Why there are few women at the very top of the bridge world

November 6th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Ray I am not calling this (as you did):   “Why women lose at bridge.” Obviously women play bridge and win quite often in all kinds of games at many levels. It is only at the very top level that women are significantly outnumbered.

It is my belief that in order to be an elite player in mind sports you must start playing before the age of 25. It is like learning a language, the younger the better. When I went to university to play bridge (and get a degree too) there were no women in the group I played with. At the major bridge club, Kate Buckmans, there were many women but almost none who were my age. It did make it a great place to meet guys, though.

I still think the same thing is true. Very few women in their teens and twenties play bridge at all, let alone compete. Is there a reason for this?  Some of it gets back to the nature versus nurture argument you raise. My sister was a real feminist and when she had children she was going to make sure that the both sexes were treated the same.  No dolls for her daughters.  It didn’t work.

Girls are different from boys and they are encouraged to be different (the nurture part). They just aren’t as interested in competing in card games. By age 30 to 40, many women do get interested in bridge. But their brains just can’t close the gap with their brothers who started at 15 or 18 or 20.

To be an elite bridge player you have to give up a lot. A modern women is often expected to have a job and raise a family. That is frankly hard enough. When my children were little it was hard to leave them to go to work especially when it involved a business trip. I would come back stuffed animals in hand, feeling horribly guilty and missing them. I can’t imagine leaving them frequently to go to a bridge tournament. It just wasn’t me.  I do admire Roselyn Teukolsky who in her wonderful book How to Play Bridge With Your Spouse… and Survive! has these immortal lines. 

“My youngest daughter, six years old, is watching me pack for a bridge weekend.

“When I grow up and have children,” she says to me. ” I won’t leave them to go play bridge?”

“Well darling that will be your choice, ” I say to her, “Mommy also had a choice.  Whether to play bridge, or whether to play bridge and have children.”

But a few sentences later Roselyn says “I never found it easy to tell me girls that we’re leaving away for the weekend.

I love those lines and we did use them ourselves, thanks Roselyn, and it expresses so well the extreme pressure modern women feel.

The sacrifice was too great for me and I suspect it would be too great for a lot of others. So I stopped playing bridge for about 17 years.

That given, I think there are fewer women than men that have the right sort of mind to excel at bridge. It is probably foolish to expect women’s brains and men’s to be exactly the same. Women are better than men at some things and worse at others, on average. It doesn’t mean that a women could never be the best bridge player in the world. It just means it is much less likely. The women would have to be much farther over on the bell curve.

Would women play better if they played in open events? I think most women do play in open events. I suppose there might be a few that only play in women’s events but there really aren’t enough events like that to make it possible if you like to play a reasonable amount. In fact, I think you will find that there are women playing in any open event that takes place. I don’t think it matters if some of the time they get together a team and play in a women’s event. I don’t see why that doesn’t allow them to develop their skills. At the elite level women’s events are of a reasonable caliber and are equivalent to a lot of open events you might play in. I actually liked it better (and I think a lot of women did too) when the Canadian open and women’s team trials were not simultaneous so that women could play in both events.

Another question is do women “deserve” their own event? Why should they be able to play in a weaker event then an open event? I don’t think it is a matter of being deserving. Providing this venue allows women to compete in events that matter to them. It is fun to compete in your country’s trials or even better to represent your country. Why shouldn’t they have this opportunity? I have thought about whether women’s events are different. At the elite level I don’t think that the effort or the atmosphere is that much different. I think by and large women are more social and friendlier. That might not be something you notice at the table once the game has started though. I have found the women’s game less legalistic but that might have just been that I have played much less in them.

What can we do to get more women to make it to the top echelon? When I was working at a major software research and development company I was asked to talk to high school women about a career in mathematics and science. In the 80’s there were relatively few women doctors, engineers, computer scientists etc. That isn’t true today at all. I think the best way to develop elite women bridge players is to get them young. We should go into the high schools and give them incentives to play.

Efforts to provide a BBO women’s club might help but we need a more direct approach too. Francine Cimon has a strong desire to mentor younger women players. Francine has talked about getting a team together for the open championships in 2010 with a lot of young women on it.

I chose to play with Isabelle Smith partly for this reason (also because she is a wonderful player and person).  I like the idea of more mentoring. Maybe it could be tied into other efforts to improve women’s bridge. Women’s bridge doesn’t just have to be about developing women’s partnerships. It should be about developing better skills for women whoever they play with. So men could mentor women too. Go right ahead.

