An Amazing Hand From An Amazing Bridge Club

March 1st, 2012  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Cynthia Wendell is a fine bridge player who lives in our community in Sarasota.  Cynthia frequents the In Between Club, Sarasota’s top bridge club.  She brought me a most unusual deal that she played at the club.

The In-Between Club is run by Michelle Golden and on Leap Day (February 29th) they happen to have 72 tables in play.  This is not unusual.

Cynthia was playing East in a duplicate with nobody vulnerable when this hand came up.  Partner was dealer and Cynthia picked up this little beauty.

Her partner opened 1♣  and at her table North passed.  How would you handle this hand?  Cynthia started quietly with 1♥ .  South passed and partner bid 3♣ .  What now?  Partner’s 3♣  does show a good hand but does partner have the right cards for a grand slam in hearts.  It certainly is possible.  You need to know two things.  Does partner have a heart or two and what about the minor aces?

I suppose that playing regular Blackwood you might just bid 4NT over 3♣  and bid the grand in notrump if partner has both minor aces taking a chance partner does not have a heart void.

But what do you do playing keycard?  I would assume most people would play 3♥  is forcing over 3♣ .  On this hand partner would have bid 4♥  over 3♥ and now you can try keycard.  If partner shows one ace you could take a small chance and bid 6NT instead of 6♥  assuming partner is not off the ♣ AK and can provide two quick tricks.  If 3♥  isn’t forcing you might just jump to 6♥ and hope for the best.  That is just what Cynthia did.  Most of the time bidding a slam at duplicate is a good result.  At the In Between on Leap Day, in Cynthia’s section, it was worth 8.5 out of 12 or 11.5 out of 12 depending on the opening lead.  Five pairs played in game and two went down when I presume they played 6NT from the wrong side.

The whole hand was

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ K108763  ♥ –  ♦ Q8642  ♣ Q5
West ♠ QJ5  ♥ QJ  ♦ J  ♣ AK109764		East ♠ A   ♥ AK10987543  ♦ K3  ♣ 3
	South ♠ 942  ♥ 62  ♦ A10975  ♣ J82

 “Strangely” nobody played 6NT from the East hand.

A Show-In

February 26th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

It is fun to watch a good player like Giorgin Duboin play a hand.  On this deal from one of the daily “Jimmy Cayne” matches he was declarer in four hearts.  East-West was vulnerable and West was dealer.  Duboin was North partnering Cayne who was sitting South

West passed and Duboin opened one heart.  East bid spades and diamonds and Duboin ended in the heart game after Cayne raised hearts.

North ♠ 3  ♥ AK10962  ♦ QJ  ♣ AKJ3

South ♠ J984  ♥ Q73  ♦ A985  ♣ 97

The opening lead was a ♠ K and a small spade was continued to the ♠ Q and a ruff.

Duboin cashed the top heart and the top club and crossed to dummy on the ♥ Q.  East showed out discarding a small spade.  Duboin successfully finesses the ♣ J as East showed out throwing a diamond.  As my husband Ray is fond of saying, “I am beginning to get a count of this hand!”  Duboin then cashed the ♣ K and ruffed a club, ruffed a spade West discarding a club and played trump to arrive at this three card ending

North ♠ –  ♥ 10  ♦ QJ  ♣ –

South ♠ J  ♥ –  ♦ A9 ♣  –

When he played the last trump East is squeezed in spades and hearts.  If he throws the ♠ A then dummy’s ♠ J will be high so he must come down to a stiff diamond and declarer has a show-in squeeze.  He can throw the ♦J from dummy and if East plays a low diamond then declarer plays the top diamond since he knows that East cannot hold the ♦ K.  While this showed good technique on this hand it only matters in the rare case that the diamond were divided 6-1 and West started with the singleton ♦K, a quite unlikely circumstance after East’s stong bidding vulnerable.

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ 3   ♥ AK10962  ♦ QJ  ♣ AKJ3
West ♠ Q5  ♥ J54  ♦ 4  ♣ Q1086542		East ♠ AK10762  ♥ 8  ♦ K107632  ♣ –
	South ♠ J985  ♥ Q73  ♦ A985  ♣ 97

But at it turned out this deal was not just about an overtrick.  At the other table the auction was a lot more exciting.  North took quite an aggressive position in the bidding after his partner raised hearts.  The bidding suggested that even if his partner had meagre high cards, they were the rigth ones and North-South ended in the heart slam.

