Play Date with Mr. Miles

May 19th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

I had another chance to play with Marshall recently.

We are still trying to figure out what we play but I have enjoyed all the games I have had so far with Marshall Miles (and who wouldn’t).  We seem to work things out at the table and manage to find the right contract even when a bit confused in the auction.  I hope that I can learn a lot from one of the world’s greatest bridge theorists!

I found this deal interesting.

With East-West vulnerable, East opened one diamond.  I overcalled one spade and West bid two diamonds.  Marshall bid two spades which East passed.  Do you take another bid now?  I wasn’t sure what to do.  I did have a great spade suit with that nice sixth spade.  Marshall wasn’t raising me because he loved his trumps!  I don’t think two spades should be complete noise.  If West had passed than sometimes you bid two spades with less to give partner another chance and to  take away an easy balance from East.   So Marshall figures to have something.  But then again my diamond king is not likely to be a great card.  Is the 6-4 distribution enough to try for game.  What do you think?

I think that most people would pass two spades or maybe bid three spades for play.  And maybe they would be right a lot of the time but not this time.  I bid three hearts and Marshall raised to four hearts giving me a choice of contracts.  Should I play four hearts or four spades?  This seemed an easier decision to me.  I couldn’t think of any hand Marshall could have which would play better in hearts.  Can you?  It seemed I would have more control in spades (not to mention a potential spade ruff).  It turned out that there was some unexpected advantage to bidding fours spades.  I got the queen of hearts lead.  This was Marshall’s hand.

As you can see he had an awesome hand for me, better than I deserved. After the opening lead the hand was pretty well a claimer. (The queen was doubleton). This raised the question how should you play the suit if West leads the diamond jack a more normal lead on this auction.    Let’s say East wins the diamond ace and continues with the diamond queen which you trump.  You draw trump and West turns out to have three trump.  I am going to assume that West throws two diamonds.

The textbook play (check it out in the Bridge Encyclopedia) for three winners is to lead the heart ten and if that is covered finesse the eight the second time.  But I have been reading Marshall’s book Inferences at Bridge, (I really have, Marshall) and let’s stop and think.

It can’t hurt to duck a club now and see what happens.  So I am going to do that.  In my hypothetical game East wins the club jack (West encourages in clubs).  East returns a third diamond as West follows and I trump it.  Since I am running low in trump I am at the moment of truth.  Here is the position

North
♠	—
♥	AJ86
♦	—
♣	A3
South
♠	3
♥	10543
♦	—
♣	7

What do I know: East has a singleton spade and the AQXXX of diamonds.  So he has seven cards in the rounded suits.  It looks like he has KJ or QJ of clubs.  I think he is not likely to be 5-5 in the minors since he might have bid again and he might have thrown a club on one of the spades.  So East has three or first hearts then and West has to have a heart honor or I am going to have two heart losers.   So West has Kx, Qx, K, Q.  In all those case I have to lead a small heart from hand.

So based on my assumption that East is not five-five I will play hearts right.  What do you think Marshall?  I know the hypothetical game is my best!

Canadian Masterpoint October 1996 now available for upload

May 12th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

The next issue of Canadian Masterpoint magazine is available now for free download.  I have already been blogging about the editorial which talks about how to help bridge grow and develop in North America in 1996.  But there is a lot more in this magazine.

Eric Sutherland about the 1996 North American junior trials.  It is fun to look at the 13 year old pictures of the junior stars.  My favorite is a picture of David Levy, now a prominent Toronto lawyer who looks about 12 years old and very sweet.  Eric talks about a hand where he passed his partners cue bid and missed a slam.  In what I find a charming line he say:

"but we discussed the sequence in case it came up again.”

Cute, we all want to do it but is it really for that reason?  Maybe a few days later. 

Roselyn Teukolsky who talks about being “had” when she misread a hand after her opponent led the deuce from ace fourth playing attitude leads against notrump.  It doesn’t seem that bad to me but see what you think.

Fred Gitelman has a lovely story about playing with an opportunity to have his first game with Mike Lawrence at the Miami Nationals.  There are some lovely hands including two with the theme Beware of  Greeks Bearing Gifts.  I remember the Miami Nationals.  We had a condo in Aventura and friends stayed there with us as we commuted to the tournament.  It was very hot, the restaurants in South Beach were great and we fretted a lot about our son who was playing in the junior trials.   The funniest part was an appeal that featured our son Colin entitled The Dog Ate My System Notes but you will have to get a copy of the Miami appeals book to know more.  I am sworn to secrecy.

