North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 01/10/2022

2022 NPDBC Officers

At the January 6^th Board of Governors meeting, the following officers were elected:

President – Pat Andrews

Vice President – Michael Carver

Secretary – Brendan O’Malley

Additionally, Dave Dodgson was reappointed Club Manager and Beth Milton was reappointed Treasurer.

From the Club President

Pat Andrews

Belated New Year’s greetings to all. I want to start by thanking our players for their faithful support of NPDBC over the past two years of uncertainty. As you know, we are currently taking a short break from in-person games to allow the post-holiday surge of Omicron to abate. Please know our Board is committed to re-opening the Club doors as soon as possible. I’m sure you are all aware that we’re approaching that decision with player safety in mind. Watch your email or check the Club website for updates as they are issued.

Some of you have contacted me to ask how the Club is doing financially, so I’d like to address that. It is true that we’ve had to use some of our “savings” to weather decreased game participation resulting from the pandemic. However, please know that the current financial state of North Penn Duplicate Bridge Club is sound, despite the reduction in savings. Assuming we emerge from the Covid era sometime in the first half of 2022, we expect to be fine. Of course, we are going to have to rebuild our table counts, hopefully to pre-pandemic levels, so that the long-term future of our Club remains bright.

If you want to know how to help, I offer two suggestions. First, if you haven’t already done so, please pay your $10 dues for 2022. The dues money isn’t the big issue…it’s knowing that you stand with us as a member of our bridge community. Secondly, play in as many of our games as possible, either in-person or online. The single biggest factor driving a bridge club’s viability is game attendance. When you have a choice of games, we hope you will choose North Penn.

Here’s to a great 2022! I’ll see you at the tables!

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

COVID Response. As you probably know by now, we decided to temporarily close the club for face-to-face games because of reported infections. This week, all our games are online. Please monitor your email and our website to get the latest information on the status of the Club reopening.

Shuffle and Deal. Shuffle and deal will return on Wednesdays at 9:30 when the club reopens.

Schedule. The attached online game schedule is for this week only. Game status communication for next week and thereafter will be emailed later this week. As always, our website will contain the most up-to-date information.

Proof of vaccination and face masks will remain a requirement at our F2F games until further notice.

Calendar (click here to see a file you can enlarge):

Condolences

Sadly, we have learned that Jeremiah Williams, a longtime player at NPenn, died in November.

Education

Shuffle and Deal. The Wednesday morning sessions are generating about four tables. Once the club reopens, Deb Crisfield will be looking for volunteers to assist her in mentoring these up and coming players. Please sign up on the schedule which will be posted on the bulletin board at the club. Thanks!

2022 Lessons for Advancing Players. Please check the NP website for updates regarding John Dickinson’s class on Monday, January 24.

Recognition

December ACBL Rank Achievements:

Bruce Schwaidelson Sapphire Life Master

Dave Dodgson Ruby Life Master

Judi Shinberg Ruby Life Master

Vincent Coll Bronze Life Master

Other Achievements:

Carole Bishop participates in the monthly ACBL online IT’S YOUR CALL Quiz. She placed in the top online scores for November 2021. You can check out the list on page 78 of the January 2022 Bridge Bulletin. Good going Carole!

We update our Facebook page regularly so be sure to check it out. It’s a great way to stay in touch with all the happenings at North Penn.

Tidbits

Some Thoughts on Pulling (or not) Trump:

“Almost the first lesson a bridge player learns is the importance of extracting the opponents’ trumps. Sometimes it is right to draw them immediately, and sometimes one has to take care of other business first. Drawing trumps should often be postponed when the trumps in the short hand are needed for ruffing purposes or as entries. There is no general rule. Declarer must plan ahead to determine whether he can afford to pull the trumps first or whether he will need them later for some purpose.

In the vast majority of suit contracts, trumps are drawn with the long hand, and additional tricks are created by ruffing in the short hand if necessary. Declarer should beware of ruffing in the long hand unless he has plenty of extra trumps. Otherwise he is apt to lose control of the trump suit, and the whole hand may collapse.”

From Winning Declarer Play

by Dorothy Hayden Truscott (updated by Gail Greenberg)

Deal of the Week

by John Dickenson

More Misadventures at the Bridge Table, or

"Better Lucky Than Good"

I got a lot of comments on my article where I forgot Kickback, mostly along the lines of “John, I thought you never forget conventions”. I do, and I make lots of other mistakes too.

I was thinking about this as I was walking in Palm Springs with Susan Morse and she told me that John McAllister wanted to interview her for his podcast, The Setting Trick. Most of his interviewees are world class players, and Susan posited that she was “the Lucille Ball of bridge”. I guess with all the crazy stuff that goes on at my table, I am one of the Three Stooges of bridge.

So I have for my next few columns some of my BLTG hands, where either I or my partner royally screwed up the auction but we emerged unscathed due to dumb luck.

North opened 1C and after two passes I balanced with 2NT. Now I think most people know you don’t make weak bids in the pass out seat, you pass. Traditionally 1NT in pass out seat shows 11-14, double and bid minimum NT shows a strong NT 15-18, and 2NT shows 19-20 balanced. If this sounds foreign to you, I suggest Mike Lawrence’s excellent 451 page treatise, Balancing In Contract Bridge.

LHO passed and partner (who shall remain nameless) transferred to spades and over my 3S bid 4D. There was a long break in tempo before his 4D bid, but of course that is unauthorized to me and ethical considerations dictate that I ignore the break. So I bid 4S.

LHO led his stiff diamond queen. I won ace and led back a diamond and North was thrilled to jump in and ruff his partner’s diamond trick. He now cashed his two master trumps before they could go away, and led the queen of hearts from AQxx. I won the king, and played off three rounds of top clubs, shedding all the hearts from dummy. Ruffed my small heart in dummy, then ruffed a diamond high with the queen and pulled North’s last trump with the jack. On the play of my last trump, North was in the jaws of a pseudo squeeze – should he keep the heart ace or the club jack? Well he threw the club and I took my tenth trick with the club 9. Plus 620 was worth 100% as one might imagine.

What can we learn from this? Well, when it goes 1C, P, P and partner jumps it is not weak, whether in a suit or NT. With a weak hand partner can pass the hand out in 1C. And as for the defense – when holding 4 good trumps, one usually does not want to lead from shortness, better to force declarer to ruff in the long hand and lose trump control, what we call a “forcing defense”. When one does ruff, it is inadvisable to “ruff air” – you want to ruff declarer’s winners, not his losers. And seldom a good idea to underlead aces in a suit contract, especially when your RHO has shown 19-20 balanced and especially when you hold the queen as well. North could do well on opening lead to play AK and a 3^rd trump and wait for 2 hearts, a club and a diamond for down 3, although in practice I will probably strip him of trumps and diamonds and throw him in with his 4^th club, forcing him to break hearts and escape for down 2.