North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 07/18/2022

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

According to the weather forecast, it’s going to be very hot this week so be sure to come and cool down, play bridge and reconnect with your friends in our cheery air conditioned space!

July 20 - Shuffle and Deal – 9:30 a.m.

July 22 - 0-750 Swiss Team game

July 27-August 1 - Club Championship Games

August 7 - Bobbie Gomer Team Challenge. There is still time to sign up so be sure to form a team and compete for the trophy! The attached flyer provides all the details.

Partnership

Details about the new partnership desk coming soon. Stay tuned!

Calendar

Click here to see a file you can enlarge.

0-750 Reminder: Swiss Teams on Friday July 22.

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

Forcing Declarer To Lose Control.

“The most powerful line of defense is the force. It causes declarer to lose control of the hand and to abandon side-suit winners (you may even completely take over the hand.) The goal is to get control of declarer’s own trump suit. The force is an ideal defense in matchpoints because it maximizes your potential for defensive tricks. Therefore, the force, when the right conditions are present, has priority over any other line of defense.”

The following are conditions for forcing declarer, according to the authors:

When declarer has a two-suitor; any time you have four trumps or if you believe partner does; 4-3 trump contracts; whenever the long trump hand can be forced early.

From How the Experts Win at Bridge

by Burt Hall and Lynn Rose-Hall

Deal of the Week

by Bruce Schwaidelson

How To Read Bridge Tea Leaves Like A Pro

Lenny Tetley is one of those amazing people who can actually earn a living playing a game he learned as a child: contract bridge. While his elders were busy producing tea and promoting it (perhaps you recall their jingle: “I like those tiny little tea leaves in Tetley tea”), Lenny was busy studying how to read those little tea leaves, thinking tasseography (you may have to google that one as I did) would somehow improve his bridge game.

Lenny is no Meckstroth or Zia but he makes a decent wage by partnering people who want to improve their skills and/or augment their ACBL ranking by playing with a professional. One of Lenny’s regular patrons is Patsy Client, known more for her country singing than her card competence. Unfortunately Tetley’s excellent play has had little effect on Patsy’s bridge-ranking or her table skills, but she enjoys the game and seems to love paying Lenny.

The pair’s recent challengers in one of our Tuesday night online games were the Osmond twins, whose parents are bridge players with a sense of humor. Playing in the West chair was Lee Harvey Osmond (aka “LHO” of course) and East was Ray Henry Osmond (“RHO”). Tetley’s Center Hand Opponent (“CHO”) was Patsy, who found it somewhat confusing that RHO was actually her LHO – and vice-versa.

One of the skills that professionals must hone is how to bid NT before their partner does. In fact, Tetley is currently writing a book on the subject, and today’s DOTW will be appearing in Chapter IV: “How to Contract Poach Like the Male Partner in a Mixed Doubles Tennis Match”.

After East elected to double Patsy’s 1♦ opener for takeout rather than overcall 1♥, most of us holding South’s hand would routinely respond 1♥, having 5 of them, to provide partner the opportunity to support hearts or perhaps bid spades. I am sure if Tetley were playing with one of his peers he would do the same, but partnering Patsy, why give her the chance to rebid 1♠ or 1NT? Being a true professional, Tetley believed 1NT was no doubt his appropriate call, expecting it to end the auction.

Unfortunately LHO hurled a monkey-wrench into the proceedings by advancing with 2♣, forcing our hero Tetley to balance with 2♥. This call threw Patsy into a tizzy but then she remembered reading something about “The Impossible 2♠ Bid” and wondered if she had somehow missed the write-up on “The Impossible 2♥ Bid”. Having no idea what to do next, she decided that 2NT would be better than passing or bidding 2♠. Tetley’s poach had at last succeeded!

Lee Harvey began the defense with his 4^th best club to the 7, 10, and Ace. Tetley could see 4 obvious losers (♠A, ♥AK, ♦A) and couldn’t afford 2 club losers. Since West’s 4^th best lead usually promises an honor, Tetley’s tea leaf reading began by correctly presuming the ♣Q was where he needed it to be. West’s 2♣ free bid probably indicated a 5-bagger - possibly 6 if East were the type who would double with both majors and only a doubleton club - and West likely held one of the 4 missing high cards. Tetley knew he needed to remove that entry before his club stoppers were knocked out. You can follow the play by clicking here.

