In Australia they do it with finesse

November 25th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Karen Cumpstone came to Canada from New Zealand a few years ago. She was a well respected card player down under as she is in North America. She sent a lovely hand which will be reported by Ron Klinger in the near Sun-Herald on December 19th. Here is the story:

Dave Beauchamp who Ray and I met when we visited Australia was playing with Ted Chadwick. This was the deal from Ted’s point of view:

North ♠ J732 ♥ A9852 ♦ K7 ♣ 53

South ♠ Q654 ♥ Q73 ♦ AJ ♣ AQ94

The auction was simple. Ted opened 1NT and responded spades to Stayman.  Now Dave raised to 3♠ and that was the final contract.  The opening lead was the ♦ 3 (4th highest).  The plan is going to be to draw trump and set up hearts.   Ted won the ♦ K and played the ♥ 9.  East ducked very smoothly and Ted let the heart run to the ♥10.  The smooth duck suggested to him that the ♥ K was on his left not on his right.  He won the diamond return in hand and played a spade from hand.  West won and got out a club to the East’s ♣ K and Ted’s ♣ A.  Ted played another spade West winning as both followed.  Ted won the club return and drew the last trump with the ♠Q .  This was the position with the lead in Ted’s hand.

North ♠ J ♥ A852 ♦ – ♣ –

Ted ♠ 6 ♥ Q7 ♦ – ♣ 94

There are actually two choices now.  You can play the ♥ A.  This works if the ♥ K started out as doubleton in either hand (most likely West’s).  Or you can try something more artistic.  Ted’s original play of the ♥ 9 set up an intrafinesse, one of the truly beautiful plays in bridge.  If as was the case the original heart holding was

West: ♥ K10x   and East: ♥ Jx

then when Ted leads the ♥ Q to the second heart trick, there is nothing the defense can do to get a second heart trick.  When West covers the ♥ A will smother East’s ♥ J and set up the suit for declarer.

Why did Ted chose the intrafinesse as the way to play hearts?  In his own words; “. The only reason I did that rather than try to drop the king was simply because I’d never done an intra finesse before!”

Lovely.  If there was a bucket list for bridge plays than the intrafinesse was be on my list.  Well done.  And thank you Karen for sharing.

I am leaving for Orlando Saturday so the blogs may get a bit scarce for a couple of days.

Congratulations to Cora … she did it (and one for the teacher too)

November 20th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Cora played in a tournament with a new partner and was very excited.  She had come in first in B and C and second in A.  But the most exciting part was that she executed a squeeze to make 7 while in 6NT and she was aware of what she was doing.  Here is the deal.

North ♠ Q5 ♥ AK1063 ♦ Q842 ♣ Q4

Cora ♠ AK8 ♥ J8 ♦ A5 ♣ AK9753

Cora and her partner did well to get to the slam in notrump the highest scoring slam 6NT.  She didn’t tell me what the lead was but assume you get a spade lead.  You test clubs and they break.   You have 12 tricks but what about 13.  It can’t really cost to cash the ♥ A (discarding the ♥ J from hand) and play off your club winners pitching two hearts and two diamonds from dummy.  During this time the defense may give you some hints with their discards and even with their tempo.  You could just take the heart finesse now.  The squeeze only works when the finesse is onside anyway because dummy has to pitch before West.  But this type of squeeze is called a show-in squeeze.  You are playing for West to have the ♦ K and then you don’t care where the ♥Q is.  On the last high spade suppose West throws a heart then you throw your ♦ Q.

West has to come down to one heart and the ♦ K.  When you lead a heart in the two card ending if the queen doesn’t “show up” then East must have it so you play the high heart and hope it is doubleton.    I am not going to try an analyze if this is the best line for seven but I will say that seeing the ending, playing for it and then making it (the ♦ K and ♥ Q were both onside) is an expert play.  Well done Cora.

I also had a nice hand in practice today against the fierce robots.  I admit they didn’t give me the best defense but the ending is cute.