David Silver has one of my favorite stories in this issue.  It is called “The Four Feathers” and is based on that lovely 1902 British novel with seven movie version.  My favorite is the 1939 version

Four Feathers 1939 movie

There is lots more including some articles for learning players including Barbara Seagram’s article on a toolkit teaching how you can develop extra winners.

So check out www.ebooksbridge.com and download your free copy.

North American Team Trials – The US Ladies

May 12th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

The CBF and the USBF team trials to pick teams for Brazil are starting soon.  First up is the US Women who will start play on May 23rd and finish on May 28th in Sacramento California.  Seven teams will play a round robin on May 23rd and 24th to produce three qualifiers to the semi-finals.  They will be joined by “Dinkin” which has a bye.  The semi-final starts May 25th.

The 2009 United States Women’s Bridge Championship will select the two US teams for the 2009 Venice Cup. The 2009 USWBC will be held in Sacramento, CA; it will start on May 23rd and  end on May 28th. Entries have now closed and there are 8 teams in the 2009 USWBC; seven of them will start in the Round Robin on May 23rd and 24th, the eighth (Dinkin) has a bye to the Semi-final, starting on May 25th. The Venice Cup will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil; it will start August 29 and end September 12.  The details can be found at USBF Women’s Team Trials.

The top three teams by seeding points are:

Sam Dinkin NPC (bye to semifinal)

• Lynn Baker
• Karen McCallum
• Kerri Sanborn
• Irina Levitina
• Beth Palmer
• Lynn Deas

Phyllis Fireman, Captain (bye to RR2)

• Janice Seamon-Molson
• Jill Meyers
• Shannon Cappelletti
• Tobi Sokolow
• Jill Levin

Joann Glasson, Captain (bye to RR2)

• Sue Weinstein
• Rozanne Pollack
• Lisa Berkowitz
• Cheri Bjerkan
• Stasha Cohen

But the rest of the teams look pretty good to me and most have a good chance of making the top two.

One of the teams (by no means the only one) which looks strong includes bloggist Stacy Jacobs http://stacyjacobs.com/.

Judi Radin, Captain

• JoAnna Stansby
• Mildred Breed
• Stacy Jacobs
• Pam Granovetter
• Marinesa Letizia

It should be exciting and I will be covering it all the way on my blog.  Starting with the semifinals on May 25th there is an extensive vugraph schedule on BBO for this event: http://online.bridgebase.com/vugraph/schedule.php

If you go to the USBF site you will find they have team profiles of all the teams.  For example here is the Mancuso Team Profile.

I found an article on the Bridge Today website www.bridgetoday.com (this website has a lot of good stuff although much of it requires a paid membership) which described a deal played by Macuso in winning a spot to play for the US in Estoril Portugal a few years ago.

USA Women’s Teams by Pamela Granovetter

Renee Mancuso

The Sprung team (JoAnn Sprung, Kathy Sulgrove, Peggy Sutherlin, Karen Allison, Renee Mancuso, Pam Wittes) won a playoff against the Bernstein team (Cindy Bernstein, Patricia Griffin, Georgiana Gates, Sally Wheeler) to join the Narasimhan team as representatives of the USA in the world championships in Estoril, Portugal this October.

North-South Vulnerable; North Dealer

West	North	East	South
	pass	pass	1
2	2	3	pass
pass	3	all pass

Opening lead: A

This hand was declared by Renee Mancuso, a member of the Sprung team. West cashed two high clubs and switched to a trump. East won the ace and returned the 6. South won, West following with the 7, and drew trump, ending in hand. Now declarer played a heart to the jack and king, and East returned the 8. South won the ace, West following low.

It was now up to declarer to do some arithmetic. Mancuso is an accountant in Los Angeles as well as a champion bridge player, so she had no problem counting West for at least three spades to the queen (assuming the opponents were honest with their carding), three trump, and five clubs.

Therefore, West was marked with only two hearts. Mancuso played a heart to the ace and cashed her last two trumps (throwing spades while East-West threw clubs). At trick 12 declarer played a heart to her nine, finessing East’s ten. When it won, she scored up +110 and 5 imps for her team.

The Future of Bridge – Part 3

May 11th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

The second suggestion that we made in the 1996 editorial was:

Bridge Pros should play against each other in exciting competitions as pros do in other sports.

