A Short Snappy Session

September 27th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Ray and I started out to play some bridge tonight but he happened to get a chance to raid with his guild in Everquest so we only ended up playing seven boards but they were interesting and/or silly ones.

This deal falls into the silly category and is an example of bid boldly, play safe as Rixi Markus used to say.  You are going to hate my bidding but here goes.

I held SA H 6532 D Q1053 C AQ98

I opened 1C in first chair at unfavourable vulnerability.  LHO bid 1S and Ray made a negative double which usually shows hearts and usually a minor.  RHO bid 3S (presumably preemptive).  What do you call?  Okay so I should pass.  But look at those heart spots.  Anyway I bid 4H.  After LHO passed Ray went into a huddle.  When I have overbid the last thing I want is for partner to huddle.  Hhe bid 6H.  He started yelling at me before I played a card, so I knew he didn’t have his bid either.

The opening lead was the S10 and the situation wasn’t hopeless.  I had three likely losers so if either both club and diamond finesse work or at least one finesse worked and I could avoid a heart loser than I could make it.  I tried to visualize LHO’s hand and give him cards that would let me make the contract.  He might have

S K109xx H xx D Kxxx C xx

or give him all the high card.

S K109xx H QJx D Kxx C K x giving his partner S Jxxx H xx D xx C Jxxxxx or ….

Maybe the right play is to take the diamond finesse first.  If that loses and noone ruffs anything on the way back then you need to double hook hearts.  I don’t think RHO was ducking the offside diamond king in a slam.

I lead a heart towards dummy.  I had pretty well made up my mind to double hook the heart (right or wrong) when the HJ popped.  I rose with the HK and lead the C10 off dummy.  When RHO failed to cover I thought he didn’t have the jack.  Besides I really needed to avoid losers.  I put in the CQ and it held but the CJ dropped on my left.  I lead a heart to the H10 drew the last trump, played a club to my nine (LHO had dropped the Jack from a doubleton) and was home.  The surprise was that when I finessed the diamond it lost.  Do you know what LHO had overcalled 1S on S 1098653 H QJ9 D 42 C J5 and the preempter had a ten count (did he think 3S was a limit raise?)

The prettiest deal belonged to Ray.  Playing in 4H with no opposition bidding the SA is led.

West started off with three rounds of spades a fatal error.  Ray trumped the third spade in dummy throwing a diamond from his hand and lead the ace of heart.  Unfortunately West had all the remaining trump.  Ray finesses the CJ played a heart to the HA.  At this point he needs to decide if West has three clubs or two.  Since West had 8 cards in the majors it seemed more likely he was short in clubs so Ray played a club to the kind and played off three more rounds of trump.  West won the fifth trump but was endplayed in diamonds.

I did have a rather nice endplay in an earlier 3NT deal but it was only for an uptrick so Ray’s was much cooler.

Does someone want to handicap the senior teams?

September 26th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I look at the senior teams entered in the World Mind Games and eureka! 

I realized I had didn’t really know the teams at all.  So I give up.  I can’t handicap them.  Can you?    Becky does tell me that we have some entries in our contest to pick the results in the Open Teams but we can still use some more to make it fun. 

If you are submitting your entry than I want to know is Canada going to make your top 16?  (Rumour has it that some of the team members do not expect to stay till the banquet, hmmm).

Believe it or not I just realized that the games start October 3rd.  I had this idea it was exactly when I was in New Zealand but actually I am not leaving for New Zealand until October 11th so I will be online watching and reporting right here at my keyboard getting no sleep for the first round robin.  I am psyched.  I can’t wait to gorge on all that bridge. 

Do you know what else is getting me excited.  I am now a bridge mentor as part of the BIL (Beginner and Intermediate Lounge) program.  I will be writing a blog about it on the student side of www.masteringbridge.com

( yes, I will be a two blog girl). 

I am definitely going to write more about BIL in a future blog but if you are interested in being a mentor (and what could be more rewarding) than check it out at

www.bilbridge.com

I expect that  I will also report on some of my experiences right here as well.  I love the game and I taught bridge and have written about it but mentoring someone one on one. that is new.

