933.

By cash in the designated receptacle at the Club.

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

COVID Update. Montgomery County is now in the medium category. Accordingly, masks at the club are now optional, but if someone at the table asks for masks, please comply.

New Start Time for Open Games. Beginning July 6, 2022, the Open games (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday) will start at 12:30 p.m. This is a test to see if a later start time will attract more players. Please email any feedback to the club.

Bidding Boxes. The proper use of a bidding box is to decide on your bid and then take it from the box. Do not hover your hand over the box and thumb through the bids you are considering. This provides unauthorized information to the table.

June Schedule:

June 15 - Newcomers game at 9:30 a.m.

June 16 - New Shuffle and Deal from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Supervised play. $5.

June 13 - 17 - North American Pairs (NAP) qualifying.

NAP Qualifying events are held for two weeks in June, July, and August. There are 3 flights: non-Life Master <500, 2500, and open. To qualify you must get at least a 50% game or finish in the top half of your strata. Qualifiers play in the fall for the chance to represent District 4 at the Spring NABC. It’s a great event and the district will help pay expenses if you make it to the NABC.

June 20 - 24 - Club Championships.

June 22 - Longest Day.

June 27-July 3 - Philadelphia Regional at Valley Forge. Click this link for a schedule of events:

https://4acbl.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/VF-Regional-Schedule-2022.pdf.

Interested volunteers can contact Cathy Strauss at [email protected].

(All F2F games this week at the club will be cancelled.)

July 4 - The KoP Bridge Club is having bridge and a party on Independence Day. As our club is closed, you might want to join the fun there.

Partnership

Please contact the club at [email protected] or 215-699-4932 if you are looking for a partner or if you are willing to be on our Standby List.

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 not attractive to lead from a 4-card suit with broken honours, such as A-Q-x-x or A-J-x-x, particularly against a 1NT contract, or where declarer opens 2NT passed out, or after 1NT : 2NT, passed out. Such leads are more likely to cost than to gain. A lead from a decent 3-card holding often works out better.” (ex: J103.)

From 100 Winning Bridge Tips (new edition)

by Ron Klinger

Deal of the Week

by Bruce Schwaidelson

Doc Yanker, DDS, Pulls Out A Dentist's Coup

DENTIST’S COUP: The removal of a safe exit card from an opponent’s hand… Why dentist coup? [Declarer] extracts [an opponent’s] exit card(s) as if he were a dentist removing teeth. -- The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge, 7th Edition

Henry “Hammerin’ Hank” Yanker, DDS, is one of the least popular players at North Penn. He is not obnoxious or rude or anything like that, it’s just that for quite a few players he is in fact their dentist. And it doesn’t help that his favorite partner is Perry O’Dontist, DMD, since many of Doc Yanker’s patients have been referred to Perry.

Yanker began playing bridge when he was young and impressionable, having no idea what he wanted to be when he grew up. Then in 1986 two things occurred almost simultaneously: he read in a bridge book that there was a fancy declarer play called the “Dentist’s Coup” and later that day he saw the movie “Little Shop of Horrors”. When he watched Steve Martin, a.k.a. Orin Scrivello, DDS, perform as the most outrageous dentist imaginable, Yanker was hooked! (If you have never seen Martin sing “Be A Dentist”, or even if you have, do watch it here: youtube.com/watch?v=RqNbbMhukcc )

Fortunately or unfortunately for our bridge club, Yanker and his wife Flossy moved to this area right after he graduated from Univ. of Fluorida Dental School (“Go Incisors!”), and he just loves to play in our Toothsday night game. He was pretty excited when he became declarer for this Deal of the Week against two of his favorite patients, Kay Vitty and Ruth Kanal:

The 2♣ bid by Kay (West) showed a 2-suiter - clubs and a 2^nd suit – and Yanker eventually wound up declarer in 3♦, as did a number of others. West of course started the defense with a high club and when Ruth played the ♣Q, promising the ♣J too, Kay led a low club to her partner’s 10. Ruth switched to the ♠9, Yanker playing his Ace as Kay encouraged with her 7. You can follow the play here.

Cashing 2 high trumps in Doc’s own hand revealed that his patients’ diamonds were 2-2. Facing 5 possible losers (the 2 clubs, a spade and 2 hearts), several declarers decided that endplaying the 2-suited overcaller by playing the ♠K and another spade was their best chance to eliminate the 2^nd heart loser. That play would force the defense to start the heart suit or concede a ruff-and-sluff. The problem with their plan: it could not succeed if East held the ♥AJ10, since West’s heart shift would guarantee 2 heart tricks for the defense.

As it happened, most Wests returned the ♥J, giving declarer the chance to guess who held the ♥10. Since the 10 was most likely in the East hand (West was presumably short in hearts), the successful declarers played the King from dummy, and, when East took the Ace and continued a low heart, they hooked the 9 and claimed their contract. Those that guessed wrong by playing West for the ♥J10, soon found themselves down one. Tooth be told, after winning the ♠A there is a much better line to make the contract. Can you find it?

Doc’s interest in both dentistry and bridge had Crest-ed when he was an undergrad at Colgate. Not only did dental school become his ensuing Aim, but he had made it his life’s goal to one day pull off or, better yet, pull out a dentist’s coup. Would today be his day? Yanker had an Ultra Brite idea!

When the Doc metaphorically asked West to “open wide”, he could see that Kay had at least 9 cards in the black suits along with 2 diamonds, leaving her room for no more than 2 hearts (plus a loose filling and a couple of impacted wisdoms). If her hand included the stiff ♥A or Ax, a heart towards the King would solve that problem. But what if East held the missing Ace – or worse yet - AJ10? Yanker found a 100% play to handle that possibility. When a heart to dummy’s King lost to the Ace and the ♠8 was returned, here was the position:

You should have seen the Gleem in Doc Yanker’s eyes as he won the ♠K. It was indeed time to get to the root of things by extracting his first Dentist’s Coup ever! The key play was next: Yanker immediately cashed the ♥Q, thereby yanking out West’s only safe exit card, and then played his spade loser. West of course had no choice but to win the spade trick and concede a ruff-and-sluff.

Ruffing in dummy and pitching his heart loser allowed Yanker to claim his contract. Hammerin’ Hank was finally able to extricate “Dentist’s Coup” from his bucket list. Even Perry O’Dontist was excited, exclaiming: “Well played, Partner! You truly deserve a plaque to commemorate this historic occasion!” And the boys went out to celebrate by enjoying their favorite linguini al dente while downing a couple of bottles of Listerine, just as they had in dental school.

By the way, if you haven’t seen the Doc around our club lately, it’s because he and wife Flossy are working on another bucket list item. They are presently driving their RV to the beautiful state of South Decayda to finally see Mount Brushmore… <click here >

Encyclopedia of Bridge: