US Senior Semifinals

July 9th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I am working on Internet reviews but the US Senior trials calls so I am watching instead.  In the Lynch – Schwartz match after 10 boards the score is close 24-16 for Schwartz.  But in the Larsen-Morse match the score is an incredibly low score of 13-6 after 11 boards are scored.  What do you bid when your partner opens 2S in second chair at favorable vulnerability with

Dick Morse bid 2NT and Bobby Wolff bid 3C showing a club feature.  What now?  Morse had a simple answer to this he bid 6H.  There is only one fly in the ointment.  This is Wolff’s hand

It has been a close match in this first segment.  You know that this is an important hand.  Let’s follow the play.  Bates is thinking about his lead a long time.  This hand is all about the club suit.  I am sure that he will defer the play in clubs as long as he can and gather all the information he can to make the decision.  The opening lead is a the S4.  Now if the SA ruffs out in two rounds then Morse can throw his diamond loser away and not worry about the club loser.  Bates and Sontag are playing third and fifth so it doesn’t seem possible that the SA will ruff out but it can’t hurt to try.  Morse plays a heart to the H10 and as predicted he does ruff a spade back.  On the second trump Bates shows out.  We now expect that Bates started with four spades, and one heart.  While Sontag had three spades and four hearts.  This does suggest that Bates has longer clubs.  Meanwhile he has to make a few pitches.  He throws a diamond and two spades leaving only the SA outstanding in the North hand.  The CA comes next.  Now the C10.  I wonder why Morse didn’t play the last heart first. Now the C10. The moment of truth.  He finesses and gets a great score.  Bates held

This table is finished splendidly.  We now have all the results in up to the last board.  The score is still only 13-7 for Morse.  Let’s see if Meltzer and Larsen get to the slam.  Larsen will be playing it if they do.  In the Closed Room Solodar is the dealer.  He hold the Bates (South) hand and passes. Meltzer opens the West hand with 1S.  I wonder if this will make it easier or harder to get to slam.  The auction continues

If they end up in 6C it will not be as easy to guess the suit but I doubt that they will end there.  Larsen bids 4D which got doubled by South (maybe not the best action).  Meltzer’s failure to redouble means that they are off the DA.  My guess is that Larsen will just bid 6H now.  There is a very long pause.  Someone suggested that 4D is keycard.  It isn’t clear what the pass shows then.  I have recently starting ignoring doubles over keycard.  It causes too many problems.  I am still betting on 6H as the clock continues to tick.  Several others agree with me. 

I think about what it is like to sit at the table waiting for partner.  If I held the Meltzer hand I might be hoping he doesn’t bid the slam.  Then I convince myself that I have no idea what partner’s problem is and squirm a bit restlessly.  Finally Larsen bids 6C surprising us all.  The DA is led followed by a diamond to the DK which is ruffed.  Larsen’s problem is that he has to guess clubs much earlier in the hand.  In fact he played a club to the CK and went down one.  I wonder if that double caused the problem that led them to play hearts.  So in the end the Morse ended the round with a very useful 14 imps to take the lead 27-7 in a very tight match.

Bridge on the Internet – lower the average age

July 6th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

I find that as I get older the average age of bridge players moves up right with me.  As a baby boomer I was in a large wave of bridge players.  It was before the era of the Internet.  Computers were generally behemoths housed in corporations or university backrooms.  Personal computers were primitive and not very useful except as toys.  But we had fun.  A lot of us congregated in the university common room and played bridge most of the time.  Perhaps I missed the odd class.  You get the idea.  Then it seemed like young people found different things to do.  Was the era of bridge over?

People realized that if the game is to live it needs new blood and  Junior Bridge was born.  So today I am going to look at sites that focus on junior bridge.   Let’s start at basics.  Many bridge organizations have sponsored Junior Bridge Programs.  They usually have a website although they may be fairly basic or not that well maintained.  The Junior programs provide instruction, competition, reduced prices and/or subsidies.