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ 432 ♥ 9 ♦ 9732 ♣ A9765
West ♠ KQJ9 ♥ 7642 ♦ A10 ♣ 832		East ♠ 85 ♥ AQ83 ♦ KJ65 ♣ J104
	Linda ♠ A1076 ♥ KJ105 ♦ Q84 ♣ KQ

The auction was simple I opened 1NT vulnerable in second and it was passed out.  The opening lead was the ♠ K which I ducked.  West decided to switch to a heart when East discouraged and East won the HA.  East returned a spade and West won the ♠ 9.  I won the third round of spades with the ♠ A (East discarding a diamond) and cashed the top two clubs.  I then exited a spade, East discarding a club.  West continued hearts and now East made the mistake I needed he rose on the ♥ Q.  I won and cashed my heart winners.   There are a couple of endings that work now but the simplest and the one I played for is for West to have Ax or Kx of diamonds. I exited with a diamond and the defense has to give me a minor suit trick.  This is the type of judo hand (where you let the defense do the work) that my friend Andy Altay specialized in.  He loves 1NT contracts.

So Cora made 7NT and I made 1NT.  She had a squeeze and I had a strip and endplay  It was a good week.

Gib Lied… Playing with Francine (and robots)

November 19th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

Francine and I have been working on system.  We plan on playing together for quite a long time so it is worth it to put some energy in up front.  We had a system which is about four years old.  We used some parts of it but we have reworked quite a lot.

The biggest change for me to get used to is raising partner’s major response with three.  There are some exceptions but that is the usual rule.  We are also going all West Coast style bypassing diamonds most of the time after opening 1♣ .   Marshall Miles who I had a few games with on BBO would be pleased with me.  All this takes some getting used to and it has ripples all through the system. ( Actually even remembering some of the parts of the system we played before take some work.)

It’s quite a lot of fun.  When you are used to a system most bids are pretty routine.  Every so often you have a hand that doesn’t fit and of course there are the competitive decisions to make.  But when you are learning something new a lot of bids need thought.   This is especially true as you get deeper in the auction.  If she didn’t ask me about how many spades I have when I raised that probably means she doesn’t care so that means ….  I find it interesting, challenging and well, fun.

Francine is a very thoughtful player.  This is true during bidding and true during card play.  It reminds me of playing with Colin.  Things mean something and you have to seek the inner meaning.  It is wonderful to play with somebody who is like that.  I have to play my best game, not my autobridge game which I often use with others.  Do you know what I mean?

Yesterday we decided we needed a break from bidding hands, not that we are done with that, of course.  We decided to play against the robots so we could talk.

There were a few routine boards but when I looked at the deals this morning I could see lots of interesting things.  Here is an example.

Linda ♠ Q6532 ♥ K103 ♦ 2 ♣ AJ82

Francine ♠ K108 ♥ A4 ♦ AKQJ7653 ♣ –

We are playing sound openings so there was no question of opening the north hand.  Francine opened 1D and I bid 1S.  Now Francine is definitely thinking about slam if my spades are even QJxx that is all she needs.  So in order to get a better picture she decided to reverse in hearts.  It isn’t easy to create a force opposite a passed partner.  I bid 2♠ which is forcing and shows five.  I had lots in reserve and I was awaiting developments.  Francine now bid 3♦.  I knew her diamonds were very good and she had more stuff on the side.  I had a couple of good cards for her but I had no idea my ♠ Q was one of them though.  I bid 3NT suggesting good cards in the black suits.  Although she had a club void this was very good news for Francine.  It mean I had spade fillers.  She bid 4♣ .  Now here is one of the thought points.  I am writing this without discussing this with her so I hope I am right.  Was this ace asking or was it a cuebid?  We play that 4 of a minor is ace asking when the minor has been agreed.  What do you think? Don’t look at her hand look at mine and the auction.

