North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 08/14/2023

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

ACBL Membership. Has your ACBL membership lapsed? If so, you may have received a postcard with a QR code inviting you to rejoin. If you do, you will get a $20 credit to play in our games. We hope you take advantage of becoming a member again and having some free play!

ACBL Online Community Games. The ACBL is providing online games Tuesday and Thursday nights at 6 p.m. for players with 0-50 points. The games are preceded with a pre-game tip and followed by a mini lesson. For details click here.

NAP Flight B Pre-Registration. North Penn is one of the hosts for the NAP Flight B District 4 game on Saturday, September 23. Players are required to register with the club where they plan to play. Early registration is $64; last minute registration is $80. Registration can be made online (see details on our website) or by check made out to the North Penn Bridge Club placed in the red box at the club. Be sure to list your names and ACBL numbers. Many of you have already qualified, so now is the time to register. If you aren’t sure whether you have qualified, you can click here to find out.

August Schedule:

August 14-18 is a promotional week for the summer 2025 NABC in Philadelphia. These promotional games award substantial extra points.
August 16 is the monthly 0-50 game at 9:30am.
August 21-31 are NAP Qualifying games.

Upcoming Tournaments:

August 21-27 is The Baltimore Regional
September 8-10 is The Wilmington Sectional
September 23 is NAP District 4 Flight B
September 30 is NAP District 4 Flights A and C

STaC Results. Congratulations to the following players who did well:

Monday

Eighth:--.Bonnie Bickman & Joan Regenbogen

Tuesday

First:----Beth & Roger Milton

Second:-.Peggy Michaud & Ross Currie

Third:---.Dick Abell & Frank Lucard

Wednesday

Eighth:-..Sandy Sill & Sandy Salasin

Thursday

First:----John Dickenson & Ellie Goldman

Second:-.Ken & Tom Salter

Third:---.Ed Leach & Dave Dodgson

Friday

First:----Cheryl Berman & Arlene Lessack

Second:-.Jane Pelullo & Gail Kirrstetter

Fourth:--Christine Sgro & Priscilla O’Connor

Recognition

Congratulations to the following members who have advanced in rank:

Tony Zacchei--------Diamond Life Master

Lisa Mita------------.Sapphire Life Master

Susan Morse--------.Gold Life Master

Ross Currie---------..Bronze Life Master

Dave Willgruber-----Life Master

Jack Willgruber-----Life Master

From Mitch Snyder

50th Anniversary Celebration Co-Chair

Around 1980, as group exercise was starting to become popular, the Y moved the bridge game from the gym to a smaller meeting room. The 10-12+ table games that the club regularly hosted were too big for the meeting room. In March 1981 the club broke from the Y, removed ‘YMCA’ from the name and started looking for a new home.

A short time later the club found a new home with the Loyal of Moose at 3^rd and Walnut in Lansdale. Being a formal organization and heavy on tradition, all male members of the bridge club had to be initiated into the Moose. The club remained there for more than 20 years. The Tuesday and Thursday games thrived. The Monday afternoon game was added as well as a short-lived Thursday evening game. Bob Pollsen pretty much ran the club in those days and remained active until 2005. The Tuesday evening game had a string of recognizable directors over the years including (apologies to anyone I missed) Walter Hall, Bob Pollsen, Real Fradette, Larry Umphlet and Mitch Snyder. Dot Ehling and Mitch tutored under Walter and Dotty may have even run a couple games.

One of the features of the 50^th anniversary celebration will be a memorabilia table. If you have anything from the ‘old’ days that you’d like to share, let Toysie, Beth or Mitch know; we’ll take good care of your stuff. Photos would be especially appreciated.

Education

Shuffle & Deal--.Wednesdays at 9:30 a.m.

Tuesday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m.

2/1 Saturday Class with Lisa Mita at North Penn Bridge Club.

When:-----October 7^th through November 4^th

Time:------9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Cost:-----..$125 for five lessons.

------------Or sign up at the club.

New Fall Sunday Beginner Six Session Class with Deb Crisfield.

When:-----September 10^th through October 15^th

Time:------12 noon to 2:00 p.m.

Cost:------.First two lessons FREE! $150 for the last four lessons

------------Cell: 973-769-9619.

Spread the word! If you know of someone who is interested, please have them contact Deb by email at or by phone.

September Classes with Joann Glasson on Zoom

When:-----September 4 and 11

Time:------10 a.m.

Details:---.Click here

Partnership

To add your name to the player list or to request a partner for a game, please send an email to [email protected].

Calendar

Click here to see a file you can enlarge.

Ask the Expert

Here’s your chance to get answers! We have a panel of expert players ready and waiting. Email your questions, or a pesky hand, or something you’d like to know about bidding or playing to Toysie at [email protected]. She will forward them to the panel, one will be chosen, and the question and answers will be printed in the following week’s newsletter.

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

“The best time to lead a short suit is with trump control. Ax(x) or Kxx are great trump holdings to lead from shortness. However, if trumping will cost you a trump trick, leads from shortness with trump holdings such as J10xx, QJ9x or K108x are counter productive.”