The Rabbi’s Rule Strikes Again

November 3rd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I missed this sweet hand from my last Blog.  It comes from the very last hand Colin played last night.  There is really nothing remarkable about this hand or is there.  Play some spooky music please:

Colin played in 3NT after an uninterrupted auction.  He managed to lose to the stiff ♠ K and the  doubleton ◊Q but the critical stiff ♣ K right to make the hand.  After he finished playing it I told him he would have a laugh when he looked at the whole hand.

The rabbi rules.

More adventures with Colin

November 3rd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

You are sitting North.  West the dealer passes with no-one vulnerable.

Do you open this hand?  I think you need to, but a lot of people don’t.  It doesn’t make the Rule of 20.  But those spots cards are gold.  These hands are easy for Colin and I, we open them 2♠, showing spades and a minor.  This has two advantages, it let’s us differentiate between these hands and a hand with less shape and more high cards and it starts the bidding up higher.  I have found these two bids work very well.  Still I think it is often better to open this hand 1♠ , than passing.

Last night those who opened this hand got a good result and those who didn’t, generally got a poor result.  Let’s see what happened if you passed first.  

In many cases the auction went like this:

Yes, you can bid now but it is a good deal more dangerous than before.  If you pass the opponents are in 4♥ on the next bid and you will play there.  That is how the auction usually went.  Those who opened 1♠ rapidly arrived in 4♠ (as did we and if needed I would have bid 5♠).  Here is my hand

I know it’s easy for us to get to the right contract, but that is the point.

It was actually (for us) a rather dull night without the usual weird bidding.  We did have one interesting discussion about signalling.  Do you have a way for asking partner to continue a suit that is led when you would normally be in a suit preference situation.  For example partner leads the ace in a suit your side has bid and raised and dummy has a singleton.  What Ray and I do is play an honour (assuming we can afford it) to ask for partner to continue the suit.  Does anyone else have any thoughts about this situation.

Last night declarer was in slam and dummy had the doubleton king in a suit that Colin and I had bid.  Colin led the ace and I see this an an analogous situation.  I wanted the suit continued so I played the queen.  Maybe that card should have a different purpose.  On the hand in question it didn’t matter.  Still food for thought.

Lederer Cup 2008 Corrected

November 3rd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

The Young Chelsea Bridge Club in London England calls itself one of the world’s great bridge clubs.

Young Chelsea

Each year they host the Richard Lederer Memorial Cup, an invitational event for eight teams (started in 1945) featuring stars of the English and Irish team, star international players. as well as winners of the Y.C. knockout.  It sounds like fun to watch and to play in. 

According to the Bridge Encyclopedia, Richard Lederer was a bridge club owner, writer and expert and was one of the first great figures in British bridge.  His club was the premier club in Londonand home to many of the great British players of the 1930’s and 1940’s.

There also was a Tony Lederer who was a bridge writer, broadcaster, international player teacher and the proprietor of Lederer’s Club and the Regency Bridge Club.  Originally I mistakenly thought he was the one being remembered.  Tony was Richard’s son and instituted the competition in memory of his father, Richard.

I decided to take a look at the final match of the Lederer Cup which was on BBO this afternoon.  Going into this match after 6 rounds Gold Cup was somewhat ahead of Ireland but they were not playing each other.  Still Gold Cup had to do fairly well in their match to assure victory.

Playing North-South in the Open Room for Gold Cup was Tony Forester and David Bakhsi with Alexander Allfrey and Tony Robson East-West in the Closed Room. 

Playing East-West for Holders in the Open Room was Gunnar Hallberg and Andrew McIntosh with David Price and Colin Simpson playing North-South in the Closed Room.

The board that clinched the victory was a grand slam hand.  Slam hands are always fun.  Forrester and Bakhsi reached 7♠ on Board 34 to win 13 imps. Let’s look at their auction.

North-South Vulnerable; Dealer East

I suppose there is an argument for opening the South a forcing bid since if partner has a few spades you might make game opposite a yarborough but I prefer Bakhshi’s 1♠.  The next few bids make Bakhsi’s hand better and better.   3◊ seems to be a game try (initially in diamonds) with some length in that suit. 4♣ showed a great hand for the auction since Tony has great spades and diamond cards.  Hallberg’s double of the club bid was no doubt lead directing but helped North-South out.  Tony’s pass of 5♣ was forcing and encouraging (an “undouble”) and when Bakhshi made a grand slam try with 6♣ Tony had enough for seven. 