3♦ was the trump suit here so presumably 4♦ would be keycard.  Therefore 4♣ should be a cuebid.   I cuebid 4♥ and  Francine bid the good diamond slam.

My experience is that reverse auctions are one of the most likely to get mixed up.  But I thought we managed it pretty well.  There may be other ways of bidding this slam and if anyone has a favorite auction I would be happy to hear it.  But I think Francine handled her hand very well.  One thing I know from practicing together.  If we play in an event and there are a lot of making slams we will be in a lot of them.  We will even get to grands.

There were many interesting deals and I will have fun going through them all myself later.  But one thing that was particularly interesting… GIB lied.  I didn’t know the robots could do that.    Gib East was 1-6-3-3 with 13 points.  I opened 1S in third and Gib East overcalled 2H.  When Gib West responded 2NT showing 11-12 balanced with spades stopped Gib East bid 3♣ .  What was strange was that Gib described this bid as showing 5+♥ and 4+♣ .  The played there on the 4-3 which was not a happy spot.

Giving Back

November 18th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

We are getting close to Thanksgiving.  The day of the big American feast, of family and of one hopes being thankful for all that we have.

I have been very blessed in my life.  I have two wonderful children each with terrific spouse and five grandchildren who bring Ray and me happiness.  We have enough of everything and an interesting job working with the game welove, bridge.  In the last few years we at Master Point Press have worked hard to give something back.  I hope at this holiday season some of you, readers, will also consider making a contribution to our game.

Over the next few weeks we have invited a number of guest bloggers to talk about an area where you can volunteer.  We will be cover: mentoring, volunteering at tournaments, doing commentary of Vugraph, blogging about bridge and I hope the junior program (that one isn’t quite ready yet).  If you have another area you would like us to cover then send me an email.  I have been involved in mentoring, blogging and doing commentary.  All of these activities have been very rewarding.  Obviously not all of us can do each thing but all of us can help in some way to bring people to the game, help people to learn, entertain others in some way and make the game pleasurable for all.

When I think about what Ray and I have done in bridge it really covers a lot of territory.  We have talk games, run duplicates, created and provided a bridge magazine (not for profit), played at tournaments of all levels including internationally, written books, published books, encouraged writers, Ray has been president of the CBF and really a lot more.  Bridge has given us so much.  Whenever I talk to those who put in the most I find that they too say that they have been given a lot back.  I have a lot of wonderful memories.  Even when I played and lost the memories are still good.

So we invite you to read our stories, comment a lot, the authors have promised to respond and most of all to participate.  And don’t foget to contact us if you have a blog on this topic that you would like to write.

Happy Holidays to all of you.

Ranking whatever I want … Last day for now

November 16th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

Its the tenth day and I am going to take a rest.  I will try to do more websites some time in the future, probably in December or January.  But it is time to move on for now.  So I just decided to review a few more in depth and mention a few others.

The Netherlands seems to have a good website but I couldn’t find a way to view it in English. Unit 166 has one great feature on their website, PDF issues of their fine magazine the Kibbitzer including back issues.  This magazine is currently edited by John Carruthers and is free to all.  If you are feeling a little cold and weary this winter try the Bermuda Bridge Club.  The sunny pictures and events will cheer you right up.

Youth for Bridge is the ACBL website for juniors.  There seems to be some interesting stuff here.  Try the advanced play challenge.  It is a cute double dummy hand.  Which brings me to my next website:  I have previously reviewed double dummy corner by Hugh Darwen.  It is still completely wonderful.  This site is always current and there is always a competition going.  But much more since there is an archive of hundreds of problems from various composers.  Besides Darwen other composers include stars like Eddie Kantar, Richard Pavlicek and George Coffin and a couple of problems from Willaim Whitefield, a nintenth century problem composer.  Nobody has yet solved the current Problem 423.  Don’t look at me – I am not even going to try (well not until all my work. A+