From 60 Facts Of Bridge Life (Good Advice to Give Your Partner)

by Eddie Kantar

Deal of the Week

by Rex Saffer

Wrung Out To Dry

Introduction

Squeeze plays seem to appear in bridge columns considerably more often than in the course of routine play. This is certainly true of your author. Since the first article in September 2020, five of thirty–one including this one feature a squeeze in the Play section. What is the fascination? Perhaps it is the wide variety of squeeze types, or the satisfaction of manufacturing an extra trick where none apparently exists, or equivalently, extracting one from an unwilling, innocent victim. Endplays have similarly appealing features.

As we have written previously, Clyde Love, author of the all–time classic Bridge Squeezes Complete, coined the acronym BLUE to summarize requirements. If they are all satisfied, the squeeze is guaranteed to execute successfully:

(B) One defender must guard Both suits.

(L) Declarer must have just one Loser among the remaining tricks ----to be played.

(U) At .least .one .threat .must .lie .in the Upper hand, the hand to

----.play after the defender to be squeezed.

(E) There must be an Entry to any established threat.

The Deal of the Week

Our Deal is adapted from a Common Game board played in a recent Open game at a local F2F Club.

The Auction

With the opponents necessarily silent, West opened the balanced 13 HCP hand 1♦, and with a barely noticeable twitch East responded 1♠, taking it slow with 20 HCP opposite an opening bid. West rebid a vanilla 1NT, limiting the hand to a balanced 12–14 HCP and denying 4–card spade support. East might have considered an ace–asking Gerber 4♣, but that would not have revealed whether West was on a maximum or minimum. Instead, East’s considerate, quantitative 4NT rebid gave West a voice in the outcome. The flat, unexceptionally textured hand would be unappealing to some, but at least all the honors are working together. Our West player is not known for excessive timidity and accepted the invitation.

The Play

Unwilling to break the spades, North also ruled out a diamond and led the ♥5. The dummy came down and declarer paused to assess the joint holdings. There were 11 top tricks with a possibility of a twelfth from a lucky lie of the spade suit, or a squeeze if one defender had to guard both black suits. In this deal that is the North player, but as we shall see, played with sufficient foresight the squeeze will succeed against either defender.

Let’s check BLUE:

(B) North guards Both threat suits.

(L) Declarer -has .two .Losers .among .the .remaining .tricks .to .be

----played.

(U) Both the club and the spade threats lie in the Upper hand, the ----.hand to play after North.

(E) Entries exist in the form of the black aces.

Uh oh. With two losers declarer must lose a trick to “rectify the count”, squeeze lingo for this requirement. So after winning the ♥Q in hand, declarer led a low club toward dummy. North inserted the ♣10, declarer ducked to allow it to win the trick, but seeing that the ♣Q was going to fall on the next round of the suit anyway, South overtook and returned the ♥10. Declarer won in dummy, cashed a third heart, then ran the diamonds. Along the way, North discarded a spade and a club, and this was the position when declarer played the ♦Q (the squeeze card), feeding North into the wringer:

If North lets go the ♣J, declarer pitches a spade and runs the table with three spades and two clubs. If North jettisons a spade, four spades and a club bring the slam home. Click here to play the hand in the BBO HandViewer. Use the Next button to advance trick by trick or the Play button to choose your own cards and explore alternate lines of play.

Hold On There

In an alternate timeline, the North and South hands are switched, and South must guard both black suits:

North leads the ♥10, and declarer again wins in hand and leads a club. North and dummy duck, and South wins and returns a heart. Declarer can now run the squeeze successfully, but with one crucial difference. Dummy plays before South, and (U) will not be satisfied unless the club threat is transferred to declarer’s hand. This means that the ♣A must be unblocked before running the rest of the winners. This frees up two club discards in dummy for the third and fourth rounds of diamonds. This time, South is reduced to discarding the ♣K, making declarer’s ♣7 good, or to throwing a spade, handing declarer four tricks in that suit.

Cashing the ♣A before running the winners is a form of the so–called Vienna Coup, where the unblock is necessary to establish an entry to an existing threat in the opposite hand, or as here, where the threat must be transferred to the hand with the squeeze card. Note that the squeeze against North in the first example still works with the ♣A unblocked.

Click here to run the alternate squeeze in the BBO HandViewer. Use the Next button to advance trick by trick, or use the Play button to choose your own cards and watch the squeeze fail if the ♣A is not played before running the winners.

Closing Thoughts

Dear Reader, there are upwards of a dozen distinct types of squeezes. The two versions presented here are Simple Squeezes, and executing them is largely a matter of mechanics once the concepts are grasped and the requirements (BLUE) seen to be satisfied. If we are not sure of the position(s), it is still good practice to give up as many tricks as necessary, as soon as possible, to rectify the count and set up the run of winners. Even if there is not a legitimate squeeze in the cards, the defenders may discard improperly in the endplay and hand you your final trick. When this happens, it is called a pseudo–squeeze.