Loving The Spingold Semifinal – Updated

August 2nd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

This was wonderful bridge to watch.  I watched a bit of the earlier parts of the semifinals and a fair bit of the fourth quarter.  While the score was closer in the Lynch-Meltzer match I decided I just had to watch Brad and Fred in the Jansma-Diamond match.

Here is a hand from the third quarter.   When you started the third quarter you were down by 11 imps but you may have a feeling that things haven’t been going quite your way.    You arrive in 6♣ after an aggressive auction.  (The deal has been rotated).

You get lead of the ♦6 and it turns out the ♦K is onside although that is the finesse you least need since you might be able to pitch diamonds on spades and ruff a couple of hearts or something like that.  What you really need is the heart finesse.  You draw trump in three rounds and your left hand opponent throws a spade and a heart.   You then lead the ♠J and RHO (East) wins the♠A and continues the ♦7 as East follows with the ♦3 and you win the ♦Q.   As it will turn out play of the ♦K at trick one has given you a small extra chance once RHO did not return a heart.

What do you think the situation is now?  It looks like West started with one club, possibly two diamonds and lots of cards in the majors with a t least five of them being spades (based on the spade discard).  But this is by no means certain.   Why didn’t East want to return a heart?  Is that because he is looking at the king?  Who has the heart king?

If you decide the distribution is 5-5-2-1 and you take your winners ending in hand you will squeeze West who is after all more likely to hold the heart king.  But East who is a fine defender could have broken up the squeeze with a heart return.  Still he can’t see your hand so maybe that is not as clear.  Do you finesse or not?  As they used to say; “You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

Moss finessed and it was wrong.  Perhaps he could have run some tricks before taking the finesse.  He would have become certain of the distribution and that East did hold 5-5-2-1.  But why no heart return.  I suspect that he would still have taken the failing heart finesse.  This guess was a swing of 21 imps.

Bad slams have certainly been a theme for me in this tournament.  Here is one of those auction where you just wish you were still in bed having a nightmare.

South, Dubinin started things off on this massive misfit with a strong club and things were natural after that until North Gromov bid 5D. In some auction a jump to 5D would be exclusion but here there is no agreement at all on a possible trump suit. The jump can’t explicitly set the last bid suit as trump and be exclusion in diamonds since diamonds were just bid naturally. This is not an auction I would want to spring on my partner (even Colin).   Dubinin started to his shake his head confused (as you or I would have been). Once he bid 6D the partnership was “endplayed” into bidding 7♣ .

Now actually 7♣ isn’t a terrible contract when clubs break but on this lie of the cards there is no chance. At the other table Helness and Sontag stopped in a wimpy 4♠ . You have twelve tricks in clubs almost all the time. When you are in the luck even your soft results win imps. In the other match it was a push when one pair got to 7♣ down 1 and the other to 6♠ down 1.

One of the most fascinating deals for me was this wonderful deal where Brad Moss engineered a big swing. Brad held this hand with South dealer white on red:

South passed and Brad bid 1H. North Verhees doubled and Fred Gitelman bid 3♦ which probably shows a modest four card raise. Now Brad made an interesting choice. With his nice black cards and his seven card suit he decided to bid 3NT which might be an easier game. Frankly I don’t think that bid would have even occurred to me. Now Verhees doubled again. At that point people were talking about whether Brad would have the guts to pass 3NT doubled without a diamond stopper. Let’s look at the whole deal now.

On a normal club lead this hand has nine tricks. Only an unlikely diamond lead will defeat the contract. As you can also see four hearts, the contract bid in the other room, does not make. Some of the commentators said that with Brad would run but I didn’t think so. He was down in the match and there was no reason to believe that North would find the killing lead if there was one. As Joey Silver pointed out if Verhees had running diamonds he wouldn’t have doubled. I said that it was more likely for South to run. Partner should have diamonds for this auction and a nice hand. But really he has no reason to run. He must trust partner. And so they duly played in 3NT doubled and duly got a club lead. Brad quickly claimed 12 imps. Much too little, much too late. But a nice try anyhow.