The other news of the day is that Colin and I are going to practice three days a week (mostly).  Colin has finished weeks of attending conferences and seminars.  (What a job, he has).  So watch for us on BBO on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday at 9PM EST.  Colin’s BBO name is krakenappa and mine is lml.

I started to put together a complete list of all the websites I had visited in 15 days but it is going to take a while.  I am listing the sites URL, a description and giving each of them a grade.  But I am only going to indicate those that got a Grade A since it is so subjective.  I guess I will update my page to show the top 15 websites in my journey.

Day 15 – the last day to better bridge on the Internet

September 26th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

This is my last day of wandering around the Internet and looking for ways to improve my bridge skills.  It has been a fascinating journey to date.  I am sure that I have not been to all the good locations.  If anyone has any suggestions about some websites, blogs or whatever that I have missed please let me know.  You can comment here or email me at  [email protected].

I am starting off today at an interesting site all about computer bridge

http://computerbridge.com

The 12th computer bridge world championship was held in Las Vegas during the Summer Nationals.  Wbridge5 defeated Jack 172-157 in the final 64-board KO match.  The picture shows the winner Yves Costel with his trophy.

Checking the convention card Wbridge5 was playing a standard system.  It doesn’t seem like system is a factor in the competition since they all seem to play a pretty straight forward card.  Only Bridge Baron was playing 2/1 and no forcing club bidders or whatever in the group.

There was only one deal that was intentionally inserted.  It is a hand from Reese’s 1958 book, “Expert Play”

A Q J 4

K 10 8 6 4 3

–

8 7 5

K

Q 7 2

J 7 4 2

K Q 9 6 3

The goal is to find the safest way to make 4 after a diamond lead. Some of the computers got it right but not all.  Answer below.

I move on to the bridge home page of Nikos Sarantakos.  He has a fair number of interesting deals and problems.  I try this problem from the 1996 US team trials and have no trouble doing better than Bob Hamman.

You hold as South:

 K 2

 10 4 3 2

 J 4 2

 K 9 4 2

North dealer, game all

Partner opens a “natural” 2, i.e. showing six or more clubs in a limited (11-15 HCP) hand, usually without a four card major. The bidding goes:

West Goldfein	North Wolff	East Robbins	South Hamman
	2	4	5
5	5NT	6	?

What is your call?

……………………………….

If you pass or double what do you lead?

……………………………….

Bob Hamman chose to double and led a club.  That didn’t work out well

The full deal was:

	Kaplan
	void
	Q 7 6
	A K 10 9
West	Q J 10 8 7 6	East
8 7 6		A Q J 10 9 5 4 3
K J 8 5		A 9
Q 7 6 5 3		8
A	Helgemo	53
	K 2
	10 4 3 2
	J  4 2
	K 9 4 2

  From here I head over to Malcolm’s Great Bridge Links

http://www.boyacks.freeserve.co.uk/bridge_links/frames%20index.htm

As you would guess this site has lots and lots of bridge links with a British emphasis.    I fill out a form to add bridgeblogging.com as a link.  However this site needs some updating since lots of the links don’t work (the dreaded 404).

Ray went to Cambridge so I check out the Cambridge University Bridge website.  There are a number of articles.  You can checkout the Z Grubsza bidding system.  1 shows 0-9 unbalanced (you pass with 0-9 balanced) and go up in steps from there.

http://bridge.soc.ucam.org/

Here is a problem from one of the articles.  Noone vulnerable your partner opens 2 in first chair showing 24+ balanced or any game force.    RHO bids 4.  What does a double by you mean in this situation.  If you like substitute 2 strong for 2.

At the table South doubled for takeout and North took it as penalty and passed on a spade void with very unhappy results.

At David Babcock’s homepage

http://home.comcast.net/~davidbabcock/bridge.htm I find a couple of interesting links.  Here is a link to Andy Robson’s bridge column

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/games_and_puzzles/bridge/

I read a few bridge columns and do the suduko too. 