The Australian Bridge Federation has a youth page Australian Bridge Youth.  There is an infrequent Bulletin which seems to be very good.   (The last edition was January 2007).  Worth reading though.  Lots of fun stuff and this interesting tidbit.

There are a number of interesting articles in the learn to play bridge section including  the rules of mini bridge, practice hands and a free teaching kit for young people.

There is also a youth page for New South Wales NSWBA Youth Page and as you might expect it has a link to articles about the beer card.

http://www.worldbridge.org/categories/juniors/default.asp

There is a calendar of youth events.  I find out that the first World Youth Championships will be held in Istanbul this year.  The UBW stands for University Bridge in the World.  IT looks like it hasn’t been updated in a long time except that there is a link to the first European Universities Bridge Championship in Croatia, this October.

The Canadian Bridge Federation has a section on Youth Bridge on its website. http://www.cbf.ca/JR/.  Not much here at all but a calendar of events.

The English Bridge Association (EBU) has English Youth Bridge.  It has an extensive section on Minibridge.  There is also a link to Easy Bridge which seems to aim at teaching people of all ages a simple form of bridge and running specialized bridge tournaments.  The site contains a few articles on bridge bidding material, terminology etc.

The ACBL has a youth site with a focus on the Youth NABC which will take place at the end of the Washington NABC.  There is a lot of news on the home page including a new Junior Advocate, Bryan Delfs pictured below.

It doesn’t have articles or links that might wish for but it would be a starting place for young people who want to know what is happening in ACBL-land.

Several local districts and units of the ACBL have websites as well.  For example, Atlanta Junior Bridge.  Besides news and information about lessons the site has a learning library with some useful articles and quizzes.   There are a number of useful links and tournament results are listed online.

Bridge At Schools , the name says it all has an in-school and after-school program aimed at the 4-8th grade with a master program planned for high school.  This site would provide useful information to people who are interested in donating or who would to participate in a school program.  You do need to register to see the curriculum material

School Bridge League has much the same purpose.  There are a lot of teacher resources available here including detailed lesson plans aimed at the 6th-8th grade and 9th-12th grade.  The site has a lot of resources and is definitely for you if you would like to get involved in teaching students.  One “Strange”? article talks about how bridge improves your immune system. Immunity?

The Bridge Centre in Kingston Ontario runs a large school program.  Run by Ed O’Reilly this program has been very successful. Bridge at School Kingston.  The page has some material that can help you see the value of school bridge (not much else though).

Reno Youth Bridge has a link to a statistical study which shows that

Researcher have found a link between bridge and improved test scores in children.

The World Bridge Federation has a youth section on its website.

There are some individual teachers who are focusing on youth.   Simplicity Bridge is authored by blogger Chris Hasney.  Chris has been working hard to get young people excited about bridge.  The most interesting thing is the bridge videos.  There were links to four of them which you can play on you tube.   They show young people playing bridge on campus.  (Brings back some memories).

I know that there are a number of wonderful youth programs especially the school programs but I have to say that the material on the web aimed at this very Internet savvy group is disappointing.  There should be more sites that capture the spirit of the game and the excitement that only the young can bring.

Sites Reviewed: Australian Bridge Youth, NSWBA Youth Page, WBF Youth, CBF Youth, EBU Youth, Easybridge, Youth NABC, Atlanta Junior Bridge, Bridge At Schools, School Bridge League, Bridge At School Kingston, Reno Youth Page, Simplicity Bridge

By the way I forgot how much work it is to search the Internet and rate all these bridge sites.

Starting to come together

July 5th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Colin and I have been practicing a bit more regularly and I have been spending a bit of time on the notes.  So it is starting to feel like the system is making some sense.  People are still going crazy when we open a forcing club.  Last night when we played one of our opponents overcalled two diamonds vulnerable on queen fourth and nothing much else.   In the end the partnership managed to go for 1400 in our partial.  Or as they used to play on Mash, “Suicide is painless”.

