Internet Journey Revisited – Day 1

A lot of time has passed since my previous journey around the Internet to find the best bridge sites.  It seemed a good time to do an update.  At the end of my journey I will do a new list of my top ten sites.  I decided to start with blog sites today.  I am not going to include any of the great bloggers at bridge blogging though many of them are among the very best around.   I can’t possibly cover all the bloggers I want in one entry so consider this a good start.

First I started with Stacy Jacobs.  As you know we carry Stacy on our blog roll which already means that we find her blog interesting and active.  Stacy is providing a bridge sponsors view of the game and also keeping us apprised of George Jacob’s activities.

If you check out her most recent Blog Mixed Metaphors, you will find out that George has a new partner.

Noberto Bocchi

Wow, I would pay a lot to have him as my partner!  Once Mark Horton talked about a bridge site called Bridge Babes.  On a similar vein  … well I digress.  Her latest blog on a client’s viewpoint is the learning curve year one.  Among other things there is an interesting discussion about what happens if the sponsor or a player has to withdraw from a planned event.

Gavin Wolpert has started to blog again regularly: Gavin Wolpert’s Blog.  I hope he keeps it up.  We are planning to pick up his feed.  His most recent blog was an interesting hand from the USBF trials. A team similar to one that he played on some years ago in Canada won the trials this year and assuming they defeat Mexico they will be playing in the Bermuda Bowl.  This took place after Gavin’s last blog.  It must be just a bit bittersweet but I am sure he is excited for them and his brother Darren is a team member.  I couldn’t resist copying this picture of Jenny and their son.

Gavin also has a twitter account which he seems to use from time to time.  Of course there is my blog on mas.

Paul Gipson’s blog, The Beer Card , continues to be a favorite.   Paul lives in Scotland and provides an interesting view of Scottish bridge.  He is currently involved with Scottish Juniors and is blogging about their training and some interesting bridge problems along the way.  He is currently asking for advice about this hand at imps”

♠ x

♥ 6xxx

♦ J1098xxx

♣ x

At Game All, your partner opens 1♥, playing 4-card majors and 12-14 1NT, and the next hand doubles.

What advice would you give the youngster at this point?  With five card majors four hearts would be a no brainer but perhaps you should be more conservative vulnerable and only bid three hearts.  (I can’t believe any junior would do that!) What do you think?  Leave a comment for Paul at     Advice Needed

David Collier is not currently a frequent blogger.  His site David C’s Bridge Blog was lasted updated in April and he is clearly not blogging much at all any more.  He does however have some notes posted on Polish Club – Manchester Style and several other bridge bidding theory ideas.  So it is worth a visit if you are interested in that topic.

One of the most interesting and most active bloggers around is Glen Ashton Bridge Matters.  Glen is from Ottawa, a fellow Canadian.

Glen talks about running BBO on an Iphone App.  I was running BBO on my Itunes just using an internet browser.  An app is a great idea.

Then there is Yet Another Bridge Blog.  The blogger is recording his journey towards competence.  Somehow an integral piece of this at the moment is playing 2/1.  I am not sure why bridge students think 2/1 will improve their bridge.  So far my experience teaching intermediates is that they don’t understand the system and conventions they are playing.  2/1 just seems to add to the confusion.  I am willing to teach them 2/1 is they really want but only when they no things like when to use Stayman or a transfer over notrump and what constitutes an opening bid.  To be honest I would rather help them to play standard better.  But I disgress.   Warning the descriptions on the site are not very accurate and the author is advanced not an expert but you appreciate the effort he is making to learn and people seem to have input some helpful comments.  You may want to visit to offer some moral support.

Jonathan Weinstein’sJLW’s Bridge Blog catches my interest.  According to his bio he in “real life” he is “an associate professor in economics at the Kellogg school (Northwestern), specializing in game theory.”  That seems to give him a leg up on most of the rest of us.  I am interested to see that he played in the US team trials and blog during the event.    He has comments to his blog about a great result in the round of 16 to make it to the round of 8 like impressive.  I think so too.  Lots of interesting deals and problems.

On his blog roll is an interesting site

Becker’s Bridge Blog.  There seems to be some lively chat about a bridge problem he has input in his latest blog 5 level agreements.  Here was you auction:

You	Partner
1S	1NT (forcing)
3C	4S ( 3 card Limit Raise)
?

His question is what agreements do you play here?  I don’t think I would play 4S as a three card limit raise.  I would probably bid 3S with that but maybe that’s just me.   I notice that some of the comments also think 4S may not be the best way to handle this situation.  Check out the blog for the actual problem.

Memphis Mojo has a bridge/poker blog  Just Saying.  The latest blog shows some great photos of Las Vegas.  The June 19th blog talks about next years World Championships in 2010.

Susie and Danny Korbel have been writing about the Canadian Open Team Championships and why not Danny was on the winning team!

Photo courtesy of Ross Taylor

Congratulations to Dan Korbel, David Grainger, Nick L’Ecuyer, Kamel Fergani, Darren Wolpert, and Jurek Czyzowicz on winning the Canadian National Team Championship! They played team Carruthers in the two day final (John Carruthers, Joseph Silver, David Turner, Roy Hughes, Nader Hanna, Jim Green) and won with a final score of 288 to 224.

He promises some hands from the tournament soon so be sure to visit his sight in the next while. Korbel Bridge Adventure

Jennifer Jones and Bob Klein have a blog site Jennbridge.  The latest offering include some hand in 3NT at a recent tournament.  The first one isn’t much of a problem.  There is only one way to play the hand (which requires a defensive error and a bunch of luck) but it is a reminder that the opponents are playing single dummy and you shouldn’t give up on a hand.

I visit an old friend Jonathan Ferguson with his blog, the good, the bad and the ugly.  I notice that he has blogged about US politics.  I have resisted the temptation to do this even when I really really wanted to.  I figure this is a BRIDGE BLOG.  But anyway it is interested to read his point of view.  Warning, he is not to happy about Obame as the title to his recent blog (Bush III) might suggest.  But then he seems to diss a number of other politicos as well.  I am making no comments about these topics at all.  Some interesting bridge and lots of other stuff as well.

To get to the next blog you have scroll past some bridge books that Ramesh Abhiraman has added to his library.  This makes me happy because many of the books belong to Master Point Press.  The first deal is a triple squeeze he played on BBO recently.  I think for a moment if there is any defense if the opposite hand South ducks when declarer attempts a trick.  He seems to be a frequent blogger and definitely worth more looks.

Tom Carmichael’s Blog is not that frequent but I am intrigued by his most recent blog.  He is talking about the issues of using Jacoby 2NT as a game forcing major raise and I notice he has fallen the same strategy that Ray, Colin, Sylvia and I have.  He sets a high bar for using Jacoby 2NT so that responder has already shown an above average hand and there are fewer issues about whether the partnership has enough extra values to think about slam.

I am really happy about today.  Well some bloggers have stopped writing (or slowed down) there are some new ones (or restarters).  There is a lot of good stuff to read on the web.

Summary of bloggers reviewed: Stacy Jacobs, Paul Gipson, Gavin Wolpert, Glen Ashton, Jonathan Weinstein, Becker, Memphis Mojo , the Korbels, Jennifer Jones and Bob Klein), Jonathan Ferguson, Ramesh Abhiraman, Tom Carmichael