Wandering around I find some writeups on Polish Club

http://www.mjmx.com/pc.htm and  at the Edinburgh University Bridge Club

 http://bridge.eusa.ed.ac.uk/

Check out the comparison between SAYC vs ACOL on the EU forum

and finally from Krzysztif Jassem (Polish internationalist) his 2005 revision

http://www.jassem.republika.pl/

I should probably check out Precision too.  I find Oliver Clarke’s Precision Parlour.  It is aimed at the BIL group (beginners and intermediates) but the material goes well beyond that.  The asking bids start at Alpha and go to Sigma.  The Alpha bid is a primary trump asking bid in the strong hand’s main suit.  Colin is going to love this stuff and there is complex system notes to read. 

Then I come across the Wednesday Game

http://www.wednesdaygame.com/index.htm

The Wednesday game sends out a set of computer dealt hands to clubs once a month.  Then they publish analysis, quizzes and play problems on the hands.  They have deals back to March 06.  You can look at the deals organized by 70 subjects.  I decided to look at the play of the hand archive and  I decide to try “reading the lead”  The first problem is not that tough but I could see that at the table you could play too quickly.  I am just going to show one suit and the play to trick one.  The auction has been 1NT-3NT.  East’s opening lead is the 6 and you diamond holding is

KQJ73

102

If East has lead 4th highest you can work out (using the rule of 11) that West has known higher so you need to put in the 7 to take four diamond tricks.

Well, Day 15 is the last day and there is no way that I can leave out our new website for teachers and students.

www.masteringbridge.com

I admit that it’s focus is not experts (and I did write some of the content) but I wonder if I can find something that I can use.

There are definitely some amusing articles on the student side like Ray’s bridge on Broadway and Eddie Kantar’s humorous quotes.  I have some fun on the teacher’s forum.  I am interested in whether teachers are really teaching 2/1 as a second course to students.  I play both 2/1 and standard and I don’t really understand why you would want to teach one in a first course and another in the second course.  I am going to check back. 

But okay, this site is not about improving my game so much as helping me to understand how  students and teachers approach it and also the great enthusiasm that bridge teachers bring to their job.

Answer to 4 problem above

If hearts break 2-2 there is no problem on the hand and you can even afford a second heart loser.  So after playing a heart to the queen, finesse the J on the way back.  If the finesse loses then hearts are 2-2 and you will still make four.  If the finesse wins then you have only one heart loser and you can handle the break.

Read about Master Point Press author, Ratty

September 25th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

As I was getting ready to start my very last day of Internet crawling  I found this rather fun page on my friend and Master Point Press author, Mark Horton.  Here is an excerpt.

http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/bridge/biographies/markhorton.html

The MSO’s Gossip Columnist

Mark Horton

(b1950)

Editor of Bridge Magazine since 1995. Works free-lance on all aspects of bridge.

Main Hobbies: Reading, cooking, theatre, old movies, wine, chess (he was twice British Speed Champion) & watching sport.

Attributes: Can always raise a smile, even in adversity, and has a fantastic sense of humour. Hair now vanished. Tall, and still reasonably slim!

Editor’s Note: Many people wonder how the nickname “Ratty” came about. Well, naming no names, many years ago Mark had a girlfriend who called him “Marky-Mouse“. When they eventually parted company, the lady was none too pleased, and started to refer to him as “Marky-Rat“. Sadly for Mark, this stuck, gradually becoming shorted to Ratty or (particularly by your Editor) to Ratty-Darling. We would like to make it quite clear that this nickname actually has no foundation in truth!

However, people meeting Ratty for the first time do need some forewarning, because he was born without a volume control and is, without doubt, one of the noisiest people we know!

I also found an article mark had written about being a good partner with some good advice. 

http://www.greatbridgelinks.com/gblCLASS/Partner.html

A few highlights:

Coping with disaster: The best way to cope with the inevitable disasters is to laugh them off. This tends to disconcert even the best opponents who are used to seeing their opponents argue.

Who’s the boss? In most partnerships, one player tends to be regarded as the boss. If you are the stronger player, go out of your way to make life easy for your partner.

Day 14 – So many deals to read about

September 24th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I start off today at the South African bridge club.  Bridge by Sid and Abby.  http://www.elsid.co.za/bridge/

There is a monthly bridge quiz with an archive of hands dating back to 1997 to keep you busy.  The hand this month is interesting but the explanation and title are misleading.  It is not a temp problem really.  It is a problem of deciding who is the danger hand and therefore who you need to let in first in notrump. 

