North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 12/12/2022

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

December Schedule. Extra points are available all month for the F2F games.

December 14 - Holiday Party for Shuffle and Deal.

December 16 - Holiday Party for the Limited Game.

December 19-30 Charity games.

Coming In January

January 6-8 - Unit 141 Sectional at Bala Golf Club. Voting for Unit Officers will take place at this time. This is an important election and an opportunity to select candidates who will run the Unit professionally and who are known to be supportive of local face-to-face clubs. Click this link for the slate and election details. Click this link for the Sectional Flyer.

January 12 - Pro/Am game. Be sure to sign-up in the book at the club. Anyone who is NOT a life master is an Am; anyone who IS a life master is a pro. All are welcome…the more the merrier!

We are still putting our schedule together for next year. The ACBL has announced that we can have at least eight club championship games and two super club championships. Also, look for us to have more charity games next year.

From the Membership Chair

Mitch Snyder

Thanks to everyone who paid their dues last week (or earlier). The 2023 membership year begins in a few weeks but there’s still time to pay your dues before the January crunch. You can pay in-person, by check via snail mail or on-line with a credit card or PayPal. 2023 dues are $20.

Education

Joann Glasson’s Bridge Lessons. Resuming on Monday January 16. Click on this link for the details. Click on this link for the details.

Advanced Beginner Lessons start January 17th. This class will run for five consecutive Tuesday nights from 7-9 p.m. The lessons are geared toward the students who took the beginner class in the fall. We will cover Stayman, transfers, and the takeout double. The cost for the five classes is $100 per person. Shuffle and Deal will continue on Tuesdays leading up to the class.

Click this link for the flyer.

You need not have taken the Fall class to attend. ALL ARE WELCOME!!

Shuffle & Deal continues Tuesday evenings and Wednesday mornings.

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

“Ask yourself what declarer knows about your hand from the bidding and your previous plays. The more she knows, the more susceptible you will be to deceptive plays. In other words, do not play declarer for making any tricky plays unless she knows what you have.”

From Defensive Tips

by Edwin B. Kantar

Deal of the Week

by Rex Saffer

En Garde!

Publilius Syrus was a 1^st century BCE Latin “mime writer”, an author of pithy sayings delivered in mimes, a form of ancient Greek and Roman theater where public figures were satirically or disparagingly portrayed on stage. Some seven hundred such aphorisms are attributed to Publilius, including:

One is not exposed to danger who,

even when in safety, is always on guard.

This may be true of much in life, but even against an opponent vigilantly guarding precious defensive honors, a crafty declarer occasionally can conjure a trick out of thin air. Advanced plays such as coups, endplays, and squeezes come to mind, like the one in this week’s Deal.

The Deal of the Week

In a recent game at a local F2F Club, your non–playing author was kibitzing and observed the bidding and play of this Board:

The Auction

Against strong opponents, East opened 1♣, and West became understandably enthusiastic. Proceeding slowly at first, West responded 1♥, then continued with a fourth–suit, game–forcing 2♦ over East’s 1♠ rebid. The worthless doubleton club might have suggested more discretion to many, but when East revealed 3–card heart support, West abandoned all restraint and launched a keycard ask. Finding that all five were in hand, and holding the queen of trumps, West signed off in the small slam.

The Play

North led a small club, and declarer paused to consider a line of play. Barring a horrendous 4–0 offside trump split, there were eleven top tricks for the taking, with potential for a twelfth from a squeeze. Declarer calmly ducked in dummy to rectify the count, as South won the ♣Q and returned a passive trump rather than break a side suit.

Declarer pulled trumps in two rounds, cashed the ♠A and ♠K, and ruffed a low spade in hand to establish the ♠9 as a threat in dummy. Reasoning that a skilled North defender would never have led away from a club honor against a slam, declarer placed the ♣K with South. If the ♠Q were also there, a simple squeeze would fail, since with both black threats in dummy, declarer would have to discard one of them in front of South on the squeeze trick. Then provided the ♠Q was with North, the stage was set for a double squeeze, North guarding spades and diamonds, South guarding clubs and diamonds. But before running the hearts, declarer had one piece of unfinished business to wrap up.

At trick seven, declarer led a low club to dummy’s ace, extracting a low club from both defenders’ hands. Declarer then returned the ♥10 to the queen and continued with the nine, reaching this position just before the squeeze trick:

When the ♥8 hit the felt, North could not guard both pointy suits and had to let go a second low diamond. Declarer pitched dummy’s ♠9, and now South was fed into the wringer. With the ♦A in dummy as an entry, South could not part with the ♣K and also had to release a diamond. The ♦A, ♦K, and ♦10 took the last three tricks, securing +1430 and a cold top. You can click here to examine or play the hand yourself in the BBO Hand Viewer. Use the Next button to advance trick by trick or the Play button to select cards yourself and explore alternate lines of play.

Closing Thoughts

Dear Reader, Clyde E. Love’s masterful treatise, Bridge Squeezes Complete or Winning End Play Strategy, provides the theoretical structure and practical techniques to recognize and successfully execute a variety of squeezes. Chapter 2 is devoted to the double squeeze. In Love’s notation, this week’s Deal is a type B₁ squeeze, subtype (a), where the threats against the left and right opponents (the ♠9 and ♣J) lie in one hand, the ♦10 threat against both defenders lies in the hand with the squeeze card, and both hands have a diamond winner. Then before the play of the squeeze card, the ♣A must be cashed to remove the last safe discard from both defenders’ hands, (Love, pp. 68–69).

What if declarer runs the hearts without having previously cashed the ♣A? Then this would have been the position after trick eight:

When the squeeze card is played, North can discard the ♣10 and preserve the ♠Q without unguarding diamonds. It was always madness to pitch dummy’s ♣J, but now it does no good for declarer to discard the ♠9, either. South can let a diamond go, protecting the club position and leaving North’s guarded ♦Q to take the setting trick.

Timing can make or break many a contract, and here, two critical plays had to take place at just the right moments: 1) If declarer does not duck the opening lead to rectify the count, it will be too late to do so later, since the defenders will promptly cash the ♣K. 2) If the ♣A is not unblocked before running the hearts, the defenders will not be squeezed at all, each able to discard safely while North keeps the diamonds guarded. You can click here to see the squeeze fail on this oversight.

All the best,

Rex

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Bobby Goldman and I are playing in a Club Med tourney in France. His French is weak. On the very first hand he wants to make a takeout double. The word for double in French is 'contre'. The way he pronounced it, I was afraid that they would throw us out of the tournament.

Bridge humor from

Eddie Kantar