Here East, Marco Catellani, of Monaco led the ♠ 2.  When his partner won the ♠ Q it was obvious that the ♠ 2 was asking for a club back for East to ruff for a gain of 11 imps for the Cayne team

How do you play this hand

February 24th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

♥ Playing in a fairly high quality team game you are tied going into the last board.  You are South and you’re vulnerable against not. After West passed, partner opened 1♣ , East passed and you bid 3NT ending the auction. 

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ QJ9  ♥ A75  ♦ J62  ♣ KJ32
West ♠   ♥   ♦   ♣		East ♠   ♥   ♦   ♣
	South ♠ A73  ♥ KQ  ♦ K1083  ♣ Q654

You get a very helpful lead of the ♣ 10.  You play low and East wins the ♣ A and returns the ♥ 2  You win in hand with ♥ Q while East plays the ♥ 3 and play a club to dummy’s ♣ J.  East showing out with the ♥ 4.  How do you proceed?  Think about it before reading on.

Looking at the hand and the play so far it seems very unlikely that West started with four diamonds.  He is known to have four clubs and it really looks like he has four hearts.  If he has four diamonds his partner would be 6-4 in the majors and probably would have bid something.  Also West might well have lead a diamond.

You have seven top tricks.  If you can make two diamonds you are home.  Since you  have hearts stopped two more times if you can make one diamond trick while retaining a heart stopper you can make your ninth trick by conceding a spade. 

Suppose you play a diamond to ♦10.  If this holds or loses to the ♦A you can revert to spades to guarantee nine tricks.  The opponents can’t take more than two diamonds and a spade.  If it loses to the ♦Q West returns a heart.  Now lets’ play a diamond to the ♦K.  If this wins once again you revert to spades.

Even if the spade finesse loses you aren’t going to lose two more diamonds. If West has a diamond to return than they are 3-3 (based on previous analysis).

If the  ♦K loses to the ♦A, West returning more hearts, you can try the ♦J to see if they are 3-3.  If that fails you try the spade finesse as your last chance.  It seems to me that this only loses when West started with the AQ doubleton of diamonds and the ♠ K.

I can think of other lines but this one stills seems best to me.  Any thoughts?  Here was the whole hand.

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ QJ9  ♥ A75  ♦ J62  ♣ KJ32
West ♠ K42  ♥ 10863  ♦ Q5  ♣ 10987		East ♠ 10965   ♥ J942  ♦ A974 ♣ A
	South ♠ A73  ♥ KQ  ♦ K1083  ♣ Q654

At the table we didn’t quite get this right.  Declarer started out by playing a diamond to the 10 losing to the queen and later a diamond to the jack losing to the diamond ace and subsequently taking the spade finesse.  Still we won the match because at the other table they got a heart lead and failed to find the stiff ace of clubs.  They went down two.

Playing A Team Game With A Friendly Stranger

February 22nd, 2012  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Sometimes it’s fun to play bridge with someone you don’t know.  Playing in a pretty good team game on BBO with Vikentich our pregame discussion consisted of: “SAYC,  RKC 1430, standard count, upside attitude”. 

 This deal wouldn’t have been easy for anybody to bid.  We were vulnerable against not and at both tables the bidding started 4♣  by East.  Vikentich bid 5♥  and this was passed to me.

He had to have an amazing hand for this bid.  It didn’t seem like 5♥  could ask for a club control and even if it did than the Kxx of clubs would not hold up.  Could it ask for top hearts?  Was he missing the ♥ AK?  Or maybe it was just looking for something helpful. 

Did I have enough? I knew he had good hearts so really my J102 wasn’t going to help much and the ♣ K was a throwaway.  Was the ♦J enough to make slam?  What do you think?

It was!

This was Vikentich’s (South’s) hand.  What would you bid?

 4♥  just isn’t enough.  Do you like his choice of 5♥ ? 