As a result we do get a decent workout of our defenses over a club.  In one auction Colin had shown 0-4 and the opponents bid and raised hearts.  I wanted to get him to pick a minor but decided that two notrump was for play.  (It seems a bit more useful to play it as takeout but in the ensuing discussion we agreed to leave it as natural for now).  So I doubled being 3-0-5-5.  Three hearts pass, pass came back to me so I bid three notrump.  I think this has to be takeout with an emphasis on the minors after the double.  It didn’t much matter since naturally the opponents were not willing to let us actually bid anything so eventually they went down in four hearts (into our diamond partial).

This was an interesting debate.  Vulnerable. Colin opened one spade (four plus spades and less than 16).  RHO bid 2NT unusual.  I bid three spades (less than a limit raise and generally for play opposite a limited hand).  Colin bid four spades which went pass, pass five diamonds.  Are we in a forcing pass auction?  Usually I play that when we voluntarily bid a vulnerable game we are.  But here Colin is limited and so am I.  Colin passed this to me and I passed it out.  This was the right decision on the hand since five diamonds made (and we go for a tidy number if we bid).  What do you think?  These situations are quite complex.

We are now playing that over a one diamond opener which generally denies a four card major, a major suit bid shows five.  This has interesting implications and I rather like it.  One is that it is more comfortable for opener to raise on three trump.   Here is a typical situation.

Colin opened one diamond and when I bid a heart (five plus) he has a great hand.  This might make game opposite as little as KJxxx of hearts and nothing else.  He bid three hearts and we ended in four hearts.  We discussed whether it made sense for him to splinter instead of bidding three hearts.  It seems a bit much to force to game.

This was a great summer weekend.  Besides bridge we went to a street fair, had a garage sale, went out with my sister and her hubby, visited with friends.  Don’t you love summer.  More Internet bridge tomorrow.

Bridge On The Internet Part 4 – Focus on Conventions

July 4th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  5 Comments 

There are so many bridge resources on the Internet it is overwhelming so I have to divide this into categories.  Today I am going to look at Bridge Conventions.   Whenever I play with a pickup partner online I usually play whatever they want.  So if they tell me that they play OMIGOSH, I usually google it and find the bid and its responses.  When I am trying to improve my system I look around the Internet for ideas (as well as the Encyclopedia of Bridge Conventions – ebook)

I start with Graeme Williams.  Graeme plays online bridge (on OKBridge) and has a website with a focus on conventions.  There is a section on systems (which mostly links to other sites).  But the best part is a page with a convenient convention locator.  There are over 200 conventions listed.  The explanations are terse but usually enough to get the gist of it.

Nest my old friend the Pattaya Bridge Club “situated on the (tsunami free) Gulf of Thailand”.  As they describe themselves they are a small bridge club with a big website.  There is a lot of great stuff including hundreds of news sheets with hands and quizzes, many articles and teaching books,   I suggest a visit.  Right now I am looking at conventions but I can’t help but include one of the jokes form the site.

The conventions page has a small number of basic but useful conventions.   But there is a lot more under the heading bridge topics.  Here are but a few: Is it forcing?, When RHO Doubles, 1NT in the Balancing Seat and a topic that is very interesting to me; “The Differences Between Acol and Standard American”.

The Wikipedia page on Bridge Conventions seems to be better than before.  While it is hardly comprehensive it does contain a lot more of the standard conventions grouped by category.  If you then click on the convention say Jacoby transfers you can see a page with a lot of information including continuations and competition.  This is starting to become a really useful resource.  Hurray. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_convention

If you go to The Bridge Bum, Jeff Tang’s website you can find some good articles on bidding.  Most of them are familiar but here too is Meckwell escapes when INT is doubled for penalty.  I have played many escape systems (and still play two different ones right now with two different partners.)  Here is an excerpt from their alternative:

Pass

Shows clubs or diamonds or both majors. Partner is required to bid 2.