Perhaps it was harder to get to the grand in the closed room.  The auction started pass-1♠-3♣-3♠-4♣.  See if you can think of a way to get there after that start.  Maybe something like

4◊-4♠

5♣-5♠

6♣-6◊

6♥-7♠

It is certainly not clear at either table.  Getting to a grand with a void and the opponents using up the space is very hard.  Well done to Forester-Bakhshi. 

For fun you might want to watch the prizegiving form the 2007 cup

Lederer Cup Prize giving

The Rabbi’s Rule, it worked in Sydney

November 1st, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I was reading an article in the October ACBL Bulletin written by Rabbi Leonard Helman talking about his recent experiences with the Rabbi’s Rule.

Before I continue let me tell you some things I found out about Rabbi Helman.  Did you know that he was recognized by the state of New Mexico for his many contributions as a rabbi and a bridge player but also as an attorney and tap dancer and was designated in 2004 as one of Sante Fe’s living treasures! Here is the URL to the page put up in his honour by Sante Fe.

Leonard Helm, living treasure

I knew Rabbi Helman had made contributions to youth bridge in North America but when I was in Austrlia I found out that he had also donated awards for youth bridge in Australia.  Called the Helman-Klinger award they honour Ron Klinger’s contribution as a bridge author.

Well, Rabbi I played a hand against Jenni and Tom Carmichael and guess what the rule work.  Check out Tom’s bridge blog

Tom Carmichael, blog about nothing but more bridge than other nothing

Here is a picture of Tom with Joel Woolridge,  winners of the 2008 WBP Pairs

I was declarer on Board 16 when this hand came up.

Ray

♠ 964

♥ AK7

◊ 653

♣ K1054

—————

Linda

♠ Q5

♥ Q6

◊ AQJ872

♣ AQJ

Playing matchpoints, Jenni on my right, vulnerable against not, opened 2♠ and in the balancing chair I bid 3◊.  She lead the ♣ 7.  I can’t help but notice that 5◊ looks pretty cold if the finesse is onside.  Ray took a prettty cautious position.  But then I am not really playing against them, I am playing against the wimps in part-score.  I have got a favourable lead and I might be able to shake a spade on a heart.

This was my thinking, maybe a little muddled but here goes.  Jenni is very unlikely to hold the  ♠AK or even the ♠KQ since she didn’t lead one.  It looks like a tenace to me, probably ♠AJ.  She has opened a weak two bid at unfavourable vulnerability without a great spade suit.  She could easily have another honour.  The only one missing is the ◊K.  So it seemed reasonable that she might have the diamond honour, despite the pre-empt.  What I didn’t want to happen is for her to get the diamond king and a ruff.  You can see where this is heading.  I played a diamond to the  ◊A and the stuff king came falling unhappily from Jenni’s hand.  I now took all the tricks.  +190 was worth 82%.

Jenni’s hand

♠ AJ10832

♥ J5

◊ K

♣ 9762

So at least in Sydney, the rabbi’s rule works some of the time.

Sydney Ladies Team Finals – All I can say is Wow

October 31st, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

The Neale team (Kim Neale – Linda King, Candice Berman – Nicoleta Giura, Anne Powell – Margaret Bourke) started the third segment of the Sydney Ladies finals with a slight lead over Scudder (Marcia Scudder – Inez Glanger, Kinga Moses – Nazife Bashar). Confession: I know several members of the Neale team, the charming Kim, Linda, Nick Fahrer’s wife and host of a feast on Saturday and the talented Margaret Bourke, Tim’s wife. I don’t know the other ladies and so I was rooting for Neale. In fact, the first thing I did when I got home after about 25 hours on planes was to look up the results.

To qualify for the final you had to come first or second in the round robin and Linda told me that she had come in third twice in the last few years. Coming in third isn’t so bad because you get qualifying points towards an invitation to the international trials based on points for placing first to third in specific events. However, this year she wanted first place.

The Scudder team were in no danger going in the last round, quite a bit ahead in first. But as it turned out Neale needed about 13 VP out of 25 which proved no problem when they finished with a near blitz.