Playing hearts twice would give Tetley a 50% chance of getting rid of West’s entry before clubs were set to run, so he led low to dummy’s ♥J and East’s King. Ray Henry found the best defense by returning the ♣6 to his partner’s 4 and dummy’s Jack. LHO’s ♣4 announced to his brother - and his opponent - that West did indeed hold 5 or more clubs.

Tetley next led dummy’s ♥9, expecting hearts to be 3-3 or 4-2 and hoping to force out LHO’s Ace. When RHO played low, declarer decided to overtake it with his Queen and surprisingly LHO showed out, pitching the ♦6 (standard carding). This was good news and bad! Tetley suspected that RHO had missed his chance to beat the contract by rising with the Ace and playing a 3^rd club, if he still held one, but our declarer had created a potential 3^rd heart loser for himself by overtaking the 9.

It was high tea time for tasseography - and a great opportunity for Tetley to show Patsy why it’s truly worth paying him “the big bucks”. When he asked the tea leaves “Why would RHO make a takeout double holding ♥AK-5th?”, the leaves responded: “Either (1) he has a hand too good to make a mere overcall, or (2) he also has a 4-card spade suit plus 3 or 4 clubs. The leaves discounted his having a minimal takeout with only 2 clubs, since then a 1♥ overcall would surely be more appealing than doubling.

It was evident from the bidding that option #1 was unlikely, so the larger tea leaves concluded that East’s distribution must be 4=5=1=3. And then those tiny little tea leaves whispered that the doubler’s spades should be AJxx or at the very least Axxx, since if he held Jxxx he would have certainly preferred a 1♥ call. Tetley whispered back to the tiny leaves that if RHO had read Karen Walker in June’s ACBL Bulletin, Ray Henry would have known that after a 1♦ opening “…the trend among experienced players is to overcall 1♥ [with a hand like East’s]. When your hand isn’t strong enough to show everything, it’s important to get your long major into the auction.” Karen’s example: overcall 1♥ with ♠K1064 ♥AQ854 ♦3 ♣KJ9, rather than doubling.

After this pekoe into Ray Henry’s hand, Tetley and his wonderful tea leaves also concluded that Lee Harvey held ♦A-6^th and his twin a mere singleton. That meant Tetley must sever his opponents’ communications immediately by leading a diamond towards dummy’s KQ. Lee Harvey ducked to preserve his entry (it would not have helped him to pop the Ace), and when dummy’s ♦Q held the trick, here was the position :

It was finally time to work on spades. The ♠K was next, just in case LHO held the stiff Jack, and RHO took his Ace. Presented with a choice of losing plays, Ray Henry decided to clear the club suit, declarer pitching his losing diamond. Tetley now had 3 clubs, 1 diamond, and 1 heart in the bank with 3 more spades on the horizon. He ran dummy’s ♠9 confident that it would win, and the ♠10 and Queen were next.

The contract was now assured so Tetley put RHO to the test by playing the ♥10. Ray Henry remembered the heart spots and correctly ducked. The pro conceded the final 2 tricks to RHO’s ♥A7 for +150. Had RHO endplayed himself by immediately taking his Ace, Tetley would have claimed the last 2 tricks for +180.

Lenny Tetley had read the tea leaves superbly, scoring a well-deserved top (85% in the Common Game), but it left the Osmond twins bemoaning the fact that they would have beaten the contract if Ray Henry had risen with his ♥A way back at trick 4 in order to play his third club.

At my table the defense was similar, but that declarer, clearly a non-professional, tried tarot cards rather than tea leaves and failed to make his 2NT contract.

Brewing for a refresher course on the Tetley jingle? Lenny advises the company used it in radio and TV spots for over 30 years starting in the 1950’s. He suggests you try watching Tony Randall’s somewhat lame 30-second TV ad from 1980 by clicking here . Sorry, it won’t help your bridge game.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Did you know that in Las Vegas there are more Catholic Churches than casinos. Not surprisingly some worshipers at Sunday services will give casino chips rather than cash when the basket is passed. Since they get chips from many different casinos, the churches have devised a method to collect the offerings. The churches send all their collected chips to a nearby Franciscan monastery for sorting and then the chips are taken to the casinos of origin and cashed in. This is done by chip monks.

Courtesy of our resident comic - Michael Carver