Thomas Andrew has an interesting page:  Thomas’s Bridge Fantasias.  For those interested you can also get to his home page which has tidbits like what would it be like if you put an art gallery in a Kline bottle.  What is interesting is that he is a programmer who has projects going.  For example what he calls hand evaluation research.  (Warning when you get the message loading please wait… don’t click one of the buttons at the top of the page.   Here is an example:  If partner opens 2NT when should you bid 3NT when you have minimal values.  Is an ace enough?  The answer is no, not even when the ace is in a five card suit and not even vulnerable.  But with one ace and two tens you should bid vulnerable almost all the time.  Lots more here… interesting stuff.  He has a free program called Deal: double dummy solver, hand generator and more.  Definitely worth a visit if you are into bridge theory.  B+

I realized I neglected to mention the World Bridge Federation site.  Not bad.  It has useful information about what is happening at the “world” level and world championships, a calendar of major events world wide, the playing records and some pictures of international players.  Want to know who is ranked highest in the world?   Useful when you want to know these things.  B

Fifth Chair is an online bridge education group.  Lots of material for teachers.  There are 16 introductory lessons, a bridge glossary, A large archive of articles, mostly bidding but a few others.  Want to know a whole bunch of variations of CRASH. RKC for minor suits.  Some information about their mentoring program. C+

I have previous reviewed Bridgevaria. It is a web site with columns, puzzles and problems.  Lat time I thought can they keep this up.  Well yes.  Well done to Ed Hoogenkamp, Peter van der Linden and Pien Stering.  They seem to be going strong, very strong.  There is an article each day on the front page.  Also all sorts of problems of all types.  It may be a quiz or a short discussion of a hand or idea.  Book reviews of recent books are very current.  All high quality, lots of everything and a newsletter too. A+ (especially because there is something new every day).

Oh there is so much more out there… it’s sad to stop now.  But I will be back soon.  A complete list of reviewed sites with grades where appropriate will be posted soon.

Online bridge … we all love it…. Day 9 (and no rest yet)

November 12th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I am going to try to evaluate or at least mention some websites for playing online bridge.  It is very hard for me to evaluate many of these sites because I would have to set up an account and try to play on them to do it justice.  I suppose I could but I am not going to.  Life is too short.  But I will discuss some features of two sites which I have some familiarity with: Bridge Base Online and Swan Games .

Bridge Base Online (free with some paid games) is my bridge playing site of choice.  They have a “new” and an “old” interface.  I like the old one desktop version rather than the newer online version.  But the online version does allow you to log in more than once so you can watch both tables in a vugraph session and is the only one that works with the MAC.  Why do I like BBO?  Well first it’s free for most things.  On the desktop version the ads are unobtrusive.  (Most of the time I am not aware they have ads).  I like the way I can label people (friends and foes) and block chat from foes (which I do).  If you are mean to me than you are on my enemy’s list faster than you can say Richard Nixon.  I haven’t played tournaments but in principle I like the low price, the convenience and the short sessions.  I love looking up old deals I watched or played.  I love team games…. and on and on.   As long as they keep the ads from flashing they get an A+.

Swan Games (free with some paid games) is another great and popular site.  It has a more “family” feel in a way.  Perhaps more popular in Europe than North America it has similar characteristics to BBO.  Swan Games has a couple of differences.  The first is a rating system.  BBO use self rating.  Swan has a calculated rating.  They have clearly put a lot of thought into the way they manage it.Both approaches have issues so you have to decide if you like the idea or not.    Swan Games does not normally provide Vugraph (although I do remember they have done it on occasion in the past) but instead they provide real-time updates of what is happening for important events.  You can follow a board and see what every pair did with that board, watch matches seeing the scores come in, get victory points based on the result of the moment and watch the standings.  They also provide the butler scores which show how pairs (or in some cases individuals) are scoring compared to the field.  Historical data is available at their site.  You don’t need to be a member to see all this.  It is an incredible addition to watching world championships and other events on BBO.  I have one window on BBO and another on Swan.  (Well I often have more than one Swan window open).  Any real-time online scores you see from any site are just pointing to the Swan site.  If you are visiting the site look for the duckling page which includes a few useful articles and some poems and also the pictures from tournaments.  Here is a portion of a bot-praising poem

“GOT BOT? WHY NOT?”