It is wonderful to be able to create action and to be able to find just the right thing to do. Brad Moss is an impressive player and fun to watch.

……………………….

Thanks to Mark Horton for corrections on the first hand where I reversed East and West quite a few times.

More from Washington

August 1st, 2009  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Ray and I had a great trip from a business perspective as well.  One of the highlights was that Julian Laderman’s book A Bridge To Inspired Declarer Play won the American Bridge Teacher’s Book of the Year Award.  It was Julian’s second award in two tries.  This is a terrific book for intermediate players illustrating a lot of interesting play points and showing how you can decide what to do when dummy comes down.  We were very proud of Julian who is one of those people that makes you laugh all the time.  As Ray said when the award was handed out; “That there was no point in saying anything because it is hopeless to follow Julian.”  We were also pleased to show the teachers are student/teacher website www.masteringbridge.com.

Then we finalized the arrangements with the Canadian Bridge Federation to sponsor the Canadian Women’s team.  Yes, we had to go to Washington to talk to the president, Nader Hanna!  Anyway, it was exciting to go to the World Bridge Federation Website and see this:

CANADA MP PRESS.

Isn’t that the coolest thing.  Canadian teams are very underfunded.  Our goal is to help up but also to encourage others to do so as well.  We know our women will work hard and give it their best.  Good luck to them and captain Mike Yuen.  I was very sad when I heard this from one of the finalist in Penticton.  “I am glad I lost.  I couldn’t have afforded to go anyway.”  So if you feel like we do, you may not be ready to sponsor a team but even a small contribution will go a long way.  Think about it.  If you want to contribute in some way and aren’t sure how to go about it, contact me.

I have been reviewing the hands I played with Sylvia with the idea of finding some lessons for us.  What I found was that we actually played quite well.  One of my favorite hands was one where we arrived at this end position defending two hearts.  My remaining three cards were the AQJ of hearts over declarer’s Kx and declarer had a side card.  Sylvia had a club and two trump.  The club was something that both declarer and I could ruff.  It would have been easy to just return the club, obstensively for a promotion but Sylvia figured out that she needed to play a trump.  I like it when partner is paying attention late in the hand on a partscore deal.

My game was Colin is always challenging.  Usually he gives me the funny bids.  This time I got him on an auction that went

We are playing weak two bids and we had minimal agreements over 1NT.  Colin passed and when asked said diamonds.  But you got it I had diamonds and spade (6-4).  I had an invitational hand but not the type to double 1NT.  (Got him),  If you wonder why I am gleeful it is because of all the bidding headaches he has given me.  For an example, check out this Blog Linda Blog where Colin introduced a new suit at the seven level after I had bid a slam in diamonds.

Perhaps the moment I enjoyed the most in a quiet way was sitting in the sun by the lovely pool at the Marriott and watching my grandchildren having a great time in the water.

Jessica and Marcus

Wagar Musings

July 30th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  6 Comments 

Lots of things happened in Washington, so many that writing them in one blog is impossible.  So I will be writing a few blogs over the next few days about my time in Washington.  Let’s start with the Wagar Women’s KO Teams.  What I am about to write is bound to get me in trouble but I can’t help telling it like I see it.  There were 14 teams entered in the Wagar.  The Spingold had 83 teams and then there was the Mini Spingold with 59 teams and the Mini Spingold II with 61 teams.  The Wagar is not a serious national event of the same caliber as the Spingold even ignoring the quality of the teams in each event.  Let’s look at why.

In the Spingold the weaker teams have a chance to enter the large and good secondary events.  This means that in most cases only very good teams enter the main event.  With the large entry in the main event most of the lesser teams will be gone very quickly since they will have to play a high seed.   Because all players can enter the Spingold events it is fairly easy to form a team of players of equivalent level to yours.   In the Wagar you have to pick from the small number of women who want to play this event.

Eight out of fourteen teams who enter are in the quarterfinals the next day in the Wagar.  In the Spingold on Day 2 you are in the Round of 64.  I wonder what would happen if you compared the quality of the bridge played between Spingold II and the Wagar what the result would be. 