Our thought was at the time that we would like to see events with top class all pro teams.  In these events the incentive would be the prize money.  You can see from the rest of the text that we wanted events without the weaker sponsors at least where we could watch top notch players battling it out.  There have been some attempts at creating events with large cash prizes and there are some great invitational events on the “circuit” still today.   In addition, in the latter rounds of the world’s top events most of the time there are usually opportunities to watch some truly exciting top notch bridge.  I think the real problem we have today is to promote bridge so that we can get some publicity, see it on the sports channel etc.  Is there any reason that bridge can’t get at least some of the excitement that poker has?  Yes, it starts with getting the general population interested in playing but it also needs more promoted big events.  I don’t know how to get there.  I hope someone does.

The last suggestion we had, which I am sure will be controversial was

The fractious system of dealing with alerts, hesitations and misinformation needs to be improved.

Yes, it has changed over the years but it still is a problem.  Everyone I know who plays bridge remembers stories of problems with the “rules” as much or more than they remember great hands they played.  I know that I can still remember all of the ones that I have been involved with.  The game needs to be “fair” but no sport is every completely fair.  In the end someone makes a ruling, sometimes it is wrong, fans and players are upset for a little while (kill the umpire) and that’s that.  We have to take care of those who are cheating but maybe we could find a way to make it friendlier when people do something wrong.  I used to think that in most events there should not be appeals and they should be restricted to the top events only.  That might help a bit.  A simpler alert system might help too.  We certainly don’t want to subject newcomers to most of this.

So by and large our suggestions did not come to pass.  But there have been some very good things that have happened in the last 12 years or so.  Things that are big improvements that I haven’t mentioned yet are, (in my humble opinion):

1. seniors events
2. school programs
3. a wide range of events for youth and juniors
4. huge expansion of online bridge
5. online vugraph
6. many wonderful bridge websites and bulletin boards
7. bridge blogs and tweeters
8. results online from home games to world championships
9. tournament bulletins online

The Internet has played a big factor I notice.  So there is a lot to be happy about.  But I really hope that we can introduce others to the joy of this wonderful game and that it can get the visibility and success it deserves.

The Future of Bridge 1996 to Today Part 2

May 8th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  11 Comments 

In the editorial in Canadian Masterpoint Magazine Ray and I made several suggestions.  The first one was:

The ACBL needs to develop a meaningful ranking system which is not strictly cumulative. 

In part this has been put in place.  The World Bridge Federation has two ranking systems.  One uses “current” points based on recent placements in WBF events.  The other uses cumulative rankings.  For example the current highest ranked Open player is Fulvio Fantoni

He has 4210 Master Points which decay at 15% per year and 28 Player Placement points which are cumulative.  He has the title World Grand Master.  However Bob Hamman who is eighth on the list of Grand Masters has many more player placement points with 98.75 and is the going away leader when you look at it this way.  That is because he has a lot more   That is because Fantoni’s first  significant points of any kind were in 2002 when he won the Open Pairs in Montreal.  He is the current world champion by virtue of winning the World Bridge Games National Open Teams in Shanghai.  Bob Hamman has been collecting points since 1964 when he came in second in the World Open Team Olympiad.  Each are great players and Bob Hamman is undoubtedly one of the greatest bridge players of all time with an amazing record complied over many years.

But now I wonder if a ranking system within the ACBL really matters.  When seeding players in events other factors are used so that seeding works out fairly well anyway.  And master point totals do provide a very crude measure of competence.  If people like collecting them it encourages them to play.  So does it really matter that bridge doesn’t have a more accurate rating system like say, chess.

The ACBL has done a pretty good job about keeping people excited about collecting points.  Although for some players (like me) once they have become a life master, master points are relatively uninteresting.  They are for me.  But many players enjoy collecting them and striving to achieve titles like platinum life master. 

They have kept players interested by adding ranking levels.  (all but one are still just accumulating master points.  The title of Grand Life Master with one major additional requirement; a victory in a major championship with no masterpoint restrictions.)  Over the years the ACBL has also started a number of yearly races including the Ace of Clubs (points won at clubs), Mini-Mckenney and others.  These are done by level to create many awards so that even players who start the year with no masterpoint have a race they can participate in. 

All in all I wonder if this is really an issue for bridge and why I felt so strongly about it in 1996.  Maybe it is the rise of the World Bridge Federation that has made this issue less important.

Becoming a life master is still important to players and probably always will be.  Chris Hasney argues against changing the requirements.  I don’t understand the issue well enough to discuss it other than to say, it is a whole lot easier to collect master points now than when the ranking of Life Master was first created.  But then again the value of Life Master is so much less since for many years once you became a Life Master you didn’t have to pay any fees to belong to the ACBL.