XX

Natural.

2

At least 4-4 in clubs and a higher suit. Partner can pass or correct to 2 asking for the higher suit.

2

At least 4-4 in diamonds and a higher suit. Partner can pass or correct to 2 asking for the higher suit.

2

Natural, at least five hearts.

2

Natural, at least five spades.

To be honest, I don’t like this approach very much.  It is simple I admit but it has several flaws.  You can’t play in 1NT doubled if that’s where you want to play the hand (you must be redoubled).  It doesn’t allow you to easily compete on hands with shape etc.

The Bridgebum does other material too from history to humor.   The articles section has some material that is definitely tongue in cheek (see for example the food asking bids).

Always being one to support younger players I head over to Jim Belk’s Homepage.  Jim is a graduate student at Cornell.  He has a summary of standard bidding.  While it is fairly basic it is well presented.  I might send my students over to help them understand reverses.  He does a very good job of explaining what a reverse is.  However I don’t agree with his responses mainly because he doesn’t use Lebensohl.

I find something new.  Its a site called www.ehow.com.  Volunteer writers write about how to do lots and lots of things.  Want to know how to make a sailor’s knot bracelet?  If you go to the site be warned, a lot of the articles are just advertisments for something.  However there is a series of articles on how to play bridge.  Lesson 14 is very rudimentary.  It is called Intermediate Bridge Conventions.  Maybe this site is useful for a beginner.  The guide seems to have got a high rating but I would buy an ebook instead.  (Barbara Seagram and I wrote a much better one).  Maybe one of you wants to volunteer to help with the writing.  Not recommended for bridge but some other topics might be fun.

Dan Neill describes himself as a “generic guy” from Lexington.  Bridge is his avocation and he is a bridge teacher and professional.  Dan has a lot of links to different systems.  This is a treasure chest of system notes.  There is everything from an introductory booklet to Moscito 2005 to Caroline Club which intrerest me because it is a canape version of Precision.  I am playing this type of system with Colin.  A quick look shows that it is similar to the system I play with Colin.  It was developed by Scott Benson and Doug Bone and was based on the Sukoneck-Ekeblad Club.  I start to wonder would it be good if everyone posted their system notes.  We could all learn from each other.  What do you think?   Some links don’t work and his website is not visually modern, but hey this is truly an awesome depository.

Another generic repository is called DMOZ open directory project.  It is designed to be a comprehensive directory put together by volunteers.  There are 31 links under the Bridge Convention heading (Bridge Convention links).  I may follow a few of them later.

But it does remind me about a great Internet bridge resource ecats bridge.  This site belongs to two friends Anna Gudge and Mark Newton.  You will see them working at the World Championships if you attend.  Anna has a blog and bridge blogging picks up the feed or you can read it on their site.  The best thing about Ecats Bridge as far as I am concerned is that all the systems of all the players that play in World Championships are filed on this site.  You basically look them up by country.  You can also find information about World Championships and other important bridge events.  There is a directory of players as well (you can add entries) but it is heavy on the Brits.  (It is a British website after all).   There are lots of links but they don’t seem to me to be organized all that well.  They are supposed to be by category but bridgeblogging.com shows up under books and as is usual with these lists many of the links are broken.

Bridge Hands is a Bridge Instruction website.  One major feature is a bridge encyclopedia which contains lots of conventions and systems among other things.  The conventions seem to be rated with stars and are basically in alphabetical order.  There is a very long list.  The explanations are short and in some cases there are examples.  Some bidding systems are covered although not always in depth.  There are alos links to other sources.  Still this is great for a quick lookup.   There is a lot more in the encyclopedia then just conventions.  The glossary is deep and thorough.  The most fun section is the jargon.  After playing bridge for quite a few years I find a lot of new terms.  Here are a few.

Apricot Sundae – A colloquial term referring to a weak Heart-Diamond two-suited hand.