There are a number of useful tools especially for bridge clubs.  For example there is a movement for an odd number of teams where every team will play every other team.  It is apparently called the American Whist Movement. 

Here is one of their jokes (from Tuna – Tony Reus)

What Does Your Bridge Playing Wife Make You For Dinner

A man in Tarritville, Connecticut, filed for divorce because his wife left him a note on the refrigerator which read: “I have gone to the bridge club. There’ll be a recipe for your dinner at 7 o’clock on Channel 2.”

At Jeff Tang’s bridge site There were some interesting articles including a John Lowenthal hand.

http://www.bridgebum.com/

I remembering playing in a regional pairs game against John and he found an incredible defence.  Here is Jeff’s “John Lownethal hand” from a match on OKBridge.  Lowenthal was playing with Stanhope against Garozzo and Lea Dupont (I used to love watching those matches).

There is also the 1997 Bridgeur Best Play of the Year.  I have seen this hand before but it is worth looking at again.

Dlr: West Vul: Both

West	Kaplan	East	Helgemo
2	Pass	4	6
All Pass

	Kaplan
	973
	9762
	K1086
West	92	East
84		QJ105
KQJ84		A1053
5		3
K10753	Helgemo	QJ64
	AK62
	–
	AQJ9742
	A8

West led the K and Helgemo ruffed. He drew one round of trumps and led a spade to the 7! East won and returned the 5, but Helgemo let it ride to the 9. If East had returned anything else, Helgemo could still cross to dummy and lead the 9 to finesse against East’s remaining honors, smothering West’s 8 in the process.   An example of an extreme intrafinesse.

Looking up intrafinesse on google gets me to the Robert Crosby’s The Bridge Library at the Alberta Bridge Site.

http://www.pitbulls.shaw  biz.ca/

I wonder if I can find any of my “master” cards from the ACBL.  It looks like the site hasn’t been updated in a while and not all the links work but there is still a lot of interest.

There are a monthly bidding quizzes you can try (from 2002-2006).  There are a selection of deals to watch on “vugraph”.  But the most interesting thing is are the articles in Coaches Corner.  Ray and I have been talking about negative doubles over interference over 1NT.  Excerpts from the article:

Obviously this approach has pluses and minuses and you do lose the penalty double.

At Harold Schogger’s www.haroldschogger.com I happy to notice that the book of the month is Bridge Squeezes for Everyone by David BIrd.

http://www.masterpointpress.com/declarer/squeezes.html

I like this book too.  I always felt that a variety of squeezes and endplays should be accessible to advanced bridge players and this book does a great job of it.

The site is not pretty but there is some fun stuff on it.  I try a few little fun things (check it out) and then read the debate in the August 2007 EBU magazine about whether or not your should open 1NT with a 5 card major. Playing 2/1 I found that it worked much better to open a notrump with a five card major.  Playing standard with weak notrump as I do with Ray it is optional.  Ray and I actually open majors with good five card suits only.  Heather Dhondy’s argument is that you may not find the 5-3 major fit when you want to play game.  It is true that sometimes you are better off playing in four of a major and partner with a balanced hand may not bother to try for a fit with only 3 card major suits but I am not sure those hands usually play better in a suit.  Anyway I am not convinced by her argument.  It might be worth running a simulation to decide when and if you should open the major.

There is quite a good archive of bridge hands and articles but the best thing on the site is The Bols Tips definitely worth reading.

It’s time to head over to Fifth Chair and take a look at their website.

http://www.fifthchair.org/

They say that:

Fifth Chair’s website is a multi-faceted resource for bridge players of all levels. Bridge teachers will also find materials tailored to assist their efforts

Let’s see then.  They have system discussion for Acol, SAYC and 2/1 (Okbridge style) and a fair number of articles on bidding and conventions.  In fact this site is useful for teachers and learners but doesn’t have much for experts.  Not surprising but disappointing given the objective of the site.

I find much more to do at Poorbridge.com … where nothing new ever gets done.

www.poorbridge.com

started by the old guard from the Durham University Bridge Club with the aim of humour (not ridicule)/  Unfortunately they have go on hiatus.  Come on guys we need more of this.  (Maybe I should send them some articles … I certainly see enough poor bridge!)  I read the Poor Bridge of the Year 2006 article.  He bid, She bid.