Chris’ Blog on Life Master Requirements

The Future of Bridge 1996 to Today – Part 1

May 6th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  8 Comments 

I was reviewing the next issue of Canadian Master Point magazine that will soon be posted on  www.ebooksbridge.com for a free download.  (Stay tuned for more about that).  The editorial written in October 1996 talks about the future of bridge.  Since that was more than twelve years ago we have seen at least a bit of that future and I find it interesting to see if things are getting better or not.  The editorial was in part a response to “A Report On The Future Of Bridge” which looked at ways to get membership in the ACBL increasing (rather than declining as it was at the time). 

Has the bridge population declined?  There is more than one answer to that question.  The first part is ACBL membership.  ACBL membership did decline in the 1990’s at about 1-2% a year but has seemed to stabilize recently.  There are currently slightly less than 160,000 members of the ACBL.  This is a slight reduction from 1998 when according to Alan Truscott

Alan Trucott BRIDGE; More Players in the World, But Fewer in North America

there were more than 166,000 members but the memberships seems to have stabilized for now.  In 2002 more than 67% of ACBL members were over 65 and only 4% under 45.  It is scary that I am younger than most ACBL members even though I have five grandchildren. 

But what about the general population, the people who play bridge at home or in a church hall and never joined “organized” bridge.  Are the number of bridge players on a decline in North America?  In the world?  I have no idea and so far I cannot find any source that has any credible numbers.  However, we have a wonderful large population of bridge teachers and lots of bridge classes.  People are learning to play bridge.  But anecdotally my experience is that when I talk to people about bridge they all say things like my mother, grandmother or aunt plays bridge.  Young people on the whole often seem to have not heard of the game at all.  Certainly the contrast with poker is astonishing and I would say that we still have a lot of work to do.  I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has any ideas about how to estimate the number of social bridge players.

One of the themes in 1996 was the proliferation of bridge conventions and how complicated it was to understand what was happening at the bridge table.  This was compounded by the complexity of the alert system.

One suggestion (which we liked at the time) was the idea of a Classic Bridge games in which limited conventions would be allowed and no alerts would be required while others could play in games with unlimited conventions and innovations.  To some extent the ACBL has done just that.  Conventions are limited based on the level and nature of the game.  So that (darn it) I can’t play Multi in a lot of events including unlimited two or three board a round matchpoint events.  Has this solved the problem?  My answer is yes and no.  In restricted events conventions are limited and that has to give a comfortable feeling to less experienced players.  But, I think the way that events have played out innovation in North American bridge has been reduced and players are less familiar with newer ideas than in Europe and other part of the world.  Also the alert system is so byzantine and confusing that when I play in ACBL events I find that nobody at the table knows what should be alerted a lot of the time even though I am playing in expert events.  If the top bracket in a knockout doesn’t understand the alert system something is wrong.

In a post on the popular bridge posting site www.rec.games.bridge. the author hypothesized that the huge decline in organized bridge in the last 50 years was caused by the increased complexity of bridge systems

HERE IS MY HYPOTHESIS: I BELIEVE THAT THE HISTORY OF BRIDGE SHOWS THAT
THE MORE COMPLICATED THE BIDDING, THE LESS INTEREST PEOPLE HAVE IN
LEARNING THE GAME. AND, AS A COROLLARY: THE SIMPLER THE BIDDING, THE
**MORE** INTEREST PEOPLE HAVE IN THE GAME.

To see more The decline and fall of the ACBL and bridge in North America

It is true that the harder it is to get started playing bridge the fewer bridge players there will likely be.  But do you really need to know that many conventions to play.  I think not.  There are a lot of people that have a lot of fun playing SAYC.

What do you think?  Is bridge dying?  Are complex conventions part of the cause?

How Time Flies

May 5th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I played 30 deals over several hours with Marshall Miles today and time just flew by.  I promised to try to have a look at  My System: The Unbalanced Diamond and see if I can figure it out a little bit for next time.  I hope Marshall won’t expect me to be an expert.  I confess I didn’t really remember exactly what we discussed two weeks ago.  Before we started I didn’t see anything written but somehow we stumbled along and didn’t have too much trouble.

What do you think of our auction.  After we had found our double fit I still was not prepared to admit to my club control but when Marshall persisted with five diamonds I gave him a choice of slams with six diamonds.  Even with diamond four nothing careful play brings home twelve tricks (thirteen when West didn’t cover the spade.

My lesser triumph occurred on this hand where I had to guess diamonds to make 3NT doubled,

I couldn’t believe it when I looked at the clock and realized it was almost five o’clock and time to practice with Sylvia.  I do lead a hard life don’t I!