The first major swing was Board 4. Try bidding these two hands with your favourite partner and see if you can do as well as Kim and Linda

Linda

♠ AQJ1084 ♥ QJ4 ◊ K5 ♣ A5

—————

Kim

♠ 5 ♥ A865 ◊ AQJ98 ♣ Q103

This was their auction. I don’t really know the details of their system .  3♣ was certainly check back and I suspect that Linda may have (wisely) upgraded her hand from 17 to the 18-19 HCP range.  After that her choice to bid 2NT rather than 3♠ was inspired.

This was a 13 imp swing when the East-WEst in the other room failed to get to the slam and put the Neale team a little more comfortably ahead 102 imps to 87.

This match was definitely played at the 6 level.  The very next board the Neale team won another 13 when they avoided a bad slam bid.  By Board 11 one side or another (or both) had written a bid with the number 6 on the table 4 times.  Board 11 was yet another slam swing but this Margaret and Anne had a chance to shine.

The auction in both rooms started out exactly the same for the first 6 bids.  I feel that matches like this are composed of many decisions.  Some things are obvious but some are choices you have to make, to bid or to pass, to lead a short suit or a trump or whatever.  Here Powell had to decide if she had the right stuff to continue after Bourke’s 4♠ bid.   She decided, correctly that she had great cards for partner and that her hand was worth a slam try and 5♥ is the obvious choice.  Well done.

By this point the Neale team had pulled out to a 137-89 imp lead.  This was more a case of Neale doing some good things than Scudder making mistakes.  I think that in any event Neale would have won a lot of imps by bidding both slams. 

On the very next board Kim made a great pressure bid.  How do you like it (I love it).  You are white on red and are in third chair.  There are two passes to you.  What do you bid?

Kim

♠ 6 ♥ K965 ◊ 42 ♣ KQ10983

Kim started with 3♣ and when Moses bid 3♠, Linda’s 5♣ continuation really put it to Bashar who held ♠ Q72 ♥ AJ1042 ◊ Q1096 ♣ 2 and correctly sensing that she wasn’t going to get rich defending bid 5♠.  And now King and Neale followed up with a truly beautiful defence.  Here is the whole hand.

As you can see  the lead of a small club followed by a diamond shift will beat the hand but who is going to do that.  King led a spade.  Moses won the spade lead in hand and immediately finessed the ♥Q.  And Neale ducked!  There is no declarer I know who is going to get this right now.  Moses thought she could count 11 tricks now with 3 hearts, a club ruff, 6 spades and a diamond so she gave up a club to set up her ruff.  This allowed the defenders to set up their eventual diamond winner.   But when Moses eventually repeated the heart finesse she was in for a surprise.  The third quarter ended with Neale up 155-89.  Scudder did fight back in the final quarter and in the end they made the match a lot closer but it was just not enough.

What a great match.  I just wish I could have seen it live.  Good going by both teams and my congratulations to the winners for some fine bridge.

Most surprising things in Australia

October 29th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

We talked to lots of bridge players in Australia and there were two  things we kept hearing.  Neither was expected.  First they loved the book “Northern Lights”.  I think most of the sales of that book must have been made in Australia. 

The second was “Did we know Karen Cumpstone.?” And when we said yes, they couldn’t say enough about how much they liked Karen and what a good bridge player she was.  I wanted Karen to know that and I will email her in case she doesn’t read this post.  So G’day Karen.  It wasn’t once or twice.  It was over and over again.  You are an Aussie Bridge favorite. No worries at all. (I know this is no surprise to Piglet.)

A third surprise was the number of people that were playing a system similar to ours including Multi 2D, 2 of a major as a weak major-minor two-suiter, weak notrump, four card heart suits etc.  Although of course there were people playing every imaginable 2 bid (and some I wouldn’t have imagined).

Things that didn’t surprise us.  Everyone talked about:

Bobby’s book

Judy Kay-Wolff’s blog

And less but still frequent: My bridge blogs  they knew all my adventures with Ray, Colin and so on.

Now Ray and I have retired our bridge partnership again.  Ray just doesn’t want  to play any more.  The conditions couldn’t have been nicer or friendlier than the Sydney Nationals but you have to prefer playing bridge to finding geocaches (even on a nice spring day in Sydney) and Ray just doesn’t feel that way any more.  Who knows, maybe I will talk him out of retirement again.