I can’t possibly describe the article but I really do laugh out loud.  It’s great.  The articles on this site are so well written I am starting to think that the English schooling system must be far superior to that of North America.

I move on to Prism Signals by John Sheehan

http://www.prismsignals.com

This is a free online book.  The first thing I learn is that every hand pattern has to have exactly one number (called the index) that is different  form the others either an even number (and 3 odd numbers) or an odd number (and 3 even numbers).  So the unique number if you are 5-3-3-2 is 2 – an even number.  If your number is odd then you are considered to have an odd parity and if your number is even an even parity.  You can use this to deduce declarer’s most likely hand patterns.

This is going to take a long time and I don’t think it is going to be something I want to use.  I head over the home page of Migry Zur Campanile

http://www.migry.com

There are a number of articles, tournament reports and stories.  While many have intgruing titles for now I decide to read the article about multi 2D.  The article concludes that using 2D as a weak 2 in the major works quite well but when you add the strong option it doesn’t work nearly as well.  However you need a good use for 2H and 2S.  In the end he suggests just using weak two bids.

At the San Diego Masters Club site there are some interesting things.

www.sandiegobridge.com

There is a free downloaded book on sqeeze play by Marvin French with some interesting nomenclature e.g.  a lonely threat: a threat in a hand containing no other threat.  Warning this is not for squeeze newbies.  Not too much else but I do read an article on balancing over a strong notrump suggests that you should alwayas balance nonvulnerable (unless 4-3-3-3) among other things.  I do think I probably don’t balance enough but surely this is more matchpoints than imps. 

Omahabridge www.omahabridge.org

has an interesting library a la Marilyn Hemenway.  I notice that there is an article with the title hand analysis which has a theme Ray and I talk about all the time.  Its under the heading just take the tricks you need for game baby.  It is amazing how often people go down when they actually have the tricks they need.  I like the article on bridgisms.  These are what I have often called metarules.  Rules that apply in any auction.  Here is one she suggests in a noncompetitive auction.

Bridgism 1. If there is one unbid suit, the jump asks for a control in that suit.

And I end today at Ted’s Bridge World

http://tedmuller.us/Bridge.htm

I first look at the articles on the every day bridge scene.  When double was king talks about his 75% evening game to win a 2-session Open Pairs.  The article showed the value of doubling their contracts.  Matchpoints?  no brainer.

Here is one example.

Dlr: West Vul: Both

West	North	East	East
		1	1
DBL	2	pass	pass
2NT	Pass	3	pass
pass	3	pass	pass
double	All Pass

	1086
	10753
	AQJ32
West	7	East
73		J954
AJ982		K4
7		K1095
QJ1052		A64
	AKQ2
	Q6
	864
	K983

The good guys are East-West.  2NT was takeout showing extra shape and they got a very good score for +300.  Do you like North’s 3 bid?  Note to self – keep that double card handy.

There is so much more on this site including simulations and some handy software and some cartoons too.

A little contest helper

September 23rd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

As I was doing my entry for the World Mind Games contest I realized I needed to understand how the pairings in the round of 8 and round of 4 were organized. Since if 2 teams were likely to play each other they couldn’t both make it to the next round. So here it is.

Round of 16

1. Group A v Group B and Group C v Group D.

2. In each pair of groups the first placed team of each group chooses its

opponent for the round of 16 among the 2nd, 3rd and 4th qualified of the

other group.

we now have eight matches

Match 1 is the winner of A and their choice from group B

Match 2 is the winner of B and their choice from group A

Match 3 is the 2nd place of B and the lowest remaining A

Match 4 is the 2nd of A and the lowest remaining B

Match 5-8 are the same with division c-d

Round of 8

Match 9 is the winner of Match 1 and the winner of match 8 (coming from the C-D division)

Match 10 is the winner of Match 2 and Match 7

Match 11 is the winner of Match 3 and Match 6

Match 12 is the winner of Match 4 and Match 5

Round of 4

Match 13 is the winner of Match 9 and 12

Match 14 is the winner of Match 10 and Match 11

There is a playoff for third place. There is no carryover into any part of the knockout phase.