What do you think other bids mean?  4NT should be two suited or maybe 3 suited. What about 5♣ ?   What is the difference?  Remember you are playing with a stranger.  Maybe 4NT should ask partner for his best suit.  You could have a three suiter or you spades and another with the plan to convert the wrong suit to another higher ranking one?  Maybe 5♣  should be primarily a two suiter without spades.  I really don’t know.  Any thoughts?

At the other table South bid 5♣ over 4♣ and the North hand bid 5♦.  I am not crazy about 5♣.  You are going to bid slam no matter what North bids.  If North bids spades you are going to bid 6♥ and if North bids 5♦ or 5♥  you are going to bid slam.  Bidding 5♣  does offer you a chance to get to 6♦ instead of 6♥  but is it right to bid 6♦ over 6♥ ?  Not on this hand.

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ 1093  ♥ J102  ♦ J752  ♣ K95
West ♠ Q76542   ♥ 63  ♦ A84  ♣ 64		East ♠ J8  ♥ 8  ♦ 83  ♣ AQJ108732
	South ♠ AK  ♥ AKQ9754  ♦ KQ106  ♣ –

South bid 6♦ which went down on when the defense maneuvered a heart ruff.  So we won 13 imps despite missing the slam.

At the table especially playing with a stranger  I would probably have just bid 6♥  on the South hand.

On being a bridge teacher

February 21st, 2012  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Each year when I read about the finalists I am amazed at not only how much their students love them but also what exceptional people they are.  They are exceptional in life, not just at the bridge table.

They are all people who know how to give of themselves and they inspire me to be better than I am.  I hope you will take a few moments to read their stories when they are posted on facebook.

This year the plan was to have 5 finalist, one from each part of the continent: Canada, NorthWest USA, NorthEast USA, SouthWest USA, NorthWest USA.  But in some cases the selectors just couldn’t pick from the wonderful candidates in their region.  So there are 7 finlaists.

2012 Finalists:

Carol Lee Bellam    Calgary, Alberta Canada

Verna Goldberg        Louisville, Kentucky

Kathy Rolfe               Lake Winnebago, Missouri

Dave Glandorf           Houston, Texas

Mary Jane Orock        Fort Worth, Texas

Rich Rothwarf             Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Jeff Schuett                 Riverwoods, Illinois

Ray and I have been teaching two bridge classes here in the Landings, Sarasota.  One is a beginner and one is an intermediate.   As the weeks have rolled along I have come to appreciate the wonderful bridge teachers who are candidates for teacher of the year even more. 

Lessons Learned

1. You need to be prepared.  I used to think you could just “wing” it.  I know a lot about bridge and I can see interesting things in any bridge hand. I know how to count winners and how to count points and what makes up a good hand.  BUT, if you don’t think it all through and prepare for your lessons than you just aren’t going to communicate the information to your students. 

2. You can’t go slow enough.  For many of the people I teach bridge is a fascinating new world.  But what is obvious to me (I have played bridge for about 40 years) is not obvious to somebody who is just learning.  The students sometimes just don’t get it even when Ray or I have explained over and over what seems obvious to us. 

3.  Theatrics Work: The game is so rich with so many wonderful ideas that you need to work hard to convey your message/  The other day I had the students chant “Lead honors from the short hand first” many times.  I think next year I will definitely get a captains hat to explain the idea of being the captain of the auction (thanks Tina Redding, ABTA Teacher of the year 2010,  for the idea).

 4. Make it Fun: This is a leisure activity.  Our students are not preparing for a career.  We want them to enjoy themselves and enjoy bridge.

Corollary to 4: Playing hands is much more fun than listening to the teacher.  Play lots of hands.

There are many more lessons to be learned but I am even more impressed with the wonderful men and women who bring the joy of our game to people across North America,

There were ties in the Southwestern quadrant  and the Northeastern quadrant of the US — thus a total of 7 finalists. There are some new names and some carrovers from previous years.

Congratulations to all these people.  You inspire me.