We are at the airport in Sydney and I keep thinking that I can’t wait to get back home again.  To cold, Halloween, Victoria’s party, to the little ones, Marcus and Jessica, to bridge with my mentee Kathie, to practicing with Colin, to telling our poor friends like Fred, Margaret, Bill and Leah all about our travels and showing them all the pictures too.

Top 10 things we like about Sydney

October 28th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

This is a joint blog from Ray and Linda.

10. We liked the outdoor stalls that sell a variety of food, gorgeous fruit, beautiful flowers and all sorts of other things.

9.  Our apartment hotel.  This was a real apartment not a suites hotel and perfectly located.

8.  We like the whole transit system.  The ferries are particularly wonderful and the one week pass is a real bargain.

ferry in Sydney Harbour

7.  The world class beaches.  If you like surfing you are going to love them but for the rest of us there is gorgeous huge sandy beaches and lots of people watching too.

6. Australians, who are very friendly and just as polite as Canadians.  We like the way they stood up on the bus for people who needed seats

5.  The baked goods are great!  We loved the cookies (bringing some home), the pastries and even the bread

4. The weather.  Our rule one of travel is that no place with palm trees can be all bad.  With the sun shining in Sydney in the spring, it is perfect. 

3.  The Rocks – “Old” Sydney, full of restaurants, art and well yes, souvenirs.  But it just doesn’t feel like a tourist trap.

2. The Zoo – who can resist a koala. 

The number one best thing about Sydney ……

1.  The Harbour and the Opera House.  We salute the people of Sydney who had the courage to build the Opera House which now is a symbol of Sydney.  We even liked going to an opera there.

Opera House from walkway

Sydney Spring National Team Finals

October 26th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

While Ray and I were drowsily playing in the pairs at the Sydney tournament we could glance over our shoulder where a projector was set up with the fourth and final session of the team finals.  We knew that it was very close and I confess to watching the screen whenever someone at our table went into a huddle.

As play on Board 17 started the Howitz team ( Helen Horwitz – Peter Gill – Paul Gosney – Murray Green) led Haughie (Bill Haughie – Andy Braithwaite – Ron Klinger – David Hoffman – Bob Richman – George Gaspar) by 9 imps 96-87.  Looking at the scoreboard now I see major swings in both directions.  There are some imps won and lost on every board but two and one of the flat boards was 7NT bid and made at both tables!

Here are a couple of sampler hands.  In the closed room I think this hand might be called: “Is a singleton queen enough?”

AK63  QJ6  Q KQ1064. 

The auction has gone

Richman	Horwitz	Gaspar	Gill
pass	pass	pass	1
1	1	2	dbl
dbl	2	pass	2
pass	2NT	pass	?

Your double showed three hearts and partner’s 2 bid suggested that hearts was spot.  You made a game try with 2.  Partner’s 2NT is presumably accepting and offering a choice of contract.  What do you do now?

………………

It is always easy to make the right choices when you are seeing all the hands.  Lets try to work out a hands where notrump is best.

QJ2  109875  KJ10 J9.

Here 3NT makes and 4 is off four top tricks.  It took a bit of ingenuity to come up with this hand.  Any hand that plays better in notrump is likely to feature some good soft values in partner’s hand and very good diamonds.  It just doesn’t seem that likely.  Q or no I like 4.  The table bid was 3NT, which did not work out well. Let’s look at the action in the Open Room which I entitle “Vulnerability is for Sissies”  Vulnerable against not you hold this hand

Q72  K9874  A86 J3.  You of course open 2 which shows 3 possibilities (you will note you have none of them) 6+ hearts weak, 5/5 or more in the blacks or 25+

Green	Haughie	Gosney	Braithwait
pass	2	pass	2NT
pass	3	pass	4
all pass

This meant that Haughie-Braithwait had no problem finding the right game and  the 12 imps that they picked up allowed them to take the lead by 12 (129-116) with only four boards to go.

The decisive board was this one.  Coming into Board 30 (of 32) the score is tied.  With both white you are third in hand holding:

32  A2  AQ10763 KQ6

Things start off quietly enough with two passes and you start things off with 1. 

Green	Haughie	Gosney	Braithwait
		pass	pass
1	1	1	3
?

3 was preemptive.  Do you bid?  I would like to bid double saying I have a decent hand, not a great spade fit and I want to compete but that bid doesn’t really exist.  If you pass then Haughie bids 4 and it is up to Gosney.