Calamity Jane – The colloquial term referring to the Q (Queen of Spades)

Gulpic – To make a very weak opening bid.

OBM – Abbreviation for Old Black Magic

(Maybe I am getting old?)

There is a newsletter which seems quite good.  It is free and seems to come out about every three months.  These fellows have put a lot of work into this site.  With all the current material it is going to take a lot of upkeep.

I have barely scratched the surface of websites focused on conventions and bidding.  Still I am out of steam.  More in a future blog.

Reviewed: Graeme Williams, Pattaya Bridge Club,  wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_convention, The Bridge Bum, JJim Belk’s , www.ehow.com (about bridge conventions). Dan Neill, Bridge Convention links (DMOZ), ecats bridge, Bridge Hands

Richard Freeman

July 2nd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

I  saw Judy’s Blog that Richard Freeman passed away a few days ago.  This picture is from the ACBL website: ACBL In Memoriam for Freeman

And this lovely picture from Claire Bridge

In his blog JWL wrote “In my opinion, Freeman was an underrated part of the Nickell machine who will be hard to replace.”

According to his bio on the USBF Website (and on Judy’s Blog) Richard was one of the original quiz kids in the radio and TV show in the 50’s.  There is a fascinating book about the Quiz Kids who were stars.    So before he became a bridge star and before he even graduated from high school, Richard was already famous.

“The premise involved host Joe Kelly asking questions sent in by listeners and researched by Eliza Hickok. The answers were supplied by a panel of five children, chosen for their high IQs.”

At 18, he was then the youngest Life Master in the ACBL in 1952.  (By contrast according to the ACBL the current youngest life master is Danny Hirschman of Southfield, MI, who attained the rank at age 10 years, two months and 20 days.)

Of course Dick Freeman played with Nick Nickell for more than twenty years.  There was a recent controversy at the US Team Trials when he had to be hospitalized forcing the Nickell team to play four handed.  The USBF recently ruled that Nickell and Freeman would join the other four in Brazil. 

In a 2000 article in the Memphis Free Press Nickell who was then an executive director at Oppenheimer & Co., Inc., in Atlanta describes his ideas about why financial people make good bridge players.

Options traders are good at bridge, Freeman says, because both are zero-sum games. "One guy’s going to be right and one’s going to be wrong," he says. Freeman says he was a numbers kid, and always loved games that involved numbers, wit and calculated risks.

In 2001 Freeman was elected to the Bridge Hall of Fame during the 2001 Summer Nationals in Toronto.  The following (copied from Unit 114)

No doubt, Richard Freeman was a winner in every aspect of his life.

Bridge On The Internet Revisited Part 3

July 2nd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

In case you are wondering I am not sure how many “parts” there will be but I am sure there will be several more since there is so much to see and do on the Internet.  Today I am going to finish up my second look at the remaining six sites that I picked as top sites last time.

Next up is Jude Goodwin Hanson’s Great Bridge Links.  This is one site where you can go to get links to all sort of bridge resources on the web.  There are some problems with it.  For example, many of the links no longer work.  Now of course this is the type of problem you would always see on sites like this and I recognize the work in checking them all out.  Maybe we call give Jude a hand and report broken links.  Hey Jude (is that a song) why don’t you add a place for people to report problems.  My personal favorite part of this website is the news on the front page.  Definitely improved since last time and very worthwhile.

I like Jeff Goldsmith’s site last time particularly for the bridge movies.  I notice that there is material being added if slowly with the most recent update March 29, 2009.  Jeff’s site is not the most visually interesting.  But there is a lot of good stuff here.  Of course I am drawn to the movies and you will be too along with all the other goodies.  So I figure I might as well try the most recent one while I am here (columnist should have fun too you know).  I wish that the problems had buttons where I could put in my answer (and compare to other people’s answers) but this is still fun.   Here is one of these real life problems for you to try.