A Hand from 1964

February 20th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

I was thinking recently about comparing bridge in the 1960’s with bridge today.  I happened to have a rare copy of the 1964 World Championships.  It was the year of the second Olympiad.  There were 29 teams playing in the Open Division for the Vanderbilt trophy which Harold S. Vanderbilt had donated four years earlier for the first Olympiad.  There are some interesting names on the list.  Omar Sharif was the captain of the team from the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Terence Reese and Boris Shapiro,  Harrison Grey and Jeremy Flint were on the Great Britain team, C.C. Wei was the NPC of a team from the Republic of China and Alan Truscott was NPC of the Bermuda team.  The Olympiad was held at the Hotel Armericana in New York City.  Governor Nelson Rockfeller welcomed them and pointed out that they were in New York for the World’s Fair.

Looking at the bridge deals shown, the quality of all aspects of the game bidding, play and defense was not as good as it is today.   But the bidding, in particular seems primitive be today’s standards.  We have come a long way baby.

The top four finisher were 1. Great Britain (160), 2. Italy (153) 3. USA (147) 4. Canada (145). The pairings for the semifinal rounds were based on lots.  As it turned out Great Britain played Italy and the USA played Canada.  The matches were 60 boards in length.  The USA defeated Canada and Italy defeated Great Britain.  As would happen many times in the future the finalist were Italy and the USA. 

The USA team (Bob Hamman, Robert Jordan, Donald Krauss, Victor Mitchell, Arthur Robinson and Sam Stayman) got off to a huge start against the Canadians represented by Ralph Cohen, Dr. R. Forbes, Sam Gold, Jack Howell, Sammy Kehela and Eric Murray. 

The biggest swing in the match was Deal 12.  Both sides reached grand slam but Howell-Forbes playing for Canada strangely played in a known 4-3 in hearts while Stayman-Mitchell had no problems arriving in a normal notrump slam.  That was 17 imps for the US who ended the first set up by 47 imps.

Canada did come back and had some good moments although they did lose the match 133 to 117 which included a 5 imp penalty to Canada for late play.

Deal 23 was a chance for Sami Kehela to play a bit of cardplay magic.

 Sami Kehela

 I have rotated the hand to put declarer South.   

Dealer: Vul:	Murray ♠ Q1086   ♥ Q84    ♦ J1073   ♣ 73
Jordan ♠ J97   ♥ A6532    ♦ Q9    ♣ 1092		Robinson ♠ A542  ♥ —    ♦ AK8654 ♣ QJ8
	Kehela ♠ K3  ♥ KJ1097  ♦ 2  ♣ AK654

 With both vulnerable Robison was dealer.

With a partner showing a good hand and five trump to the ace, Jordan must have been visualizing quite a number.  He started the ♦Q which held the trick and continued diamonds although a small trump seems more appealing to me.  Kehela ruffed and played the ♠K which was allowed to hold the trick and another spade to the ♠10 and Robinson’s ♠A. 

At this point the hand can still be defeated.  Do you see what Robinson must do?

Dealer: Vul:	Murray ♠ Q8   ♥ Q84    ♦ J7   ♣ 73
Jordan ♠ J   ♥ A6532    ♦ –   ♣ 1092		Robinson ♠ 54  ♥ —    ♦ A865 ♣ QJ8
	Kehela ♠ –  ♥ KJ109 ♦ –  ♣ AK654

The defense already has two tricks and needs only two more to defeat the contract.  The trump ace is a sure trick.  If Robinson continues a diamond and declarer lets Jordan ruff it that will lead to at least down 1.   So declarer has to trump the diamond.  That allows Jordan to discard the ♠J or alternatively to overruff declarer and return a trump.  Either way costs declarer a trick.   On the lie of the cards it doesn’t matter whether Robinson leads a high diamond or a low one.  The result will be the same.  However Robinson, who may have been visualizing a bigger penalty did not find this play.  Instead he returned a club.  Now Kehela was in command.  On the bidding and play to this point ot was pretty clear that Jordan was 3-5-2-3.  Kehela won the ♣K and cashed the ♣A and ruffed a club and then cashed his spade winner.  He was now on a high cross-ruff.  This was +790 for Canada.  At the other table Cohen and Gold competed to 4♦ and were allowed to play there for down 2.  11 imps for Canada.

Itale went on to defeat the USA in the final and win the event.