Here is his hand:

AJ104  7  KJ2 J9832

Do you like his bidding?  I might not have passed in first chair but no one can really quarrel about that.  I am not sure about 1 either  – double or 2 might be better.  Anyway we are here now so what do you do?  I am not a passer but it is not clear what the right action is.  You could try 4NT.  I know partner is in third chair but still with spades he would have strained to bid.  He has to have some minor length.  Maybe that is just too clever.  (And it is a great bid double dummy).  I suppose that double is an alternative but I can see why that is ugly too.  Gosney passed.  Now one last decision.  Green doubles 4 and you have one last chance…. 4NT, I like it even more now.  Green has a good hand, he can’t have four spades.  But you pass and this is the whole hand.  This is not an easy hand but there is no defense after the spade bid since Haughie can set up a second spade for his tenth trick.

	Haughie
	K98
	KJ9865
	void
	A754
Green		Gosney
32		AJ104
A2		7
AQ10763		KJ2
KQ6		J9832
	Braithwaite
	Q765
	Q1043
	9854
	10

This board was 13 imps to Horowitz who hung on to win by 6.

Playing with one of the dwarves

October 26th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

No I am not the dwarf.  It was Ray.  He stayed up late, very late watching what I believe was a poor performance by his team, Manchester United and was transformed into Sleepy.  During the event today he committed a record number of irregularities, two of which were notable.  The first I call “the lucky one”. ( I am really sorry about this opponents.)  It accounted for our best board of the day (100%).  Ray held

J  963 Q1093 QJ842. 

The auction went

Me	North	Ray	South
		pass	1
pass	1	pass	2
dbl	pass	?

Ray who was busy yawning did not see the double and he passed.  The opponents played in 2 doubled and a flustered Ray led the J.  Here is the whole hand

	Unlucky Opponent
Board 18	Q1063
	K875
	J82
	75
Linda		Ray
A875		J
102		963
K75		Q1093
AK96		QJ842
	Unlucky Opponent
	K942
	AQJ4
	A64
	103

As you can see on a spade lead this hand goes for 800 (we actually played safe for 500). 

The “interesting” irregularity occurred when Ray played both the K and a small heart at the same time when the lady finessed hearts into him.  We found out that there was no significant penalty when Ray chose to win the finesse with the king.  The other heart was just a spot; he could lead anything he wanted and the heart just stayed on the table exposed until Ray eventually played it.

There were definitely moments when both of us wanted to be anywhere but at the bridge table but I know we will look back on this event with fond memories.  It seems to me to be remarkable that we can go so far away from home and find ourselves surrounded by wonderful friends.  Isn’t bridge the greatest game!

Michael Wilkinson gave me an interesting “fairy” hand.  It was written down on a piece of paper but when I went to play I promptly lost it.  But Michael I think it went something like this and I think I got the answer in a small flash of inspiration.  I only looked at the problem for a minute or two  so  here is a facsimile, I am sure it isn’t as Michael gave it to me but probably still in the spirit of the problem. 

Board 18	AXX
	10X
	AQJ10X
	Axx
DD LHO		DD RHO
XX		QJxx
AXXXX		KJ98
XXX		X
XXX		KXXX
	DD You
	KXXX
	QX
	KXX
	QJXX

You are playing 3NT ( double dummy); LHO sensing that a heart lead will not work (the heart suit blocks) leads a club.  You have to rise since otherwise the DD opponents will take four hearts and the K.  How do you make this hand?

My answer…. please confirm Michael….

You play diamonds.  Sooner or later RHO has to discard a heart.  As soon as they discard their first heart you have to stop playing diamonds and give up the K.  This is a  Goldilocks hand, one heart discard is just right but two is too many.

I do think this is an interesting problem and it was fun to work it out.  I just hope it is more or less the problem Michael gave me.

Jenni and Tom Carmichael of Atlanta were a last minute entry.  They played in the event after traveling for about 25 hours playing yesterday with almost no sleep. 

I confess that my dwarf name today was Grumpy, but Ray and I wanted to let everyone know what fun we had on a beautiful day in Sydney.   Thanks to Nick Fahrer who came with us for lunch and tried to keep us from grumping at each other.  And congratulations to the winners Peter Reynolds and David Appleton  who had a huge score of  248 VP out of a maximum of 300 for an average of more than 20 VP out of a maximum 25 each round. 

For all the results at the Sydney tournament:

http://www.abf.com.au/events/results/results.asp?yr=2008&dir=sn