North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 10/16/2023

Donations to NPDBC

This is the time of year when many folks are thinking about giving to charity. Would you consider including North Penn as one of the organizations to which you give? By doing so, you can help us continue and expand our education efforts, grow our games, and provide assurance that this great bridge club will continue to thrive in the future.

Earlier this year, the IRS officially recognized North Penn Duplicate Bridge Club as a 501c3 charitable organization. That means that your donations to NPDBC are fully deductible for federal tax purposes. A link to the IRS Approval Letter can be seen here.

There are many ways to give to the club, including

Cash or check made out to North Penn Duplicate Bridge Club.
Online via PayPal or credit card by clicking on Donate
Through a Donor Advised Fund (DAF)
Through use of a Qualified Charitable Donation (QCD) from your Retirement Account. Donating as a QCD counts towards “withdrawing” your RMD for the year. And the amount of your donation isn’t counted toward your taxable income, which may help you save on income tax.

All donations to NPDBC will be acknowledged with a thank you letter that can be used as documentation when submitting your tax returns. If you have questions or need assistance with planning a donation, please let Dave, Pat or Beth know. Thanks in advance!

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

Bidding Boxes. Playing with the bidding box while trying to decide what to bid is not allowed. Here is the ACBL rule:

Players must choose a call before touching any card in the bidding box. A call is considered made when a bidding card is removed from the bidding box and held touching, or nearly touching, the table — or maintained in such a position to indicate that the call has been made.

Please make your choice before touching the box.

October 17 Tuesday Night Club Appreciation Game. Extra points at no extra cost!

October 16-27: Club Appreciation games

Instant Matchpoint Game. October 25 is the ACBL-wide Instant Matchpoint Game. Scores will be compared across all North America and points awarded accordingly. Players will receive a booklet with an analysis of all the hands.

North Penn Schedule during the Spooky Nook Regional:

Monday:--------Open

Tuesday:------=Open for evening Shuffle & Deal;

---Closed for morning game;

---Closed for online evening game.

Wednesday:--...Open for morning Shuffle & Deal;

---Closed for afternoon game.

Thursday:-----..Closed

Friday:---------.Open

Upcoming Tournaments:

October 20-21 is the Allentown Sectional
October 30 to November 5 is the Lancaster Regional in Manheim, PA.
November 23 to December 3 is the winter NABC in Atlanta

Education

NEW...Sunday Shuffle & Deal Starting October 22. 12 noon to 2 p.m. Open to anyone who wants a casual learning opportunity. Come out and hone your skills!

2/1 Saturday Class with Lisa Mita continues through November 4. For information contact Lisa at [email protected].

Joann Glasson Lessons. October 23. Click here for details.

King of Prussia Bridge Club (KOP) Lessons

For details regarding the dates and times of upcoming lessons offered by John Dickenson and Dennis Shaub at KOP, please check our website.

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

North is the dealer, E/W vulnerable:

N:--A------------S:--542

----.A74-------------.KJ

----.AK1093---------.QJ7

----.AJ72------------Q10654

Assuming EW pass throughout, how should the NS auction go to reach the best contract?

This hand illustrates the importance of good peripheral vision. Does East or West have the KC? The auction assuming you do not spot the KC:

1D - 1NT, 3C - 4C, 6C - P

North has a powerful hand. Looking at the N/S hands the easiest auction begins if N opens 1D. The auction should go 1D-1NT-3C-4C-6C. Just looking at the N hand, I would probably open 2C (not wanting to be passed in 1D.) Then the auction would probably go 2C-2D-3D-? Whatever S bids (S owes me another bid) N should at least invite slam or with all the aces just bid 6D.

1D-1N

3C-4C

4D(kickback)-4H (0 or 3)

4S(queen?)-5H(yes and heart K)

6C-P

I see 2 possible openings ….2N or 1D. I don’t particularly like opening no trump with a singleton when I have other options so I would start with 1D.

Here are 2 possible scenarios

1D---1N

3C--.4C

1D---1N

3C--.4C

4D-=5D (4D is cue bid)

I know the best contract would be 6C but I don’t know how to get there scientifically. I think most people will be in 3N or 5 of either minor. Blackwood and cue bidding are both useless here by opener and responder doesn’t really have enough to ask.

In the second scenario, opener may take a shot at 6C knowing there’s a double fit. If the pair plays a system where cue bids show either the A or K they may get there because over 4D responder can bid 4H. I think it’s a tough slam to find.

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

“Holding the ace and seeing KJx(x) in dummy to your left, prepare for the inevitable, declarer leading the suit. Although it is usually right to play low, there are several times when it is clearly wrong: (1) when it is the setting trick and can conceivably be lost; (2) when declarer has a singleton and there are no side entries to dummy.”