A Hand from the Slava Cup

February 18th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Have you heard of the Slava Cup.  It is a bridge tournament held in memory of Slava Grinuk pictured here.

Slava died in 1999 at the age of 29.  He was a graduate of the Moscow State University and did well in bridge championships, primarily in Russia.  It is a credit to the man that so many years after his death he is still remembered in a bridge tournament.  The tournament venue is in the Moscow City Gold Club.  There are two competitions, The team tournament, the Top 8 and the pairs tournament the Top 32.  The Top 8 teams are invited to play by the organizing committee.  This years Top 8 looked like a whose who of European bridge. 

The match I watched was a match between Israel and Lazy, a Russian team.  I watch a lot of bridge one way and another and it is amazing how many really interesting hands a match of top teams like this can produce.  In the end I chose this deal which featured the possibility of a complex slam and put a lot of pressure on the defenders.

Khiuppenen was West and Kholomeev was East for a Russiam team.  Zack was North and Olan Herbst was South for Israel.

 Board 28

Dealer: West Vul: N-S	Zack ♠ Q762 ♥ 76 ♦ 964 ♣ K854
Khiuppenen ♠ K ♥ QJ9542  ♦ K102  ♣ A103		Kholomeev ♠ AJ54  ♥ AK10  ♦ A85  ♣ 976
	Olan Herbst ♠  10983 ♥  83 ♦  QJ73 ♣  QJ2

Do you want to be in a heart slam East-West on these cards?  Assume no opposition bidding. Your best chance of slam is that the ♠ Q will come down in no more than three rounds.  On some occasions you might be able to play the diamond suit for no losers.  And there is a chance of a squeeze of some sort as well.  Some quick mathematics tells us that the chance of the  ♠ Q coming down is roughly 22%.   There are various squeeze chances if the ♠ Q doesnt fall.  And even if there is not a perfect squeeze these hands are tough to defend and one might just materialize.  Still I think bidding the slam is somewhat aggressive.

There was no opposition bidding. Khiuppenen opened with 1♥ and Kholomeev eventually showed a game forcing hand with heart support.  Some cuebids, keycard Blackwood and they were in the heart slam after seven rounds of bidding.  Zack led a spade and Khiuppenen won with his king.  If you need a squeeze, as you likely will, you are going to have to duck a club and Khiuppenen decided to do this early.  He crossed to dummy with a high heart and led a club from dummy.  If Herbst casually played low on the club as I, myself, might well have done then the declarer can make the slam.  Declarer puts in the ♣ 10 and Zack must win the ♣ K.  After that declarer has a pretty easy double squeeze.  Say Zack returns a club.  Declarer wins.  Crosses to dummy on a heart and ruffs a spade and then runs trump. This leads to this three card ending as declarer leads the last trump Zack must throw a diamond to hold onto a spade.  Declarer now throws the ♠ J from dummy and Herbst is squeezed in clubs and diamonds in this ending.

Dealer: West Vul: N-S	Zack ♠ Q   ♥  ♦ 964 ♣
Khiuppenen ♠  –  ♥ Q   ♦ K102  ♣ –		Kholomeev ♠ J  ♥ –  ♦ A8  ♣ 9
	Olan Herbst ♠  – ♥  – ♦  QJ7 ♣  Q

But Herbst rose on the ♣ Q.  That in and of itself was a very good play, maybe even a great play. 

But now the only winning return is a club.  Let’s see why.  Suppose that Herbst returns the “safe” heart.  Now declarer can play a heart to dummy and ruff a spade and then cash the ♦K and run hearts.   Zack who is triple squeezed, must hold the ♠ Q and therefore has to give up control of a minor.  This is the end of the first phase of the compound squeeze.  Suppose Zack gives up the club guard.   Now there is a non-simultenous double squeeze with diamonds as the central suit.   The tricky part for declarer is that he can’t cash the ♠ A until the end of the hand or he will have to make a premature discard from his hand.  Try it yourself.  Compound squeezes are beautiful (at least to me) but one of the harder squeezes to execute. 