You play with a BOT

And what have you got?

A slightly flawed machine.

His bids may confuse you,

And may not amuse you,

But at least he isn’t mean.

He won’t say, “Play faster!”

In hopes of a disaster

Created by rushing your game.

He also won’t say,

“That was poor play!”

Telling all that you were to blame.

He won’t leave a hand,

Forgetting to stand,

Cussing you out as he goes.

And he won’t say,

“Learn how to play!”

(We all have met some of THOSE).

…. and on it goes.  Swan Games is also an A+

None of the following are rated:

OKbridge was the first place I played online bridge.  Looking at the site today I am first impressed by the tutorial on how to play.  The interface is good looking and intuitive.   ACBL games are available at a flat monthly rate.  I had trouble signing up for a trial account.  They just didn’t like the idea that I didn’t live in the US.   I gave up after several attempts.  So all I can say is that it is a paid site or as they call it with a calculated rating system.   If somebody with an account wants to tell us more that would be nice.  Unrated.

Other online sites: Bridgehits.  They feature the idea that there is no chat, just play.  SAYC rules here.  It looks like you have to “buy boards” to play.    There also seems to be prize money for placing in tournaments.  I had trouble registering but not my thing anyway.

The Bridge Doctor has a lot of features for new players.  It costs $7 a month and is online (nothing to install).  You can play against the computer or you can try interactive lessons.  There are live games.  Standard American and ACOL may rule here.    Looks like it might be a great way to learn.  There is a seven day free trial if you want to see if it helps you improve.

Bridge Club Online is another pay to play site.  It has a 16 year history.  I get a guest membership with no fuss (and no credit card). I tried it as a guest and it seems to work fine. Tournaments are listed in GMT but there is a helpful clock feature.  Lots of charity events.  Supervised play.  Fun Friday night game alternates singles and couples.   Rating system.   I hear they are tough on cheaters.

Bridge in included in a number of game sites like Pogo where all games are free.  At Great Day another such site you can play against robots.  Lots were doing it when I checked.  You are ranked.  Free.  I am sure there are lots more where these came from.

So you like blogs … Day 8 and not tired yet

November 9th, 2010  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Today I decided to look at some blogs.  We have some wonderful blogs and feeds on bridgeblogging but I thought I would look around a bit and see if I could find some interesting new ones.

Tommy’s Bridge Blog by Tommy Solberg has some interesting material. Blogs seem to be running at about two a month and they are mostly about bidding. He recently posted a table of content of his blogs with dates so you can find them all. A sample of the tops include reopening doubles, sandwich notrump, scrambling 2 no trump, stroming norman and four suit transfers. But there are also some quizzes and some war stories of his games or games he watched. This blog is aimed at intermediate to advanced players (more advanced than intermediate). He brags that he is turning his students into duplicate terrorist. I believe it. Recommended for students and teachers particularly. B-.

Andre Ashbury has a secret blog life. He writes on bridgeblogging but he also has two other blogs, one a bridge blog. Andre’s bridge blog, he explains: is my attempt to keep a blog about my exploits at the bridge table – defensive problems, bidding conventions, tournament results, and notes about canape and polish club systems. All the blogs are reasonably frequent so he must sleep with a computer keyboard.

Here is a blog with an interesting title: Is Being a Bridge Bum Equivalent to Being a Prostitute? This is a fascinating blog to me. It talks about whether bridge pros are wasting their life and whether they should do more with their intelligence and skills. He admits to a touch of jealousy too. Have a look and make a comment and Andre, think about putting that type of blog on bridgeblogging.com it will usually get a wider audience.  Have a look and make a comment and Andre, think about putting that type of blog on bridgeblogging.com I would love to see the comments from some of our readers.

