This Week At North Penn

Mon, noon

Tue, 10:00a

Wed, 9:30a

Wed, noon

Thu, noon

Fri, 10:00a

Open

0-1500

Bid & Play

Open

Open

0-750

Handicap Pairs

Swiss Teams

Upcoming Special Events

Handicap Pairs

0-750 Swiss Teams

4 Is Enough

Handicap Swiss Teams

Evening Pizza

Board Meeting

Thursday, 10/22

Friday, 11/13

Wednesday, 10/14

Thursday, 10/15

Friday, 10/23 (Pizza at 6:00, Game at 6:30)

Monday, 10/26

Bid & Play

This week Ellen will continue to talk about Responses to Major Suit Openings.

For further information, click here to go to our website and scroll down to find the Bid & Play area.

Condolences

With great sadness, we are writing to let you know that Dave Wilgruber, Jack's brother, died on Saturday, October 3. Dave was a delightful man and an accomplished player. He will be greatly missed. Details will be published when they are available.

Education

Joann Glasson returns with her Monday morning zoom lessons on October 12 and 19. Click here for details.

Deal Analysis

by Bruce Schwaidelson

(bruschwade@aol.com)

"There Once Was An Ugly Duckling..."

I will never forget my very first movie in an actual theater. Four year-old Bruce excitedly viewed Danny Kaye singing and prancing his way through the title role of Hans Christian Andersen. A mere seventy-three years later, I observed a deal that reminded me of the story of “The Ugly Duckling” as only Kaye could present it.

You can click on this youtube link for "The Ugly Duckling" and enjoy listening to Danny Kaye’s amusing Decca recording, just as my family often did back in the 50’s.

Imagine you are Hans Cristian Andersen/Danny Kaye (West) in 4^th seat, all red, holding the following:

♠QJ32 ♥Q ♦Q7 ♣QJ9742

After North passes and your partner bids 1♦, South overcalls 1♠, and it’s your turn.

You count 10 HCP and realize that all your points are quacks, four queens and two jacks, and one of the queens is a singleton - truly an “ugly duckling” hand. In fact, if you look at the Kaplan & Rubens hand evaluator, it claims West’s hand is worth only 8.15 points and another Danny K, Danny Kleinman, evaluates it as 7+ points. (You can click here to use both evaluators – be sure to put exactly one space between each suit.)

Hans no doubt thought of the movie’s lyrics: There once was an ugly duckling, with feathers all stubby and brown, and the other birds in so many words said “Quack, get out of town…”

Hans considered bidding 1NT or 2♣, but while contemplating this very quacky hand, he recalled the ugly duckling once again: All through the wintertime he hid himself away, ashamed to show his face, afraid of what others might say. The conclusion was obvious: he just knew he had to pass.

When the first chair passed again, Hans’s partner balanced with a double, giving us:

(P) 1D (1♠) P

(P)  x  (P)  ?  What now, dear Hans?

Although he was trying to keep a low profile, Hans was forced to take action. Afraid to pass 1♠ doubled, despite holding ♠QJ32 behind the overcaller, he reluctantly bid 2♣, and he went with a quack and a waddle and a quack and a very unhappy tear.

But the auction was not over. After North passed, Hans discovered that his partner wasn’t quite finished. She raised his 2♣ bid to three and Hans couldn’t pass fast enough! It’s truly a shame that he did not remember the rest of his own story, as he would have recalled the ugly duckling’s new identity:

All through the winter in his lonely clump of weed

'Til a flock of swans spied him there and very soon agreed

"You're a very fine swan indeed!"

Yes, Hans failed to re-evaluate that his ugly duckling of a hand had turned into a beautiful swan ready to bid game, or even slam!

Here is the full BBO deal played one Tuesday night with about fifty tables and several North Penn regulars in attendance:

West should have given more thought to what his partner’s hand may look like, an important step in any well-judged auction. East opened and then made a balancing double, which was no surprise, but she followed up by raising partner’s bid. She must have been excited about Hans’s 2♣ call and had not yet given up on game. In fact, East was hoping that her partner might even experience an awakening.

But Hans was oblivious. He missed another important, perhaps under-utilized step in hand evaluation: ask yourself “what does partner think I have shown?” Sometimes it’s obvious, but other times you may be forced to underbid or overbid initially and may need to correct, if possible. If I were West’s partner and had to guess what he held when he bid 2♣, I might imagine something like: ♠Jxxx ♥Qxx ♦xxx ♣Qxxx, or worse, and yet East raised her partner’s bid. East surely expected Hans to have at least a few points, but he could have an 8 or even 10+ point hand with no available bid over the 1♠ overcall.

Unfortunately, Hans failed to notice that his ugly hand had become swan-like. His partner’s raise surely showed excellent values with a nice club 4-bagger, providing E-W with a wonderful 10-card fit. West’s spade quacks were not likely to be of great value in a suit contract (how about NT?) as partner’s double suggested spade shortness, but the ♦Qx and stiff ♥Q could be extremely helpful. Hans’s next bid could have been 3NT, a conservative 4♣, or even 5♣. Passing should have been out of the question. My vote would have been 3NT, envisioning potential double stoppers in spades, five or six club tricks, plus two red queens that just might come in handy.

If you look at today’s deal, ten tricks in NT or twelve tricks in clubs are easily obtained, yet none of the West players who passed after the 1♠ overcall and then bid 2♣ after partner’s balancing double managed to get to game. East always continued the auction, but it did not prompt Hans or any other West to recall the final lines of Danny Kaye’s song: Take a look at yourself in the lake and you'll see, and he looked, and he saw, and he said "I am a swan! Whee!"

Postmortem: West’s hand was perhaps not good enough to compete with 2♣ over the initial overcall, as some did, but the hand was too good to pass. A somewhat unbalanced 1NT is a close description of his holdings, around 8- to 10+ points and spades nicely stopped with QJxx behind the overcaller.

In the BBO game, whenever West bid 1NT, their partner had an easy 3NT bid, for +630, worth 58% of the matchpoints or +660 (79%). The Wests who decided their hands were never ugly ducklings bid 2♣ immediately. Their partners either jumped to 3NT or they wound up in 5♣ making six (+620 was only 40%).

The grand prizes went to the four E-W pairs whose West bid 2♣ and ultimately found their way to an unscientific, but effective, 6♣ contract (+1370, 95%). The booby prizes went to those Wests who continued to maintain their hands were ugly ducklings. They all landed in club partscores (+170) receiving a mere 8%. 

By the way, after the usual spade lead, there is a nice line of play to collect all thirteen tricks in a club contract, but only one West found it – and that was Hans! I suppose +190, worth 19%, was his consolation prize.

Ask the Expert

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

October Birthdays



Cheryl Berman

Patricia Blackman

Anne Cheney

Deborah Crisfield

David Dodgson

Margy Dooley

David Dresher

Eileen Erhlichman

Mary Sue Foard

Roz Fudell

Robbie Hain

Ed Hino

Mary Lingerfeldt

Marcy Lipner

Angela Masterson

Avi Mude

Connie Opfelll

Sandra Sill

JoEllen Stockmal

Tom Sumter

Virginia Tinner

Connie Wenhold

Sheila Zamcoff