Why do so few teams play in the Wagar?   Did the elimination of the “Men’s” events get us here?  If there ever was an argument about ending women only events this might be it.

Now let’s look at some of the teams that played in this event and you will notice something quite interesting.

The top five seeds were all American teams although a lot of top European women players were in the event.  I believe the seeding rules are completely unfair to the Europeans.  As a result our team had a fairly easy draw playing the number five seed.  While we did lose to them by a very small margin I will still say that even in this tiny event this team should not have been the number five seed.

1. Lynn Baker, Karen McCallum,  Beth Palmer,  Lynn Deas, Kerri Sanborn and Irina Levitina. 
2. Shawn Quinn,  Renee Mancuso, Pam Wittes, Cheri Bjerkan,  Rozanne Pollack, Peggy Sutherlin
3. Tobi Sokolow, Debbie Rosenberg, Janice Seamon-Molson, Jill Meyers, Jill Levin
4. Lisa Berkowitz,  Joann Glasson,  Linda Lewis, Val Covalciuc, Betty Ann Kennedy, Cindy Bernstein,
5. Joan Jackson, Sylvia Moss Linda Perlman Jayne Thomas Abby Heitner,  Georgiana Gates

Let’s look at some of the other teams.

Joyce Hampton, Sabine Auken,  Daniela von Arnim,; Jenny Wolpert, Benedicte Cronier and Sylvie Willard, pictured below.

.

This team includes two excellent European pairs.  Sabine and Daniela need no introduction but Cronier and Willard won the Venice Cup in Estoril among many other achievements.

The seventh seeded team was one that was put together by Stacy Jacobs and included

Judi Radin, Stacy Jacobs, Catherine D’Ovidio, Danielle Gaviard, Victoria Gromova, Tatiana Ponomareva,
D’Ovidio and Gaviard are perhaps the strongest pair on the French Women’s team and Catherine is eighth on the WBF ranking just below Daniela von Armin who is seventh.

By the way, I did get to meet Stacy very briefly in Washington and you can read a short discussion about her time in the Wagar in this blog: Stacy at the Wagar.

The eighth seeded team was Phyllis Fireman, Shannon Cappelletti,  Migry Zur Campanile,  Mildred Breed, Heather Dhondy and Nevena Senior

While most of this team was American they were certainly strengthened by the addition of the British pair Dhondy and Senior who are the current women’s world champions.

So it just seems to me that the seeding did not consider the European event and World event finishes of some of these players.  This just meant that some teams had a much easier draw then others.

It is interesting to me that the Europeans didn’t really change the result.  The final two teams were both two of the top four seeds with Lisa Berkowitz playing Quinn.  This means that the lower seeded teams were not able to improve sufficiently by adding a strong European pair. 

Why did my team lose its match by 3 imps?  When you lose by such a small margin any one player could find the imps to win.  I can think of many things I did wrong including overbidding to a slam, finding a bad lead against a game etc.  But the most disastrous deals were boards 20-22 in the evening when our partners got to three slams in a row that were off two keycards (one was actually off an ace and most of the trump suit).  I don’t know why this happened but I do know that if they recorded such things it might set a record in an NABC event.

I am not blaming our partners.  As I said any of us could have won it.  While I don’t think this event should have the importance that seems to surround it, nevertheless the top four teams are all strong women’s teams.  I wish we had a chance to play one of them.  

If you don’t agree with what I have written I would be interested in hearing you opinion. 

I am going to watch some of the final which is just starting now on BBO.

Addendum:

I did get a little bit of feedback about the small number of teams in the Wagner.  At least for some people they prefer to play in a larger event with fewer sponsors and pros.  I can understand that.  As the event gets smaller and smaller you end up with teams that only fall into that category.  Is there an issue with teams like that?  Perhaps the problem with having so many teams in that category is that some of the pro teams are very aggressive in their behavior from trying to get rulings, to intimidation, to plain “bitchiness”.  That wasn’t the case in our match although one of our opponents was aggressive in that way.  In the end for most of us bridge is about having fun.  If it gets too “unfun” then in the end the event will effectively disappear and that would be a shame.