A lot of the blogs are about hands. There is a bit of a discussion in the blog about “doubling without a trump stack” which I find interesting. I did have a bit of troubling figuring out from the dialog who held which hand but the point of the story is when you get doubled missing five trump to the queen is the doubler more or less likely to have the missing honor (and length in the trump suit).   Obviously the entire auction matters in determining this but without any other hints I am not surprised (and I consider this in the play) when the doubler is short in trump or at least doesn’t have the missing honors. This is true only among experienced players, of course.

One other blog talks about monogamy in bridge. Is it a good idea to have more than one regular partner. Mr. Asubury has a lot of interesting things to say and I hope he says a lot of them on bridgeblogging. His off-site blog is worth a visit and some comments. B+ (you would get an A on bridge blogging <smile>.

Ramesh Abhiraman hasn’t been blogging a lot this year. Last year with 66 blogs was much more productive.  There are a couple of interesting things about his blog.  First he has a list of bridge books he likes.  One blog (and book) that intrigued me was about 300 Contract Bridge Hands THE FIRST WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Reviewd and Explained by Ely Culbertson, Captain of the Victorious American Team.  There are some other blogs with lots of BBO hands and some explanation including such things as a repeating squeeze to make 6NT.  C.

Okay I ready to admit this I don’t know who is the author of the bridge post all I know is he is the mysterious elliiki.  There are blogs about bidding, everyone’s favorite topic with some more emphasis on theory.  The most recent blog is entitled Precision or Natural which is better.  He starts out by making the interesting point that natural bidding has come a long way.   Infrequent blogs. D (not for the quality but for the timing and brevity).

I am not having much luck finding new bloggers today.  I need to end with something good, a big bang  so what will it be.    Well I have reviewed the Bridge World site before.  I can’t see any changes since last time.  It still has lots of fun stuff.  The sample article are very good (but then I love Bridge World.  The Bridge Glossary is great and extensive.  Lots more stuff for everybody.  Another good thing is you can converse online now.  There is a spot for editorial correspondence and a place to submit a problems and some information for budding bridge world authors. There are filled out WBF and ACBL convention cards in Bridge World Standard and the complete 2001 system.   Enjoy the Esoterica and then if you are like me you will buy a subscription (online purchase of course).

Some great links … Part 7 of the Internet Search

November 3rd, 2010  ~  linda  ~  5 Comments 

Suppose you want to find some good bridge sites for one purpose or another.  Where do you go?  There are two very good sites for this purpose.  Great Bridge Links has been around for a long time but you wouldn’t know it by the design which is graphical and modern.  Without even looking at it I am going to guess that some links are broken.  It is inevitable that will occur.  But that is not the test of a good site of this type.  Can I find the things I want to find?  Do items catch my interest?  Things are organized by section and with some looking around you are likely to find what you are looking for.  I particularly like the front page which seems like a magazine with links to news items and interesting articles.  An

I see that Thailand will be the home of the 2011 women’s bridge festival.  Great Bridge Links hopes me over to the brochure on the WBF site.  Thailand in January, no nasty men to deal with.  Sounds good.

There is a link to what amount to an ad for Bridge Island , in app running on an iphone or ipad to play bridge.  Lots more ads too.  Woops links and ads can kind of blur.  I need to avoid the left side of the page  which on November 3rd (day after Democrats got slaughtered) seems appropriate.  Great Bridge Links is an A.

The second great website for links and a lot more is Claire Bridge. I have given this site glowing reviews twice before and I see that Clair Martel has kept links to my blogs.

Anyway I now find my way to the Gargoyle Chronicles.   Phillip Martin is writing a long series of articles about a simulated matchpoint tournament where he is the only human.  All the rest are Jack the winning computer bridge program.  It actually sounds like somebody’s nightmare.

