North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 06/19/2023

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

Royal STaC Week. Congratulations to the following players who did well:

Monday Open Game:

Second: Toysie Walker and Don Baker

Tenth: Pat Andrews and Ellie Goldman

Thirteenth: Dave Dresher and Mitch Snyder

Tuesday 0-1000 Game:

First: Kay Garrity and Rich Godshall

Second: Don Baker and Michael Carver

Third: Peggy Michaud and Ross Currie

Wednesday Open Game:

First: Ken Salter and David Dodgson

Thursday Open Game:

Fourth: Ken Salter and Tom Salter

Fifth: Mitch Snyder and Pat Andrews

Seventh: Bruce Schwaidelson and Larry Umphlet

Friday 0-750 Team Game:

First: Peggy Michaud, Ross Currie, Joyce Levin and Don Baker

Second: Jeanne Harrington, Emily David, Dick Abell and Frank Lucard

Third: Bob Horning, Rose Wartman, P.J. Ingram and Denise Kenyon

The Longest Day - June 21.

Donations for our Longest Day effort continue to come in...we’re so pleased to have raised more than twice our official goal! To date, our players have given more than $3,300 to help in the fight against Alzheimer’s. If you want to join our team’s effort, there’s still time; we will be taking donations through the end of June.

Click here to give. Lunch at 11:30 a.m. Looking forward to seeing you at the tables this Wednesday!

Board Meeting. Thursday, June 22 at 10 a.m.

Robot Individual. Saturday, June 24 at 4 p.m. This game will also benefit the Alzheimer’s Association.

Attention 0-500 Players. Please sign up in advance. You will be notified if there are not enough players for a game.

King of Prussia Regional. It’s time to make your plans for the regional at the end of the month. There are events for all levels from 199er games on up. This is our local regional and needs our support. A schedule of events is available here.

Monday, July 3. Open game as usual. A light holiday lunch will be served.

Tuesday, July 4, Club Closed. No morning or online game and no evening Shuffle and Deal.

From the North Penn Medical Files

Have you ever held a hand like AK76 J53 42 KJ83 and doubled a 1H opening bid only to have partner bid 2D leading to a poor result or maybe you held KT7532 Q6 A5 T54 and overcalled 1S and rebid 2S and then competed to 3S to earn your bottom? Try a pass card. These little items are inexpensive and available in the front of all bidding boxes and are a great alternative to the more costly items at the back of the box. They also make great gifts.

Education

Shuffle and Deal. Tuesday evenings from 7-9 p.m. and Wednesday mornings from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Everyone welcome!

2/1 Class with Lisa Mita at North Penn Bridge Club. Beginning Saturday September 30^th and running through October 28^th on Saturday mornings. Stay tuned for details.

New Fall Beginner Class with Deb Crisfield. Beginning Sunday September 10^th and running on consecutive Sundays through October 15^th from 12 noon to 2 p.m. Stay tuned for class details and spread the word! The first two classes will be free!

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.

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

“Everyone knows about major and minor suits. It is also clear what you are talking about if you refer to the black suits or the red suits. However, many players would be surprised if they overheard a player talking about his pointed suits!

Take a careful look at the shape of each of the four suit symbols. You will notice that the spades and diamonds have pointed peaks while the hearts and clubs are rounded.”

From Points Schmoints

by Marty Bergen

Deal of the Week

by John Dickenson

Once In A Lifetime Hand

Playing at the club, it goes three passes to you and you pick up:

♠AQ

♥AK

♦AKJ6

♣AKQJ4

I have been playing bridge for 57 years and I don’t think I have ever picked up a 31 point hand. In fact, I am sure I have not.

We all know how to bid big balanced hands, they are the easiest hands to bid in bridge.

HCP	Bidding Sequence
20-21	Open 2N
22-24	Open 2C, rebid 2N
25-27	Open 2C, rebid 3N (many experts use Kokish relay)
28-30 (you should be so lucky)	Open 2C, rebid 4N (note that opening4N is Blackwood, asking Aces since there is no agreed trump suit)

So my hand is literally “off the charts”, a good 31 with a likely running 5 card club suit. The odds of picking up a 31 point hand on a single deal are 0.0006%. To put this into perspective, if you played 24 hands of bridge every single day, it would take on average 19 years to be dealt a hand this good.

I am pretty sure that the right way to bid this hand is to open 2C and over partner’s 2D, jump to 5NT. Partner should raise to 6NT with next to nothing and go to the grand with cards. But my partner and I had never discussed this auction and I did not want to be passed in 5NT, the rarest (and silliest) contract in bridge. After some cogitation, I opened 2C and over Susan Morse’s 2D bid 6NT. She raised to 7!

The full deal:

Opening lead was a diamond and I claimed, holding at least 14 tricks, more since clubs behave.

It seems like a great contract, but note the major suits are hopelessly blocked. Wonderful that partner provided the diamond queen for an entry to dummy. Absent the diamond queen or the club ten, one can not unblock the spade AQ and the heart AK and get to dummy to enjoy the tricks there. Of course in 6NT, 12 tricks are nearly certain even absent the diamond entry as one can afford to overtake the spade queen and throw a diamond on the heart queen, unless clubs are 5-0.

Surprisingly, in our North Penn Memorial day party of 6.5 tables, we were the only pair out of 6 to bid the grand. Even more surprisingly, over at King of Prussia Bridge Club with 14 full tables at their holiday party, our friends Lisa Mita and Mark Cohen were the only pair out of 14 to reach a grand with their 38 combined high card points. They told me they bid it the right way, 2C-2D-5NT-7NT.

I turn 68 next month, perhaps if I live to 87 and play every day, I shall see another hand like this one.

Finally, here is Lynn Berg’s analysis from The Common Game:

Lynn Berg Hand Analysis

When we see East's hand, it's no surprise that everyone else passed. 31 HCP is a once in a lifetime occurrence. It's too strong even to open 3NT--and when was the last time that happened?? Over 2♣, if E-W are playing that 2♦ is a positive response, showing at least an Ace, a King or a couple of Queens, that's all East needs to know. He checks for Kings and goes for it! Grand slam, for once, should be common.

I guess it depends on your definition of common, Lynn. 17% of North Penn players bid it, 7% of KOP players, and 15% of TCG players across the nation.