IMPs, both vul, you hold

AKQxxxx x — AQ10xx

Partner passes and RHO opens 3

What do you like?  Here are my personal choices as I try to narrow it down assuming I am playing nothing special over a minor preempt.  a) 6 b) 4NT c)4 d)4 e) 5

For good or bad I reject anything but a) and e). The problem with bidding 5 is how is partner supposed to make an intelligent decision.  Would he bid six with red aces?  Anyway I bid 6.  When I look at the answer I see the comments of many people.  Besides the choices I have listed someone actually bid 3.  (I would like to meet this mouse).  The consensus answer is 4 but I don’t know which bids actually work or what the result is.  Hey Jeff, we want to know what works in real life.  Jeff personally prefers 5.  The discussion of the bids are interesting but a lot of it depends on the general agreements you have with your partner about what correcting bids means when you have shown a two suiter.  When you are in this site don’t miss the conventions section.

Bridge World is my favorite bridge magazine so let’s see if the site has kept pace.

Bridge World

There is a section for magazine subscribers which seems like a reasonable idea and while I am a subscriber this blog is about free content so for now I will ignore it.  The site seems more or less as I remember it.  The best component is the glossary which defines many bridge terms.  There is also a detailed description of Bridge World Standard 2001.  There is also a section on bridge estoerica, puzzles, mysteries and articles.  There is also a collection of Sample Bridge World articles in different categories.  It all seems the same as I remember it from before.  So if you are not a subscriber there is some interesting stuff on the site but don’t expect many (any?) updates.

Bridge Guys seem to have a new look with two home pages.  It appears that there was a major update on June 9, 2009.  Make sure to go to home page 2 for the best information.  Apparently the Bridge Guys can be downloaded as an iphone app (cool).  I still don’t like the organization very much.  There is a whole big block of large graphics which seem to be an ad for Marty Bergen.  I would prefer it if they didn’t use huge blocks as navigation buttons.  It just makes it harder to find things.  But that aside the information is great.  The most useful and interesting parts being the glossary of bridge terms and the description of conventions.  I usually come here when I am trying to look something up.   I see for example that a flower bid is what I know as a fit showing jump.  That makes sense.  The other day someone referred to a flower bid and I worked that out at the time.  They have attempted to group some material by topic (like preemptive bids) and the rest is in alphabetical order.  Still a great site.

So there we go.  Pretty well all the good sites from last time are still good sites and miraculously they are still all up and running.   As I check out more sites though they may be dropped off the top list.  We will see.  I am thinking this year to go to about the top 15.

If you have any sites you would like me to review send me and email ([email protected]) or leave a comment below.  I have already received a couple of suggestions.

Websites Reviewed: Great Bridge Links, Jeff Goldsmith, Bridge World, Bridge Guys

Bridge On The Internet Revisited – 2 Review of the Top 10

July 1st, 2009  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Today I decided to look at the sites I had picked last time as the top 10 sites and see if I still loved them (and if they were still there).  I looked at Ron Klinger’s site first.  All the content is for members except for the Blog which has not been updated in about two months.  Hmmm.  This one is off my list.

The nest site is Hugh Darwen’s Double Dummy site.  I am happy to find it is being regularly updated.  There are thousands of problems by many composers.  I am in double dummy heaven.  You can enter a solution for Competition Problem 51.  Problems are rated by difficulty and this problem is DR4 with DR1 being easiest and DR8 being toughest.  I go to the archive and decide to try a DR2 problem.  (Well I am working here so I don’t have that much time to try a HARD problem).  Here is Problem 6.

South to make six no-trumps.  West leads the ♥3

I don’t really see the solution and this is supposed to be an easy one.  I think the theme must be discarding some high cards from dummy.  I have 11 tricks on the heart lead and I somehow have to squeeze or endplay West.  Dumping diamonds doesn’t work.  But yes there is a way.  Oh my, if this is an easy one I might need a brain transplant.  This site is highly recommended.

