Bridge Players At Home … Bridge on the Internet Part 3

Many bridge players have their own websites and for all sorts of reasons.  A lot of them are selling something, their services as teachers, professionals, their books, cruises and so on.  In many cases they also have at least some content to bring people to their site.  Some have done it for the love of the game or as a service to other bridge players.  In any case commercial or not, today many bridge players are at home on the web.

So let’s look into a few living rooms at some of the famous first.  I have reviewed Eddie Kantar‘s site before.   Eddie is a wonderful, generous man who I love dearly.  He is a fascinating thinker, a star bridge player and one of the greatest bridge teachers and writers in the world.  Some of the website is designed to sell Eddies books, ebooks, travel and related products.  But there is still a lot of good stuff.  There is a large section on bridge tips of many types and also a terrific section on bridge humor including many of Eddie’s favorite stories.  Under the learn section are some excerpts from products he is selling but there is also a large section of problems and ideas.  Pretty well everything written by Eddie is worthwhile.  This site is an A.

Eddie as you may recall is the author of the definitive book on Keycard Blackwood so I picked out this humor story from his website.

Playing with Billy Eisenberg in a K.O match we are playing Key Card Blackwood and have a few screwups and are behind at the half. When we sit down to play the second half, one of our opponents announces, “We have decided to give you guys a chance, we are also going to play Key Card Blackwood.”

I go to visit Mike Lawrence. The first thing I notice is that this site needs some updating.  It is not a welcoming entrance.  The biggest thing on the front page is a big notice asking if you have trouble with your Mike Lawrence CD’s.  (I am sure that it bothers Mike a lot that his customers have a problem which is a credit to him.)  Mike is a star teacher, player and writer.  Mike‘s site is devoted to Mike’s products but there is quite a bit of content as well.  Good content but the site needs updating.  B.

All of the content is under the article tab.  There are over 60 mostly short articles that are have an interactive component.  They include everything from bridge trivia, lay and defense problems.  I am reproducing here a portion of one of the articles entitled a safety play.   I won’t give the answer. To see the rest head over to Mike’s site.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

A Safety Play

By Mike Lawrence

-S VUL SOUTH DEALS
WEST	NORTH	EAST	SOUTH
			2C
3C	3H	5D	5S
Pass	6S	Pass	Pass
Pass

J 9 2 A 10 8 7 6 2 8 5 3 2 A K Q 6 4 K 3 A A K 9 6 3

LEAD – DQ

South got shoved around a bit in the bidding and arrived at a good slam in spite of it. How can he overcome the known terrible split in his side suit?

Good players no longer sit still when their opponents open with a strong two club bid, something I observed in a previous hand. South ended up in six spades on a sequence which had very little to do with science. South opened two clubs, West overcalled three clubs, North overbid a little with three hearts, and East went the limit with five diamonds. South still hadn’t shown his spades so did so at the five level. North’s raise to six spades was an educated guess.

South won the diamond lead and appreciating that ruffing clubs would not work given West’s club overcall, decided to set up dummy’s hearts. South played the king and ace of hearts and ruffed the third heart (East having three to the jack) with the ace of trumps.

What now?  If spades were 3-2, declarer could now win the rest of the tricks by drawing trump and running hearts.  But what if trumps were 4-1? East seemed to have a huge number of diamonds and he has shown up with three hearts. A singleton spade was possible.  Barring East’s having four spades, virtually impossible, six spades is cold. How can South arrange that?

There is a way. I encourage you to look for it.

Larry Cohen has updated his website and it has a much more modern look.  Larry is a star player and a wonderful teacher and writer.  You can read about his long and illustrious career in his bio.  Like the others his site sells his books, cruises, lectures and CD’s.  So where’s the meat?  Start with the article section.  Larry has saved and reproduced 100’s of articles written over the years.   They are rated with stars (you can add your rating if you like) and by level.  Then there is bidding practice which you can do alone or with your partner.  You bid some hands and the hands are scored based on matchpoint scoring (with 10 being tops).

Deal 1: East deals, both vulnerable

WEST		EAST
Q J 4 A K 10 9 8 7 Q 4 3 A		A 10 8 3 6 2 A K 6 5 K Q 4

I try the first hand (solo).  It’s pretty interesting and I am sure I would get the top marks but I wonder if there isn’t a cleverer way of bidding the hand then I use (or Larry suggests) if you play transfers.  The best contract is 6NT.  Would you have landed there?

Larry’s insight into bidding and play is always very good and with the wealth of the material and the new well organized site this is an A+.

Barnet Shenkin has a newish website.  He has a distinguished career as a player mostly in his native Scotland but lately has been playing in the US doing quite well on some of the top teams.  If you have watched him on BBO you will know that he likes to think deeply about the game.   There is quite a lot of good stuff on this site.  He has a fascinating addition to the story of the Reese and Shapario scandal in Buenos Aires. Barner’s father,  Louis Shenkin was on the British Bridge League Council as a delegate for the Scottish Bridge Union. He later took over the organising of the British end of the investigation, and became the Chairman of the British Bridge League.  He has reproduced some of his father’s correspondence.

There are about a dozen “newspaper clippings”, stories written about Barnet in various newspapers and then about 20 articles Barnet has written.  I ha to read the one labelled “Oh Canada“.  It is a story about the 1990 World Championship in Geneva.  The protaganists in the semifinal match between Canada and Germany were:

The Canadian team had Mark Molson playing with Boris Baran,Eric Kokish with George Mittelman and Arno Hobart playing with Marty Kirr. MarkStein was the non-playing captain.The German team was ,Georg Nippgen,RolandRohowsky,Bernard Ludwig,Jocken Bitschene.  This is the match that Canada lost due to a scoring error.  I am almost sorry I read it.  It has been a sore spot for so many years.  The Germans had to accept the late scoring change.  They refused and in the end in what must have been a close decision the committee ruled against Canada.  Sigh.  Barnet seems to be adding these stories at a good clip.  Lots of them are analysis of hands and description of matches.  Another highlight of the site is brief descriptions of some of the top bridge players (many deceased).  A good solid B+ site if you want to read some interesting stories and blogs.

There are so many of these sites I realize it would take me years to review them all.  I will do some quicky reviews in the next blog and maybe some longer ones later on.  If there is any personal site you would like reviewed send me an email.