Interrupting the conditions of contest did take a bit of work but I think I got it right

Division D – Full of Chaos and Uncertainty

September 22nd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  5 Comments 

1. Australia
2. Belarus
3. Botswania
4. England
5. Germany
6. Greece
7. Indonesia
8. Jordan
9. Lebanon
10. . Lithuania
11. . Philippines
12. . Reunion
13. . Serbia
14. . Switzerland
15.   Thailand
16. . Turkey
17. . USA
18. . Venezuela

I think the USA has to be the favourite.  Germany which came third in the European and England should Q.  England did not do very well in the European Championship but this is a different team. Turkey, Indonesia. Australia will be a contender but this team is different from the team that did so well in Shanghai.  So far I have

1. USA 2. Germany

It is time to consult the Oracle if I can drag him away from reading the soccer news.  The Oracle likes England and Australia but he admits his glasses are foggy.

I head over for an I-Ching reading.  I shake the stones 6 times and come up with this hexagram

This it tells means…

It is a difficult time, since the elements involved are not directly under your control.  If you worry about it you will grow inwardly confused and succumb to chaos and fear.

It does sound ominous and since the elements are not under my control anyway I am boldly going to make my own prediction.

1. USA 2. Germany 3. Turkey 4. Australia

I guess I will work on the seniors next.  Watch for the bridgeblogging contest, coming soon.  You will have a chance to pick the winners yourself and compare with our efforts.

DAY 13 – Bridge on the Internet – I love you too Claire

September 22nd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I started today by reading Stacy Jacoby’s blog http://stacyjacobs.com/ in response to Ray’s blog (right here on bridgeblogging) handicapping the women’s division in the World Mind Games and adding a response.  I am handicapping the Open Division which is quite tough but I have a lot of help from the Oracle occasionally, Paul Gibson with his excellent critiques and various fortune telling devices.  Pauls’ own blog is at http://thebeercard.blogspot.com/.

Anyway, I was having so much fun looking at blogs I went to Clairebridge  http://clairebridge.blogspot.com/.  Claire hasn’t blogged in a while but there is a lot of good stuff on her site including a tribute page to Paul Soloway

http://www.clairebridge.com/soloway.htm.  It is a wonderful page.  But Claire has a lot more than just her blog.  Go to her page www.clairebridge.com.  You love the “what’s new” page.  Don’t miss the link to a tribute to Bobby Wolff.  There is a review of his great book The Lone Wolff by David bird and lots and lots of picture too.  There is so much here I could spend the week on this site.  I am lost in the practice hands, deals.  Back in a bit while I learn on this site.  In fact Claire may have the best collection of bridge links on the web.  This includes  has a great roll of bloggers too. 

From here I went to http://moot.typepad.com/minnesota_bridge/ Peggy Kaplan’s blog.

I copied her picture of the winning European team.  Since this journey is designed to help my bridge game I download my favourite hands written by Paul Meerschaert.

The first hand is amazing.  Paul makes 6c redoubled missing all forces aces (yes there are some voids but not enough!)  But there are interesting lessons from this hand and it has nothing to do with the result.   Here is the hand.  I will leave it to your imagination to work out how Paul made 6C redoubled (or read his article).

Here is the bidding North-South vulnerable at matchpoints

4NT must be a distributional takeout.  I wouldn’t expect it to be strong with the initial pass over 2H.  The double of 5H is for penalty.  The redouble was punishing partner mainly.

Here is the whole hand

Do you think that North’s pull of 5C doubled is reasonable?  I don’t.  This is what I would expect him to have at this vulnerability for the auction.  Besides its matchpoints and defending must be our best chance of a reasonable score.  Responder hasn’t promised any fit at all and if we go down two in 5C it is likely to be a bottom.  It’s quite likely on this auction that partner has a heart surprise for declarer.  As Paul says North wasn’t thinking three dimensionally.  He was only thinking about his hand not about the whole deal and the auction so far.

What do you think about East’s bid of 5H, by the way?

I have found this to my an amazing day with lots of things to learn and think about.  Next I go to

http://rfrick.info/bridge/ Robert Frick’s website. 