Next I try Richard Pavlicek’s personal site.  Can it be as good as I remember it?  I am proud that there is a link to my blog on his site.  Thank you Richard!  The site is just as wonderful as I remember.  Why haven’t I been spending my spare time on this site.  There is so much here I don’t know where to start.  Want to know the odds of getting dealt a ten card suit?  313123056 to 1.  But the chances of getting at least one singleton or void is 9 to 5 against.  It  turns out a balanced hand is odds on.  A subject that I have thought about quite a lot is how odds change as you play the hand.  He does that by presenting a problem

Q J 6 2

A 10 9 8 7

J

A 8 2

A K 9 8 4 3

Q 6 3

A 8 4

5

What is the best way to play the heart suit in a six spade contract.  He starts with the a priori odds and then starts to look deeper and deeper and deeper.  (Not for the faint of heart but wonderful anyway).  I look at Richard’s Popular conventions and then return to my favorite section, polls and contests.  I try the declarer play problems and find them a lot easier than the double dummy problems above.   If you love bridge you will love this site.

Ok now its Larry Cohen’s.  This is great.  Larry had told me that he was updated and reorganizing the site and wow it is much better but with the same great content.  And it is clearly being added to and updated on an ongoing basis.  I see some articles about the recent USBF trials.  It is in the newsletter section so don’t miss it.  Definitely check out the lead problem called an Impossible Lead.  The heavy hint may help you to get the right answer.  I like the fact that the newsletter has a printer friendly version and all of the articles are coded by level.  (The lead problem is labeled all levels).  Larry you made a great site better.

Next is Mike Lawrence.  Next to Larry’s site this site looks like it could use some updating although it is not hard to find your way around it.   The great part of Mike’s site are the articles and there are lots of them.  It does say that they are adding new material about once a week but I can’t really tell if this is true.  Still it will take you a lot of weeks to work your way through the material that is already on the site.  The problems and stories I read seemed geared to advanced rather than expert bridge players but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t useful for all.  Here is a good piece of advice from a BOLS bridge tip Mike submitted entitled ecstasy.  His BOLS TIP is: Any time you feel yourself succumbing to an emotion, whether sadness, depression, irritation, COMFORT, ELATION, OR ECSTASY, you should fight it off. STOP AND PAY ATTENTION!

Well this is fun.  Next is the bridge forum

Rec.games.bridge.  I am a member of this forum and I can attest that it is extremely active with lots and lots of interesting posts from players around the world.  Here is a recent post to think about.  Go to the site to see the discussion.

Things are going great so far but at this point I can’t help but notice that my top 10 is really a top 12.  I decide I have done enough for one day and I will finish the remaining 6 tomorrow.   Besides I want to go back and try some more polls on Richard’s site.

Reviewed: Ron Klinger, Double Dummy, Richard Pavlicek, Larry Cohen, Mike Lawrence, Rec.games.bridge

A New Issue of CMP Is Available

June 30th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I am looking at the October 1995 edition of Canadian Master Point magazine which is now available for free download from www.ebooksbridge.com.

This whole issue is full of personal nostalgia.  The editorial brings back some memories.  This was a time when my son Colin was a junior winning the Youth Pairs with David Halasi at Bridge Camp in Belgium.  Canadian Master Point was now being distributed in the Maritimes for the first time. Patti Lee had just joined our editorial board.  I played against Patti a few weeks ago in Penticton and we had a lot of fun reminiscing about those days.  Patti has wonderful qualities in an associate (and in a friend) she is energetic, fun and a really nice person to boot.

Were you at the nationals in New Orleans in 1995?  We were.  I remember that a hurricane was headed our way but nobody was too worried.  Fortunately it veered away and we only got a little wet.  Who knew then what could happen if a strong hurricane hit New Orleans head on.  There are a number of delightful deals including one that I played decently,  Don’t miss that.