I did some commentary on the first round of the final on BBO. 

This interesting deal came up.  The question is how should you best play 3NT.   Here is the deal.

The opening lead was the ♥3.  North won the ♥A and returned the ♥2.  South followed with the ♥8 and the ♥K won in dummy.  What now?

I see that I have a total of five spade tricks a diamond and a heart.  I need two more tricks.  I could make one trick by force by conceding the ♥J and then another with either a successful guess in the diamond suit or perhaps a club trick.  Another approach might be to double hook the diamonds.  If this works I have nine tricks right there.  If not I might still come to a heart trick or a club trick. 

Another line is to run the ♣J.  If that is covered by the ♣Q I am probably well placed.  They might return a diamond and then play a heart if I lose the diamond finesse.  I could lose two clubs, two hearts and a diamond if things are nasty.  If the ♣J loses to the ♣Q offside I still have lots of chances.  I will usually make the hand when both diamonds are onside even if I don’t play diamonds right away.  This is probably the best shot.

At the table Wittes played a spade to the ♠10 and then a diamond to the ten.  When it lost to the diamond queen a club came back.  Wittes was very well placed now if she could guess clubs.  If the  ♣A is onside she can claim so she played for that.  If she decides to play low and play for the ♣Q onside she make it if spades are not 5-1 by throwing the ♠A away eventually on the third diamond.  So this is really not  a terrible line at all.

As it turns out on the actual lie of the cards the hand has no chance at all since pretty well everything is wrong so this is strictly a hypothetical discussion.

The International Bridge Press Association Book of the Year

July 30th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  5 Comments 

I got an email while I was away from the executive director of the IBPA complaining that they had not given us any awards.  It turned out that their organization was

 Independent Book Publisher’s Association

I found this on their website:

They have a membership of an astounding 4000 publishers!

Of course the IBPA I was talking about was the International Bridge Press Association.  Here are some members celebrating their 50th anniversary at the European Championships in Pau in June of 2008.

It got me thinking about acronyms.  The problem is that everyone uses the same ones and nobody controls them.  So for example IBPA stands for

• International Biopharmaceutical Association
• Internet Backgammon Players Association
• International Bullying Prevention Association
• International Beverage Packaging Association
• Infantry Battalion Philippine Army
• The International Bureau of Paranormal Affairs

The last organization is particularly interesting because as they say:

Very few know about the IBPA, and those who do are under a strict code of secrecy.

We at MPP our proud of our association with the IPBA, BIL and others.  We are also the winners of several International Bridge Press Association Book of the Year awards including

2007

IBPA Bridge Book of the Year:
Canada’s Bridge Warriors
Roy Hughes

2006

IBPA Bridge Book of the Year:
I Love This Game
Sabine Auken

2005

IBPA Bridge Book of the Year:
The Principles of Restricted Talent
Danny Kleinman & Nick Straguzzi

2004

IBPA Bridge Book of the Year:
Play or Defend?
Julian Pottage

Home Again

July 30th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

I had good intentions about writing blogs in Washington but I just seemed to get caught up in the bridge the fun and even a little bit the work that I never did.  I really enjoyed the whole experience starting with the drive down and the teacher’s conference and ending with last night when I went with Luise to the reflecting pool to see the Capitol Building

by night and she took picture balancing her camera on a tripod.  It is a beautiful sight.   And then home again with Ray and Mark Horton solving a lot of the problems of the bridge world during the drive and also discussing the odd deal.

I am, by the way, under a curse.  I have lost about five knockouts in a row by 5 imps or less.  I tried throwing out my notebook after a regional knockout with Colin but that has not removed the curse as I lost the Ladies Knockout by 3 imps.  I have been thinking about ways to appease the great Juju but I haven’t come up with anything quite satisfactory yet.  If anyone has any ideas let me know.