I doubt that Herbst, who appeared to play quite quickly (at least on BBO) worked all this out on the table.  But he was good enough to work out that if there was a squeeze, the club entry late in the hand would be important and attacking this entry was his best hope to break up the squeeze.  After this play, since the defense discarded correctly there was nothing declarer could do.  He tried for a squeeze but it just isn’t there.  I think this is a remarkable defense.

In the other room Ginossar and Pachtman played in an easy 4♥  contract.  Khohlov sitting South also found the rise on the club and the club return, although he had a few extra tricks to think about it and no easy heart exit. And he was not under the pressure of defending a heart slam.  Still a good play as well.  11 imps for Israel who went on to win the match 79 imps to 20 imps.

Bidding Grand Slams

February 18th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

I have this philosophy.  It is not worth bidding grand slams at teams unless you can count 13 tricks.  This all started when I lost a big match when we bid a grand slam and the opponents at the other table played in game.  Now the grand slam was actually cold on the hand but my partner succumbed to the pressure and went down.   SInce then quite a few times when I have bid a grand or might have bid a grand I have had a similar experience … no slam at the other table.  So now I am very cautious.  Of course when you are playing for fun you can be bolder.

On this hand on BBO John Cook put Pamela Nisbett into a grand slam and guess what, the opponents didn’t bid a slam at all. I don’t believe John and Pamela are an an experienced partnership so the auction had just a bit of hope in it. 

Parnela opened 1♦ and over Cook’s 1♠  reversed into hearts.  Knowing that partner had a good hand with 5 diamonds and 4 hearts Cook was pretty sure that there was a slam.  He set diamonds as trump with 3♦.  Now when Pamela bid 3NT he decided to try Exclusion Blackwood by bidding 5♣ .  When Pamela bid 5♦ Cook hoped she was with him and that she had 3 keycards.  If Pamela had five diamonds to the AK and the heart ace, slam looked pretty certain.  Bidding the grand slam  was worth 17 imps but bidding the small slam was worth 13 imps.  So the grand only brought in an extra 4 imps.  That is why you need to be cautious about bidding the grand slam.

But on this hand John could see 13 tricks so with a reliable partner he was pleased to bid and make the grand slam. 

The CBF … one more time

February 14th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  8 Comments 

As blog readers will know I have decided that I don’t want to play internationally anymore.  I still like going to world championships and Ray and I are likely to go this year.  We will finalize that when we know the time and place of said championship which is sitll up in the air.  I would like to go as a journalist, writer and book publisher.  I can blog remotely but there is an advantage to be able to talk to the players and captains and just being in the “atmosphere”. 

I recently found out that my dues to the Canadian Bridge Federation are due in March and to the ACBL in July.  I had planned to pay both of them at the same time in July.  I have been warned that if I have this “four month” gap that I cannot play internationally for Canada in 2012 or 2013.  I can play in the events but if I win the event I would not be eligible to go.

This wouldn’t seem to much of an issue for me but there has been at least some discussion that I might have to fill in for a player at the last moment.  I could do that and if the team wins they could replace me and all would still be well.  No problem.

But it got me to thinking about two things:

1. TEAM SELECTION

With the small pool of women players it seems strange that the way Canada picks its teams is through a trial.  There are just not enough good women players to put together more than one high caliber team (and even that might be tricky some of the time).  So instead of doing that we hold a team trial where the really good players are spread among all the teams.

Well I guess its democratic.  And any method of team selection has problems.  Still I doubt it gets us our best team a lot of the time.  It probably worked best during a number of years where there was a core team that won the trials a lot.

2.  TEAMS AND THE PAID-UP RULE

The CBF has a adopted a rule that says that if you have not been a paid up member for two years straight then you are not eligible to play internationally.  Remember we have a limited pool of women players who can play internationally.  At the last trials all the teams were 4 person teams mostly because none of the teams could find 6 players.  Now you have to find 6 players who have paid their CBF dues for 2 years in a rwo. 

Even if you believe that the goal of the CBF should be to raise lots of money this approach seems counter-productive since it reduces the pool of players who will play in the CBF trials.