I try a play problem.  (The defender’s hands are played for you and you can try variations which make the play harder.)  I have no problem with them at all.  I think my main problems when playing a hand is concentration, especially on BBO so this isn’t that much of a surprise.  There is a lot more to do on the site including a section on squeezes and pyschology bot of which I find interesting.

One thing I notice while roaming today is another interesting thing on the ACBL website.  Its the appeals from the NABC’s.   So if you want to see what happened in Las Vegas 2008 you just click on it and read.

http://www.acbl.org/play/casebooks.html

I don’t know why I find appeals so interesting.  Ray and I play a game with them.  One of us reads the case and the other makes the ruling, sometimes guessing if the committee will match them or not.  The rulings are often unexpected.  I don’t think this will make me a better bridge player but it will provide some evening entertainment.

I also wander over to a website belonging to Marvin French.  http://www.marvinfrench.com/

His title: luck comes and goes, skill comes and stays

I like that.  I realize that there are a lot of personal bridge websites like this one.  Marvin has a number of interesting articles.  You won’t agree with all his ideas.  I find the article on how to beat the experts interesting.  See what you think.

I go to Graeme Williams’s site http://www.gwilliams.org.uk/index.html briefly. 

It is called Bridge Conventions and the focus is definitely on system.  It is really just a survey site  since all explanations are very brief.  There are descriptions of some of the more popular systems (not Polish here though). Conventions are divided into categories with drop down menus.  The explanations are quite terse though and there is as expected a British flavour.  I find a few interesting things under signals like VInje Signal.  I still don’t know what it is though so I do a search.  I find at the bridgeguys.

http://homepage.mac.com/bridgeguys/JGlossary/JournalistLeads.html

that this is another name for journalist leads (I actually play a variations with Ray against notrump).  By coincidence looking up journalist leads takes me back to Marvin French’s website.  Marvin has his own system of leads and he compares his system “marvin” to “journalist.

Day 12 on the Internet the young the old and in between

September 22nd, 2008  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Just for fun I look on the net and see what some stories about bridge that show up.  Wouldn’t you know the first story to pop out was one about old people playing bridge and reducing their risk of dementia.

Bridge is continuously recommended by experts because it’s more complex than other games, and requires planning, strategizing, and logic.

There are lots more like that.

I find a nostalgic story in the May 11 1053 edition of Time Magazine

In the White House, Saturday night is usually bridge night. The evening begins about 5 o’clock, in the solarium on the White House roof, is interrupted for a snack or buffet supper, then may continue down in Ike’s second-floor study until 10 or 10:30. Guests arriving for a bridge date are likely to find the host waiting for them at the card table, impatiently riffling the decks.

Classic & Sound. Ike has been playing bridge for more than 25 years, ranks as an expert just a shade below tournament class. His game was once described by Ely Culbertson as "classic, sound, with flashes of brilliance." His favorite bridge partner, NATO’s General Alfred Gruenther, is one of the few military men who have long been regarded as better than Ike at the game.* After one crucial hand, in which they were soundly set, Partners Eisenhower and Gruenther mulled over the game play in an exchange of letters that went on for two years.

Much more cool I discover that iPREPpress has released how to play bridge for iPOD bridge fans.  The ACBL seems to have supplied the material.

But back to the main purpose – learning.  I wind up looking at Zar points. 

http://www.zarpoints.com/

I am firmly of the belief that point count doesn’t work all that well and I have this thing about aces so this might be interesting.  Zar points claims to be three times better than standard point count.  You seem to need 37 points to open.  I hope that you are allowed to bring calculators to the table.  The Zar approach considers both high card points and fit.  One of the most interesting things to me is Zar’s Theorem

Applying mathematics, we see that THE WORST-CASE scenario when talking about fit and misfit is that you either have at least two 7-card fits (the so called “Italian” fits) or one 8+ card fit.

There are no misfits.  This concept brightens my entire day. Although playing hand with two seven card fits may not be that much fun.  Still as he says it means that you goal in bidding is to find your fit rather than to find out whether you have one.  But this situation apparently only occurs 15% of the time.  It makes me feel better about open weak notrump hands vulnerable.