It was great to play with Colin.  We really learned a lot about our system.  We both realized the need to play in person and not just online.  Somehow it just isn’t the same.  But it was also the sheer number of hands with played mostly in good competition that helped us to work things out.  It was a lot of fun and one of our opponents liked our system so much that they asked Colin to send him our notes, exchanging emails with Colin.

The best entertainment at the tournament was the Capitol Steps which are a Washington NABC tradition.  They do wonderful political satire using song parodies.  A very good new one is called Obama Mia.  You can figure out what that means but it is about Obama’s relationship with the media.

Capitol Steps, you will love them
We listened to their latest album on the way home.  We never did have time to go on any of the excellent tours either but everyone but me did some sight seeing.

I also enjoyed playing in the Ladies Knockout although we didn’t get together until just before the event.  As it turned out we were somehow on different versions of the system notes which led to a loss of 5 or 6 imps on the first board.  We fixed the problem and we had a terrific first set so we weren’t worried about it but in the end we lost by … never mind.  The bridge was not of the caliber that I expected although there were some very good European players over for the event.  Colin watched Sabine and Danny for a set and half.  His goal was to watch their bidding since part of our system is based on theirs and he wanted to see how they handled different situations. 

Sylvia and I will play again.  We enjoyed our game.  I played more bridge than I had in a long while.  Coming home Ray asked me what my bridge goals were and I realized the answer.  “Girls just want to have fun.”  At least this girl.

Picking The Winners In The Bermuda Bowl … My contest entry

July 22nd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

Going to Participants in the Bermuda Bowl (WBF Site)  I see the following teams:

1. Bulgaria
2. Germany
3. Italy
4. Netherlands
5. Norway
6. Russia
7. Mexico
8. USA 1
9. USA 2
10. Argentina
11. Brazil
12. Chile
13. Guadeloupe
14. India
15. Pakistan
16. China Long Zhu/Open
17. Chinese Taipei
18. Japan
19. Australia
20. New Zealand
21. Egypt

Picking eight will be tough.  There are a lot of good teams.  I start by eliminating the teams I think are weaker.  Sadly despite the fact that Canada lost to them Mexico goes along with Guadeloupe etc.  This is what I am left with after removing what I consider to be the chaff.

1. Bulgaria
2. Germany
3. Italy
4. Netherlands
5. Norway
6. Russia
7. USA 1
8. USA 2
9. Brazil
10. China Long Zhu/Open
11. Chinese Taipei
12. Australia

Okay that is a lot easier to work from.  I have four to eliminate to get to the eight. I look at the results in Shanghai and eliminate Chinese Taipei.  They were 16th.  Here’s how the other teams finished in the round robin.

1. Bulgaria – did not play
2. Germany – did not play
3. Italy – 1
4. Netherlands – 3
5. Norway – 4
6. Russia – did not play
7. USA 1 – 2
8. USA 2 – 11
9. Brazil – 9
10. China Long Zhu/Open – 7
11. Australia – 5

The sixth place team last time Sweden and the eight place team last time South Africa are not playing.  Japan was tenth last time but I am still not figuring them to finish in the top eight.

As you can see the powers in bridge are the USA, China and Europe with a few others.  It seems to me that there are too many teams from South America and Asia who have no realistic chance and I would prefer to see the event have fewer stronger competitors.  I have three to eliminate now to get to eight.  Italy, Norway and Germany were in the final four in Beijing.  So they have to stay.  Along with USA1 and USA2.  That gives me five teams. 

(In the middle of this the WBF site seems to go down.  That does make me feel better about how the problems we have been having with our service providers.)  I can’t see if the teams were the same.

Here is my list for better of worse:

1. Germany
2. Italy
3. Netherlands
4. Norway
5. Russia
6. USA 1
7. USA 2
8. Brazil

China got eliminated last and I didn’t like it.  Now for the top 4.

1. Italy
2. Norway
3. USA 2
4. Brazil

I see Italy meeting USA 2 in the final and Italy winning.

This was truly hard.  But the good news is my entry is now complete and I can send it in.