At the moment he seems to be running at the pace of about 4 blogs a month.  I am pleased to find that he has a lot of interesting things to say about how he plans the defense and what he can deduce from the bidding, opening lead and play to trick one.  Hey this is good stuff.  Lots of stuff I wouldn’t have thought of.  I could learn something.  Definitely worth visiting.  Only negative there are large ads interspersed after a blog.  I have decided I like my ads on the LEFT side of the page.  (See above). An A.

Danny Kleinman is a Master Point Press author and an very talented bridge theorist.  His website (DannyKleinman.com).  If you start by looking at bids and conventions you will find many convention ideas.  Danny loves to give his conventions cool names like Baa Baa Black Sheep or Four  Flaunt or Four Strong Winds.  If you love bidding theory you will be in heaven.  Lots and lots of interesting ideas about defense and declarer play, hand evalution, rules, and more.

There are some other topics too including an article in defense of the American Ladies who expressed. their displeasure at former president George Bush during the medal ceremony in Shanghai.  A good solid B+.

The New Kid On the Block – Part 6 … bridge web crawl

November 2nd, 2010  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Within the last year Gavin Wolpert, Jason Feldman and Steve Weinstein with Kitty Cooper and others have developed a new website for bridge players called Bridgewinners.

Gavin is a friend who I have known since he was a bridge playing child.  His mother Hazel Wolpert runs a very popular bridge club in Toronto.  There will soon be a package of Gavin recommended books  available on ebooksbridge Keep an eye open for it.

The site is well laid out and it is easy to find things with lots of interesting components and lots of content.  They have a group blog with a few others contributing (it appears that guests are welcome to blog).  The most recent one when I looked at it was a plea for the ACBL to restore Multi 2D as an allowed convention in national pairs events.  Yes, go guys.  I don’t even play it with most of my frequent partners but I think it is silly not to allow it.  One problem hands in a blog did not show up.  I just got a big box.  (Maybe something to do with my browser but it should work for everyone).   I notice that some of the blogs have got comments from many interesting people.  Lots of fun and interesting things, almost more like a Bulletin Board than a real blog but fun.

They have a bridge store connected to Amazon. The must read books are not ones that I would have picked .  For experts I would have included Roy Hughes Building A Bidding System or a book or two by Marshall Miles or Bob McKinnon’s wonderful new book on Bridge Probability and Information and many others.  For advanced players any of Eddie Kantar’s books. Overcalls by Mike Lawrence and many others.  I am pleases to see that they did pick Bridge Squeezes Complete.  But then again we all have our own favorites.

There are a number of interesting technical articles mostly written by the quartet (Gavin, Jason, Steve and Kitty).  I like the fact that the articles are classified by level and type.  Gavin has written one in the intermediate section on the defense against 1NT.  The comments are more interesting (to me) than the article which is just a one line description of responses to Meckwell and Woolsey.  I think for intermediates there needs to be more narrative describing how you use it, what types of hands and how you should respond when your partner makes one of these bids.  Is any follow up bid forcing and son.  The classifications need some work too.  The articles for beginners are not aimed at any beginners I know.  Maybe they are beginning experts!

The site covers major tournaments.  For example they have coverage of the 2010 European championships.  It includes articles and a set of useful links.  Obviously most useful during the tournament it is still fun to have a quick look after the event too (and here I can actually read the hands).

An innovative and popular feature of the site are the polls.  They all have lots and lots of responses.  You will have lots of fun responding to the polls and reading the comments.  Polls are often what do you bid but there are defense and other problems too.  This is the best part of the site for me.

Another mainstay is a couple of tools the most important being a convention card editor.  It comes with three preloaded variations, standard, 2/1 and Eastern Scientific which you can modify to suit your partnership.  There is a also a counting game.  It actually took me a minute to figure out what it is.  You enter 4 numbers and as I realized they represent bridge distributions and have to add up to 13.  At one point I remember before I went to sleep going 5-3-3-2, 5-4-4-0, 5-4-2-2 and so on.  This is a more fun way to do it.  I have tried it before but today for some reason it wasn’t working.