Canadian Team Trials

May 4th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I was reading Stacy Jacob’s Blog Slow and Steady Wins The Race and read that only 8 teams had entered the US Team Trials with nominations almost closed and apparently only 8 teams have registered to enter the European Championships this summer.  Well I am happy to report that with registration closed 10 teams have entered to compete in the Canadian Women’s Team trials.  If you are interested in all the details about the Canadian Team Trials check out this link: http://www.cbf.ca/BWeek/index.html.

The CWTC this year is quite interesting in that the ten teams start with a nine match round robin with 20 boards each round.  It seems very interesting to have fairly long matches.  Four teams qualify for a one day semifinal and then two go on to the one day final.  I think it might be better to make the final longer and this has been suggested before.  I suppose the majority of the teams said that preferred it this way.

The Championships are going to be held in Penticton a beautiful town in Central British Columbia.  After the championships Ray and I am planning to visit my daughter and her family in Mission British Columbia.  I am very excited about the visit since it has been a long time since I have seen them in person.  Skype just isn’t enough.

It seems to me that the teams are a bit more even this year than most years and several teams could win.  While anything could happen I think the favorites for the final four (in numerical order) are

Team 33 Ina Demme, Hazel Wolpert, Lesley Thomson, Linda Wynston, Karen Turner, Karen Billet

Team 35 Pamela Nisbet, Karen Cumpstone, Joan Eaton, Barbara Clinton, Kismet Fung, Susan Culham

Team 37 Francine Cimon, Julie Fajgelzon, Samantha Nystrom, Rhonda Foster, Linda Lee, Sylvia Caley

Team 39 Julie Smith, Susan Peters, June Pocock, Kathy Adachi

Beyond that I am just to biased to comment but this time I don’t think my team is going in as the favorite.  Overall I am proud that we have such a strong turnout. 

The entry for the open team includes an amazing 24 teams.  The CNTC is playing a 23 match round robin with 10 boards apiece from which 8 teams will qualify to a quarter final.  Do I dare pick my guess for the top 8?  Nope.  From past history I know I simply can’t do it.  There are just too many teams that are pretty evenly matched and there are always surprises.  But I will say that I expect that these two teams to be there:

Team 1. John Carruthers, Joseph Silver, David Turner, Roy Hughes, Nader Hanna, Jim Green
Team 2. Nicolas L’Ecuyer, Kamel Fergani, Darren Wolpert, Jurek Czyzowicz, David Grainger, Daniel Korbel

There are a lot of other teams that I think are terrific too with many past winners and I have great hopes for Team 3. Paul Thurston, Jeff Smith, Keith Balcombe, Ross Taylor, John Duquette, Hérve Chatagnier since I have helped them out a lot by losing to several of them in practice.  Is it a concidence that these teams are numbers 1-3? 

The Preempt Maester

May 3rd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Around our place Ray is known as the preempt maester or to put it another way “Ray knows preempts”.  I am usually too wimpy.  So when I think about what to do on a hand I think,”What would Ray do?”.  This hand came up a few days ago.

With everybody vulnerable in a team game, the auction had started with a pass from partner and 1◊ by  RHO.  I held":

I thought 1♥ is just not going to do it but what to preempt.  I could try 3♥ which might be enough opposite a passed partner.  I wasn’t going to be too unhappy if they introduced spades over me.  But I thought, nah Ray would bid 4♥ and so that is what I bid.  Ray happened to be walking by so I asked him what he thought.  “I would like to have the ♥10 but I think 4♥ is right, particularly with those spades.

This story had quite a happy ending.  4♥ was passed out and partner held the perfect bad hand

With the spade ace onside and hearts breaking it was a claimer while 5◊ there way is only one down.  In fact, the auction at the other table went this way:

I suppose that one could argue that West might bid 4♥ and then who knows but I like my auction a lot better.  Thanks Preempt Maester.

Mentors Wanted … That Means You!

May 1st, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

The Beginner and Intermediate Lounge (BIL) on BBO needs a lot more mentors and are hoping that people like you will want to give something back to the game and help out by mentoring a learning player.  This is a volunteer position but believe me as someone who has been mentoring for more than 6 months the rewards are great.

A few weeks ago, Kathy my first mentee sent me a beautiful spring flower arrangement as a thank you.   It arrived at Master Point Press and all of us (well maybe not Ray) get excited about flowers.  All I could think about was how much fun I had working with Kathy who is a lovely person.

I will be starting with a new mentee this Tuesday and I am really looking forward to it. 

Maureen Hall is the CEO of BIL.  This is what she told me in a recent email.

So here what you have to do.  Just email

[email protected]

I promise you will be glad you did.