More Bridge Sites Reviewed (or rereviewed) and other stuff

July 21st, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

We are getting ready to head out to Washington and I am a bit psyched up for it.  The car journey with Ray is always fun and I am actually playing bridge with Colin.  Because we are playing the new system I am going to be scared but I should have some great stories to tell.  Then I am planning to play with Sylvia.  We continue to practice and seem to do quite well together.

My computer is back good as new.  We have moved to a new highly reliable email service.  Yeah!

I have been writing and writing and writing today.  First I sent a proposal to the CBF about sponsorship (not the kind where someone plays big bucks to be on the team).  It is just a set of ideas but I hope it helps.  We have been helping out Canadian teams a bit for the past few years and we would like to continue to do so but we would also like to see other people help too.  The CBF teams are hopelessly underfunded.

I have written blogs and articles.  My fingers are tired!

I realized that with all I am writing about and the huge number of internet sites to review this effort is going to take a while.  So let it.  My reviews will be interspersed with other blogs.  You can always find them by using the category tag on the side of my blog.

So first for today I am looking at the paid content on Ron Klinger’s website.  I don’t usually do that but when they offered me the chance I thought since I knew Ron was such a fine player and writer it would be worth a visit.  I notice Ron has some blogs up which are available to all even nonmembers.

First thing as a subscriber you get a daily problem.  This was one I received.

Daily Problem 556 – Ace and Nine or Asinine

Posted 21 July 2009 by Ron

North dealer : Nil vulnerable

Right-hand opponent opens 1, which could be a weak no-trump hand. What action would you take, not vulnerable against vulnerable with:

North

9654

AJ

AK

KQJ104

South

A3

KQ2

9742

7532

After 1 : 1NT, 3NT : Pass, West leads the 7: four – king . . . Do you take the king or do you duck?  Sorry, I won’t have the solution till tomorrow. But here is what I know.  If the suit is 4-3 it doesn’t matter what I do.  I will give up a club and then can cash at most three spades.

So what do I know about from the lead.  The missing spades are QJ1082.  West almost certainly does not have the remaining spades since then he would have lead the 7 from QJ10872 and East doesn’t have all the remaining spades either since he would have played a lower spade not the king.  So the suit doesn’t split 6-1.  So we are left with the 5-2 splits.   If West would always lead the Q from QJ10 then he is missing one of them (presumably the jack or 10) so East must have it.  East has to have the KJ or K10 and I must duck.  I got it … cool.  Nice problem.

One of these a day could be fun and good for my bridge.   There are some play problems and a weekly quiz which I try.  I get 3 out of 5..hmmm.  I see that I did accidentally enter one wrongly.  This is the one I got wrong.

West dealer : Both vulnerable

• 	North
  	Q 9 7 5
  	A Q J 9 4
  	K
  	K 9 2

  West

• – – –
• 6 2
• A J 10 8 6 5 4
• J 8 6 4

West	North	East	South
Pass ?	1	pass	1
Pass ?	2	pass	2
all pass

West leads the A : king – two – nine. What do you play at trick 2?  I thought about the club jack but for that to work East needs a trump trick or the heart queen and the club ace and queen.  That seemed far fetched on the auction.  So I played ( a bit of desperation) for East to have four good spades and a stiff diamond where my diamond play can work toward promoting a third trump trick in East’s hand.  But now that I think of it that’s pretty silly.  East does have the club ace and queen and the heart king (yes really).  South was bidding on air.  The deal comes from the 2006 Rosenblum World Open Teams.  There is also a daily new player problem.  Ron also answers queries which are available for all to see in the library and a bit more.  Overall the material is  goof and very suitable for advancing players.  Is it worth the money?  That is something for you to decide but because people are paying for it the site can be kept current with new material each day.  There is a lot of free stuff on the web but not all of it is useful.  You decide.