Suppose there is this desperate team which has to find a fourth (or fifth or sixth) and can’t because the people who have the skill to play are not 2-year CBF members.  So somebody who perhaps hasn’t paid much attention to this CBF Rule or maybe wasn’t thinking about playing internationally joins a team, wins the event and their team has to break up a partnership and find an alternative player (with almost no time to practice).  Or the team has to play 4 even if the players (who may not all be quite as young as they once were) have trouble with this. Or the team has to accept a pair that isn’t as good as they would like.  You can see the problem.

When I realized all of this I got so mad AGAIN that I decided not to renew my CBF membership at all.  I know that nobody will care about my few dollars but it would make me feel better.  I think this whole policy is completely wrong headed.  The problem is that I like other things the CBF does.  I like the Hall of Fame, the magazine, the website, the charity work and so on.

My paying the fee or not paying the fee will be a kind of moral decision.  Should I make a point of how silly this policy is and vote with my dollars OR should I support an organization that does a lot of other good work?  What do all of you think I should do? 

What do you think of this policy?  Is it really more important to make sure that long term dues paying members represent Canada OR that we get the best teams we can?  Maybe Canadians don’t care even matter who represent them?

The teacher learns more than the students

February 5th, 2012  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

Ray and I have been teaching bridge to a class of our friends here in the Landings in Sarasota.  When we decided to teach we had no idea that so many people would show up for classes.  We decided to run two classes one for beginners and one for more advanced students and we still had to turn people away.  This reminded us how popular bridge can be.  Most of these people will not show up as members of the ACBL (although we are encouraging them to compete) but they will be playing bridge with their friends.  All of them tell us that they had no idea how much there was to the game and also how much fun it was.

I think that bridge should be a fun activity for most people.  It should be accompanied by refreshments and gossip.  Competition is okay but it shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

One lady brought in a deal from the bridge column in the local paper.  It was a crisscross squeeze.  Even reading the column she couldn’t figure out how it worked.  It had a bit of a trick because entries were an issue and you had to cash a side winner in dummy very early on for the squeeze to work.  It makes me think that those who write these columns ought to focus on deals that don’t require either a lot of knowledge of complex bridge plays or “Deep Finesse” to work them out.  But I also was amazed how important the bridge column is to our students.  A bridge column seems to get mentioned at every lesson.  Can we pass this message on to the newspapers?

What I also learned is that you pretty well can’t go slowly enough.  When Barbara Seagram and I wrote Beginning Bridge (the book we are using for the course) we followed Barbara’s lesson plans more or less.  Some other teachers told me that the book went too quickly for their beginners.  I can see that now.  We recommended that they break a chapter into two lessons.  And you know what?  That can still be too much.  Better to let them play more deals and teach less stuff.  I might see how to break the chapters up into even more lessons and publish that as a help to teachers.

Another thing I learned is how very effective the special cards are.  We took all of the deals in the book and made cards with numbers printed on the back that allowed the students around the table to quickly deal out the lesson hands.  It is much easier for the teachers than making the boards themselves or other methods of preparing the hands.

One thing that didn’t surprise me at all was the deals which were designed to be pretty foolproof and get everybody to the same contract and the same result didn’t work out that way at all.  One of my students is a very aggressive card player and there was no keeping him out on a hand with six good clubs and about 10 high card points.  He overcalled even though we hadn’t even mentioned the possibility of overcalling.  He just invented it himself.  Not only that but after partner raised him, he competed over three diamonds (the expected contract) to four clubs (which would probably make) and then set the opponents in four diamonds.  Good for him.

One thing that didn’t surprise me was that memory tools like (BOSTON – bottom of something, top of nothing) and reciting “lead honors from the short hand first” as a chant, are very effective.

Our students read the book between lessons, read the newspaper columns and come to the lessons full of questions.  They stop me on the street to discuss a deal and the ones who play duplicate find me by the pool with a coloured piece of paper carefully folded, the hand records.  I have noted that most of the deals from the hand records they show me are triumphs and very few are disasters.  I like that.  It seems good to me to savor the triumphs and not worry too much about the bad results.

I, of course, do the opposite.  When I play I brood about all the deals where I made a mistake.  In most cases I quickly forget the good results.  I know that you can learn from your mistakes but for most people bridge is for fun.  And that is way more important than avoiding an error in the future.  At least I think so. 

I wonder if I can play for fun any more.  I sure hope so.