From Defensive Tips for Bad Card Holders

by Edwin B. Kantar

Deal of the Week

by Bruce Schwaidelson

([email protected])

Oh, That 5-0 Trump Break...

A while back I wrote about two new North Penn members, Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, the latter having been affectionately re-nicknamed “Wild Bid” by Calamity herself. The pair had recently relocated from Deadwood, SD, to Lumberville, Bucks County. In keeping with their “woodsy” theme, this summer they spent several weeks enjoying Dollywood and other fun places in Tennessee. Fortunately, they returned home just in time to experience this very interesting slam deal played at our club one Thursday afternoon (rotated so that South is Declarer):

West led the ♦J against the 6♥ contract, and when Wild Bid’s excellent dummy appeared, Calamity wondered why in the heck they didn’t bid the grand. Surely if hearts and clubs both broke 3-2, 13 tricks would be a walk in the park, and if they didn’t behave, there were still several possible ways to collect all of the tricks. Of course after she won the opening lead with her ♦A and led a trump to dummy’s King, she was horrified that the red card her LHO played was a diamond. Suddenly she was wondering why she didn’t bid 6NT, since the dreadful 5-0 heart break put her 6♥ contract in serious jeopardy.

Not one to raise the surrender flag, Calamity finally stopped to think! You might recall that Calamity had begun calling herself “Zen Jane,” having become a serious student of yoga and tai chi to help cope with her partner’s crazy bidding style. She remembered that while the two of them were enjoying their Tennessee jaunt, they stopped in Memphis to tour Elvis’s former home. In fact, they stayed right across from Graceland down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel. How appropriate for this deal, she thought, but could it possibly give her some inspiration? (Yes, Virginia, there is a Heartbreak Hotel in Memphis down at the end of Lonely Street.)

Zen Jane began to follow three mindfulness techniques for better bridge: (1) don’t panic, (2) breathe in deeply, and (3) calmly focus on your mission. And of course one other: don’t forget to exhale! She starting counting her sure tricks: 1 spade, 2 diamonds, 2 or perhaps 3 club tricks if West held the doubleton Queen. Her goal was to make her contract without taking a finesse, since she knew a losing finesse would surely spell doom. She would therefore need 6 or 7 trump tricks, including the one already played, a pretty tall order. You can follow the play by clicking here and continuing to click the NEXT button.

Jane played the ♣K-A and everyone followed, but alas the Queen did not appear. That meant she would likely need 7 trump tricks. As she had already pulled one round of trumps, she would need score the rest of her trumps individually by cross-ruffing. Her concern, however, was that East’s heart holding might make that difficult.

Jane next led the ♠Q, but when it wasn’t covered she went up with her Ace. The ♦K ensued, enabling her to pitch dummy’s losing spade as East followed with the ♦Q. Fearing that East held a doubleton diamond, she imagined that he was 3-5-2-3 or 4-5-2-2. Thus, she correctly decided to ruff a spade, rather than a diamond, with the ♥9 and then played a club to ruff out East’s Queen. Jane ruffed another spade in Dummy with a high trump as East followed. She had managed to win the first 9 tricks, but East was still holding 4 of his trumps. Here was the position with Dummy to lead and Jane needing to win 3 of the last 4 tricks:

Strangely enough Jane began to think about her visit to Dollywood’s Stampede, where Dolly Parton herself surprised the crowd by singing her brand new C&W hit “Heart Break,” which begins:

Oh, that 5-0 heart break makes my heart ache,

If only I could love you en passant…

Up until that very moment Jane had no idea what those lyrics meant – but suddenly it hit her! She knew en passant (“in passing”) was a French phrase that became chess-speak for an odd yet legal way to capture a pawn. She recalled that the world of bridge had adopted the term for a rather clever technique that could somehow enable her to win an unexpected trump trick “in passing.”

Jane began humming Dolly’s tune as she played a club from Dummy, ruffed by East with the ♥8 and overruffed by Jane’s Ace. The crossruff continued with her ♦3 ruffed by dummy’s ♥J (trick 11), while poor old East had to underruff.

Finally, it was time for… no, not the coup de grâce, but rather the coup en passant! Another club was played from the table and East was at the crossroads: he could play his ♥10, Jane pitching her final spade to establish the ♥7 as her 12^th trick, or he could ruff with the ♥6 to be overruffed by Jane’s 7 in order to claim her contact. Beautifully done, Zen Jane!

Postmortem: Wild Bid went wild! He recollected reading in the Official Encyclopedia of Bridge that the coup en passant was “the lead of a plain suit card that would promote a low trump behind a higher trump,” indeed a term borrowed from chess. He did not realize, however, that his partner would be able to accomplish such a fine line of play, thereby scoring up a small slam that went down at the other tables. He also wondered to whom Zen Jane should be giving most of the credit -- her Yogi or her Dolly?

As for Jane, she actually felt sorry for the pair that bid the grand and went down two.