After all this work I decide to look at one more website.  I find an interesting collection of websites authored by Robert Frick.  Among other things Robert designs web sites and he has quite a few of them.  If you go to his home page you will be staggered by the number of diverse topics but my interest is Frick’s Bridge Page.  There is a bit of this and that but the psychology part interests me.  An essay on the post mortem and types of errors is interesting.  I am going to quote a bit from this article.  See what you think:

Prizes Prizes – you want to enter this contest!

July 20th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

We have the list of prizes that you can pick from if you are one of the two winners of this years Pick the winners World Championships contest.  All entrants, including the winner, get a gift certificate to spend $10 at www.ebooksbridge.com.  The winner also gets a hard copy book as well from this following list.  (If the ebook is available and you would rather have that instead that’s fine too).  Here are the books and you can see we picked some appropriate ones:

1.

Win the Bermuda Bowl with me by: Jeff Meckstroth & Marc Smith

Jeff will be there in Brazil.  Can he do it again this year?  Can you win it?

‘Asides by Meckstroth on technical, tactical, and psychological issues are interspersed regularly throughout the book and they lift a very good book to a new level.’

– ACBL Bulletin

2.

Playing With The Bridge Legends

by: Barnet Shenkin, Forewords by Zia Mahmood and Michael Rosenberg

Barnet tells about his adventures playing with many of the greats of the game

“As well as revealing a few of my secrets, this book is packed with humorous stories and great hands from the world’s best – all in all ideal entertainment for lovers of the expert game.”

– Zia Mahmood

3.

World Class

Conversations with the Bridge Masters

by: Marc Smith

Twenty six of the world’s best talk about the game.  Personal and insightful

“Readers will find the experience of these great players both interesting and enlightening, and there is also plenty of humor in their tales. In addition, the book contains numerous super hands to illustrate just what makes this group of players ‘world class.”

– Gabriel Chagas

4.

I Shot My Bridge Partner

by: Matthew Granovetter

This is a mystery and a bridge textbook all in one with a focus on rubber bridge.

“This is a classic murder mystery… It’s crazy, it’s logical, it’s instructive – but most of all, it’s screamingly, drop-dead funny.”

– Alfred Sheinwold

and just in case you get tired of watching the teams battle it out and need a break….

5.

Go Ahead, Laugh!

Bridge Humor by Jude Goodwin

Jude Goodwin’s Table Talk cartoons have been appearing for more than 30 years in the American Contract Bridge League’s Bulletin. They capture life the way it really is at the bridge table, whether you play in tournaments or with your family in the kitchen. Jude will make you laugh at yourself for taking this game so seriously.

“This delightful collection will be enjoyed by bridge [players] of all levels. Each page brought smiles to my face as I encountered humorous situations that made me want to say ‘Been there, did that! Know how that feels.’ This book should help readers keep their perspective in remembering that bridge is still a game. It would make a terrific gift for partner’s and bridge-playing friends.”

– Dee Berry, American Bridge Teachers Association Quarterly

So get your entries in.  We have three already.  I can’t believe they could enter so quickly.  Should I peek at them before I put in my entry.  Nah.

IBPA Master Point Press Book Of The Year Award

July 20th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

The short list for the award has just been announced.  If you want to find it on the International Bridge Press Association (IBPA) web site – good luck to you.  The IBPA website is only for members so don’t even bother going there.  Your best shot is to google IBPA Book of the year and you can get to the IBPA bulletins through the back door.  So if you want to see the member only bulletin that would be my suggestion.

Anyway the books for this year are:

Wielding the Axe – the vanishing art of the penalty double by Augie Boehm (self published).  The content appears to follow the name from the description (I admit I haven’t read it but if you want 25 lessons and a final exam on the topic – enjoy).

Right Through the Pack Again by Ron Klinger (also self published).  I did read some of this book and found it pretty good but it just isn’t the original as far as I am concerned.  Still entertaining.  I am thinking about writing a book called Right Through the Pack – NOT AGAIN – no no.

The Setting Trick by Ian McCance.  We published this one and it is a nice book of defensive problems ranging from intermediate to expert.  It turns out that Ian is very well known and popular in Australia which we didn’t fully understand when we decided on the book.  It was the quality of the problems that attracted us.