A few other goodies, convention cards from some top pairs. a discussion of some important  bridge matches and a tool for calculating Zar points.

Well having hit the old guys I decide to look at the younger generation and head over the www.bridgeiscool.com

The most interesting thing on this site from my point of view is definitely Mike Develin’s blog

 http://www.bridgeiscool.com/blog/

Mike

What do you think of this hand from Friday September 5th.

You have a balanced 22 and in your system you open 3NT.  (I hate that Mike).  Partner bid 4◊.  transfer to hearts.  RHO doubles and you like your hand so you redouble.  Mike doesn’t have a clear agreement here and come to think of it neither do I in this auction.  Usually I play it is an offer to play right there).  Partner bids 5NT.  What do you think that means and what do you do?

Could this be grand slam force?  Could it be pick a slam?  I am going to guess that it is pick a slam but this auction needs discussion.

In some partnerships I could bid 6♣ to say I had a good hand and no extra heart length (if the redouble does indeed show hearts).  This auction is way over my head but at imps I would bid 6♥.  Partner knows I have at least 22 high card points.  At matchpoints I would bid 6NT.

Anyway notrump is the spot.  Partner held

7NT makes since the spades work but 7♥ does not make.  I wonder whether partner will bid 7NT over 6NT.  It is a pretty good grand.

From here there is a link to Kitty Cooper’s website.  www.kittycopper.com with all sorts of material for students and teachers.

I enter a poll which asks what your favourite use for a 2D bid is.  I expect that the juniors will have some interesting answers.  I pick multi.  The most popular answer is weak 2 with 36% but multi is second with 18% so perhaps in the future it will be allowed in more ACBL events!

There look to be some interesting articles too.

I finish up tonight at a page which gives homage to Terence Reese by

Ates Gulcugil

http://members.tripod.com/terencereese/

There are a lot of reference to "The Great Bridge Scandal" and some interesting articles.  Also his obituary in the January 31, 1996 Times.  Here is a bit of it..

I end up at an interesting site.  Thomas’ Bridge Fantasia.

http://bridge.thomasoandrews.com/

There are lots of interesting things here.  There seems to be a free Open Souce deal generator called deal which includes a built in double-dummy solver called Deal.  Download it from the site.  He has a number of interesting deals to try and also some bridge oddities.  He definitely answers the question are there any deal where neither side can a make a contract.

There’s lots more fun stuff including the Andrews Edition of the impossible bridge book.  Just enter a number (a very long number if you don’t want North to have 13 spades) and get a bridge hand.

Open Group C – the place to be

September 20th, 2008  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

The teams in Group C of the Open in alphabetical order are

Bangladesh

Belgium

Bermuda

Bosnia

Bulgaria

Chile

Chinese Taipei

Egypt

Georgia

Iceland

Monaco

New Zealand

Norway

Poland

Spain

Ukraine

If you are not a top team and you want to make it to the round of 16 Open Group C is for you.  There just aren’t that many standouts in this group.  The top teams are all European.  Norway won the European championships and they figure to win this group too.  Bulgaria should place second.  Third is probably Belgium and now we are really in a dogfight for the fourth qualifying spot. 

Here are some teams that won’t make it: Spain, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Bosnia, Chile, Egypt, New Zealand, Chinese Tapei.  Can there really be that many weak teams in one group or did I miss something here?

I don’t know much about the Ukraine but I don’t think it is going to survive the cut.  That leaves Monaco, (yes Monaco), Poland (which is not the team it was), Iceland and Georgia to see who can beat up on the bad teams the most.  I am going to pick Iceland but it really is a tossup.

This is so tough that I need to check with the tarot cards since the fortune cookies were not that helpful yesterday.

The first card, judgment reversed is indecision. Hmmm.

The second card the Emperor reversed: A deceiver

The third cards represents my motivation.  Temperance Self control, patience in handling situations … I can see how that fits in

The fourth card is the chariot: Change through force.  Advancement through bold action.

The fifth card is Death: a new beginning

The sixth card: The high priest reveresed, inability to hear an inner voice

I can see it now.  Something surprising is going to happen in this group.  An unexpected team is going to advance.  Can it be Egupt?  The chariot fits anyhow.