I hate to brag but I am also featured with many friends in a picture of the team that won the InterCity Match between Toronto and Montreal.  You get to see a lot of us looking a few years younger and very happy.  There are no details about this event in the magazine but I have some happy memories of that trip to Montreal especially one of a top Montreal bridge player trying to be clever and underleading an ace against me in a slam.  Unfortunately I was off two top tricks and the underlead of the ace caused one of them to go away.

Fred Gitelman describes several deals including a hand he played with Montreal’s Marty Caley and Peter Schwartz at an invitational team event in Bali.  Readers will know that I have been playing with Marty’s wife recent Sylvia Caley. Fred also presents an incredible bidding problem form the National Imp pairs in New Orleans.  You will enjoy seeing how Eric Kokish thought the hand should be bid and how Fred actually bid the hand at the table!  And a lot more good stuff.

Eric Sutherlands writes an interesting tournament report about the Canadian Juniors at the junior championships in Bali while John Carruthers the NPC provides four problems for readers from that championships in the next article.  Followed by brief report by Ray about Junior Camp including an off centre bid made by our son Colin.  Playing with Colin recently it is no surprise to me that he was making unusual bids back then.

Roselyn Teukolsky has a fun article  with a play problem but also mentions the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, original sin, Lazarus and a man who said: “Not even a fish gets caught if it keeps its mouth shut” at a bridge tournament and a lot more.

There are several bidding theory articles including one by John Gowdy on DONT over notrump.  And there’s a fun deal described by the mysterious Trent Valley as he struggles to bring 3NT home and an article on the history of bridge conventions with a look at the some ideas invented by the Culbertsons and more.

So let us take you back to that magic year 1995!

Internet Journey Revisited – Day 1

June 30th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

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

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

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

Noberto Bocchi

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

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

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

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

♠ x

♥ 6xxx

♦ J1098xxx

♣ x

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On his blog roll is an interesting site

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

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

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

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

Photo courtesy of Ross Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watermark Bridge Classic

June 27th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

I did some commentary on the Watermark Bridge Classic being played in Australia right now.  We had the Gill team and the Mill team playing each other.  Unfortunately the team names were input incorrectly into BBO reversing the two names.  This caused a fair bit of confusing but Cathy Chua was able to clarify for everyone.  It was sort of funny and reminded me of a logic problem:  There were three teams playing in a bridge competition Gill, Mill and Will.  Who was sitting South at table one?  In the end the Gill team had the best of it winning every board but the first and scoring 40-6 in a 14 board match.

There was one neat hand that I enjoyed and there was some discussion about whether this was good luck or good bidding.  With everyone vulnerable in third seat you hold a hand that you usually only dream about:

S AKJ1076532 H AQ7 D void C 7

You are fourth to speak and at one table it is passed to you.  What is your pleasure.  At the table Markey for Mill opened 4S.  This is not a bid I would have made although it may work well. 

At the other table Hingle for Mill opened 2H which apparently showed hearts and a minor and I am guessing here but say a bit less than an opener.  Lazer for Gill just bid 6S. 

As it turns out 6S is not cold although you are likely to get it right but West led the DA which ended any problems for declarer on the hand.  Partner held

S Q8 H 852 D K843 C KJ43

As expected the HK is onside and if forced to play clubs the queen is onside while the ace is in the offside hand.

I found this deal to be an interesting play problem.

Declarer got a club lead at both tables and if you duck the first club they continued clubs.  What is the right line?  You have a lot of finesses you could take.  One choice might be to play the diamond finesse (or if you prefer the spade finesse.  If that works you can discard a club on it.  If it works you are pretty much home free.  If it doesn’t work you might still be able to play hearts for no losers.  You can also finesse the trump queen if that works you can lay down the ace and if trumps break you are home (if not you can still tru a diamond finesse for a club discard.  It seems that the latter is the better line and that is the latter chosen at one table while the other finessed the diamond and made the contract.