The Devil’s Ticket by Gary Pomerantz, Crown.  This is a story about the Culbertson and the Bennett’s (of the murder).  The book is well written and entertaining and is designed for bridge players and others.  It has got a lot of publicity from inside the bridge community as only mainstream books get.  I think this is because the bridge establishment is so thrilled when "someone else" published a bridge book.

Frank Stewart’s World of Bridge, Vivisphere.  I haven’t seen this book but Frank is a good writer.  This book appears to be his opinions about the game – kind of a long op ed piece. 

North of the Master Solver’s Club by Frank Vine, a truly delightful collection of humorous stories about the game.  I loved it (I know I am biased but I definitely don’t say that about all of our books).  North by the way is the chap who sits North when you (south) are given a bridge problem.  One of the stories deals with the often maligned North’s point of view.  I would pick this book for any prize.

The winners will be announced in Brazil but I think (I am never right) it will be either The Devil’s Ticket or the Frank Vine book.

Badness and Goodness and The Contest continued

July 20th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Today I went downstairs with big plans for blogging and working. I turned on my computer. Well I tried. Something had fried. The computer has to go to the doctor and the doctor is not in on Sundays. So here I am on my portable without most of my files feeling rather sorry for myself. General badnsss.

On the good side Colin and I spent the afternoon bidding some hands Colin had from a coaching session. I thought we did pretty well except it is clear I will have to spend a few more days memorizing some of the less used parts of our system. Forcing clubs systems seem to work best when you have limited your hand and you can then bid hard.

Playing four card majors can some times make it a bit more difficult in competition but we seem to do okay. Colin pulled off one incredible bid. Here is what happened:

I had ♠ AKxx ♥ AKxx ♦ AKxx ♣ A

24 high card points.

I opened a club and it went three clubs on my left. Colin said double showing 6-8 points and I said four clubs. Coln bid four diamonds. I knew Colin didn’t have a cue bid and I figured that if he was pretty likely to hold five diamonds. Slam look very likely so I checked for the diamond queen by starting with keycard. Colin bid five diamonds, none of course and I bid five hearts the queen ask. Colin bid 5NT which I thought meant I have the queen and no kings (I knew that) but I have a maximum. He had to have some filling queens so I bid seven diamonds. Now you might think this is the end of the auction but now Colin bid seven hearts.

You figure it out. After a lot of swearing this is what I got to. Colin has hearts or hearts and spades and he never meant to play diamonds. But why did he bid diamonds then? Well if he had hearts I was happy and if he had both majors I had no reason to pick spades over hearts so I passed.

The rotter had S QJxx H Qxxx D QJ C xxx. As you can see spades is better but it is impossible for me to tell. When I asked him why he started with four diamonds he said he had no way of telling which major was better and he always planned to play a major. I guess he would bid five hearts over five diamonds.

This all tells me that it is going to be a hot time in Washington with lots of hands to report from my sessions with Colin. Ray made a great dinner for us which included some wonderful fruit wine we bought in Penticton. General goodness.

The nominees for the Master Point Press IBPA book of the year award have been announced and most of them look like very good choices. It will be a tough year to pick the winner. (I don’t get a vote). Still my personal favorite book is the Frank Vine book, North of the Master Solver’s Club and I am definitely rooting for it. If you want a laugh you have to read it. The Setting Trick by Australian Ian McKann was the other book of ours that was nomintated and it is also a very good book although Ian is much better known is Australia and Aussie bridge player will tell you he is one of the best. More about the award when my computer returns.

You may recall that my personal top picks for the seniors are:

Belgium

Sweden

Turkey

Canada

USA I

USA 2

Indonesia

Australia

So now I will pick the final fab four. I am picking USA1, Canada, Australia and Turkey. I think USAI will meet Canada in the final (wouldn’t that be nice) and USA 1 will win.

Send in your entry for the competition. How else can you get a gift certificate for a bridge ebook for free and a chance for a prize.

Send it to [email protected]

Eric, our intern loves getting email.