There is also an interactive help (most of the questions and answers are about the convention card editor).  Players of all levels will want to visit this site.  A.

Good luck with your venture, fellows.

Woohoo the Canadian Bridge Federation gets an A – Surprise (Part 5 of the web hunt)

October 31st, 2010  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I wasn’t planning to featured any more national bridge sites in my review but by chance I looked up the CBF website and I was shocked.  It was vastly improved.   Congratulations to all of you.  The new home page features spiffy pictures of Canadian bridge players  in the banner.  It is well designed with nice graphics and well organized.  I can find everything I want with ease.  Information about the Canadian championships for next year is already up and I can see it is in Regina Saskatchewan (that’s the middle for you foreigners).   There are news stories on the front with pictures.  I see that Daniel Lavee was on the winning Mixed Swiss Teams in Philadelphia along with Lynn and Dale Johannesen, Connie Goldberg, JoAnn Sprung and Greg Hinze.  Well done all.  They have done a good job of keeping the news current and and have an archive of news which I happily flipped through including a reference to  The Globe and Mail article about Fred Gitelman features prominently on the front page. A link to the CBF Bulletin Board reveals that so far people are not using it very much as a forum to discuss things.  Going over to CBF news I find it has a lot of useful stuff which is a surprise including a link to an article about the cross Canada Simultaneous game starting in September 2011 to raise funds.  (I am working on that event).  There is much more so.  Great job.  An A site.

One link on the site lead me to  Inside Bridge an attractive website belonging to Dave Willis.  Dave who has played for Canada internationally writes the bridge column for the Toronto Star and one for the Ottawa Citizen but this website is about his club in Ottawa.  He posts problems, perhaps they are from the daily game.  There is no archive so there is a bidding problem and a play problem.  Some nice photos.  He has results from the duplicate.    Suggestion since this is a club site (even if that wasn’t your original intention) you might want to list game times and location.  Recommended for club members only and therefore unrated.

Perhaps one of the best bridge sites on the web is Jonathan Steinberg’s photo albums.  So far Jonathan has 132 albums each with between 50 and 100 images almost all of bridge players.  Jonathan attends a lot of tournaments and he takes his camera and takes pictures.  Each photo is labelled.  This is now the best source of photos of bridge players (famous or not) on the web.  Jonathan has given me (and anybody who asks) permission to use his pictures in his blog as long as I give him due credit.  Thanks Jonathan you have provided a terrific resource to all of the bridge community.  Appreciates.  An A+ effort and an A website.

Photo courtesy Jonathan SteinBerg: Connie Goldberg, JoAnn Sprung, Lynn & Dale Johannesen, Greg Hinze, Daniel Lavee won the World Mixed Swiss Teams

Now on to one more site and then I have to go out with my girl friend for a Halloween lunch.  Spiders and newts tails probably.  I have always liked the name the Bridge Bum.  Probably because I love Alan Sontag’s book by that name.   Jeff Tang has a website with that name.  Jeff is a self described non-expert but he has collected a lot of interesting material.

He has a fairly extensive list of basic conventions with a brief description.  This might be of most use to an intermediate to advanced player who is thinking about upgrading their convention.  However what is written about some of the conventions is not detailed enough to use as the only source of information (others are better descibed).  The article collection is more interesting (to me).  Some of them are stories that he participated in or witnessed at the bridge but it is an eclectic collection with lot of different things including two interviews one with Mike Lawrence and one with Fred Gitelman who must be the most frequently interviewed guy in bridge today.  Some Snoopy bridge cartoons and an article about Dwight Eisenhower and bridge from Sports Illustrated called Ike’s Favorite Bridge Hand.  Worth a C-.

Happy Halloween and Welcome Great Pumpkin!