North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 12/04/2023

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

Board Meeting. There will be a meeting of the board at the club on Thursday, December 7 at 10 a.m. All are welcome.

Robot Individual. This Saturday, December 9 at 4 p.m.

Season of Giving. For those of you who may be considering end-of-the-year charitable donations, this is a friendly reminder that our club is a 501(c)3 charitable organization. Donations may be made via check or online here.

Volunteers Needed. We need volunteers to make the boards for our games. It takes about 15 minutes to duplicate the boards for a game. We will teach you how to do it. All our players like having pre-duplicated boards.

Toys for Tots. There is a box outside the lawyers’ office for donations to Toys for Tots. Check out the poster displayed at the club. The box will be available through Monday, Dec. 11.

Christmas Parties

Friday, December 8 - the limited game. Instead of having a main course, we’d like everyone to bring something to share for a festive, surprise buffet!
Monday, December 11 - the open game. The club will provide brisket sliders and chicken salad. Side dishes most welcome; there is a sign-up sheet at the club.

Monthly 0-50 Game. Wednesday December 13 at 9:30 a.m.

From the Membership Chair

Mitch Snyder

Membership season is in full swing now. By joining or rejoining before the end of the year you will avoid being placed on the delinquent list that will be published sometime after the January Sectional which will be played at the North Penn and King of Prussia clubs and requires advance reservations as there is limited seating and some events may sellout due to the resurgence of bridge following the pan-demic interruption from several years ago but I digress. Now what was I saying? Oh yeah, annual dues are due, English a strange language…

You can pay the $20 anytime until the end of the year in person, by mail or online at our website.

Partnership

We are in the process of re-activating our online partnership desk and will now be monitoring it on a daily basis. Please use it for requests for our Open games; partner requests for Tuesday and Friday limited games should go directly to Mitch Snyder.

If you are in need of a partner for a Monday, Wednesday or Thursday Open game, please email [email protected]. We will do our best to match you up with others who are looking for someone to play with.

Upcoming Tournaments

December 8-10 is the Wilmington Sectional

December 15-16 is the I/N Regional in Allentown

December 19-22 is the Online Regional

January 5-7, 2024 is the Sectional Tournament at North Penn and KOP.

Pairs events will take place on Friday and Saturday and Swiss Teams on Sunday with separate sections for players with no more than 500 masterpoints! All open events will be held at King of Prussia Bridge Club; all I/N events (500 Masterpoint limit) will be held at North Penn Duplicate Bridge Club. Each site is limited to 21 tables, so pre-registration is strongly recommended. You can find the tournament flyer and registration form here.

Education

Shuffle & Deal

Tuesday evenings at 7 p.m. However, please note that Tuesday Shuffle and Deal will be replaced by Linda O'Malley's 4-week series beginning November 28 (see below for more info.)
Wednesday mornings at 9:30 a.m.
Sundays at 12 noon

New Lesson Series on Overcaller’s Forcing Bids continues Tuesday Nights. December 5 – lesson two. Check flyer for details.

King of Prussia Bridge Club Lessons. For lesson details go directly to the Latest News item on their website: https://www.bridgewebs.com/kop.

Calendar

Click here to see a file you can enlarge.

Ask the Expert

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

“When the declarer has preempted, opening-lead strategy changes drastically. Most of his strength will be in his suit, and he will tend not to have high cards (especially kings) elsewhere. If you lay down an ace, there are two likely outcomes: Partner has the king—good—or dummy has the king—no harm.

The idea is to lead very aggressively when RHO has a long suit and a weak hand. Likely, he will draw trump and try to get discards from dummy. Lead from kings, lay down aces—try to get tricks.”

From Larry Teaches Opening Leads

by Larry Cohen

Deal of the Week

by Bucky Sydnor

([email protected])

It's Your Lead, Can You Set 4♣?

A strong partner and I were in the 4^th Thursday Swiss Teams the end of October here in Cary NC. I am 2^nd seat, all white, and pick up this hand:

♠AK102 ♥KQ107 ♦KJ95 ♣5

I am all set to open 1♦ when RHO, the dealer, opens 1♥. I suppose I could overcall in one of my 4-card majors, but I elect to pass. LHO bids a forcing 1N. Partner passes and RHO bids 2♣. Now I can enter into the auction easily with a take-out double, but I decide not to. LHO jumps to 4♣, partner again passes—no surprise there, she can’t have many points and may have none, but my not doubling concealed the lopsided distribution of our points—and RHO tanks.

It is a Swiss event. Bidding and making game is so very important in Swiss events if one is to win. I am fully expecting RHO to bid 5♣ in spite of the fact that I have 16 HCP, thinking that it was a distributional deal. But he finally passes. Here’s the auction:

1♥ .– p – 1N@ - p--------@: forcing

2♣ – p – 4♣ ..-- p

p -.- p

My goal, as this is a team event, is to set the opponents, overtricks by them be damned. I lead my ♠A and Dummy tables the following (with my hand repeated):

♠87 ♥5 ♦A8643 ♣KQ1083

♠AK102 ♥KQ107 ♦KJ95 ♣5

Seeing Dummy, I am suspicious that they have, in fact, missed game. But that changes nothing. I still must figure out how to set them. On my ♠A, the play goes 7, 5, 4. Partner does not have either the ♠Q or a doubleton spade. She has no help for me in spades and probably none elsewhere.

So what should I do? What would you lead next? Not to put any pressure on you, but if you find the right lead, you will set 4♣.

Surveying my options, I thought it highly unlikely that partner had the ♥A. Next, I felt that it was very risky to lead a low diamond as it was unlikely partner had the ♦Q. I also feared that leading my club into dummy’s ♣KQ1083 would let Declarer finesse partner out of her ♣J if she held, say, ♣Jxxx.

So, I continued with the ♠K, which held. Then I led my ♥K on the off chance—again, highly unlikely—that if partner did have the ♥A and declarer the ♠Q, and had I failed to shift to a heart, Declarer would pitch Dummy’s heart loser on the ♠Q.

Here’s the full deal:

Declarer did have the ♥A. He won it, cashed his ♠Q, pitching a diamond from Dummy, led his singleton ♦Q to my ♦K and the board’s ♦A. Then he cross-ruffed 2 diamonds and 2 hearts, ending in Dummy. Here is the four-card ending:

Having won 7 tricks and having 3 sure trump winners, Declarer was making 4♣. His actual line was to ruff Dummy’s final diamond with the ♣A and then he led a heart to ruff with his ♣10. If I held the ♣J, or if East had the missing heart, he would have made an overtrick.

What’s the killing lead at trick 2 that sets the contract? My singleton club. It cuts down on the number of tricks Declarer can win in a cross ruff from 7 (4 + 3) to 6 (4 +2), leaving Declarer one trick short. I was so worried about finessing partner’s ♣J, if she had it, I lost sight of the importance of cutting down on the number of ruffs in Declarer’s hand, the “short” hand. Even if partner had ♣Jxxx rather than ♣J9xx, a club lead by me, while finessing partner, would not matter. She could just play low and once Declarer ruffs a diamond with his ♣A, she would still have a sure club trick.

Interestingly, if I had shifted to a club after cashing my ♠K, it would have been too late. Declarer could still make his contract by endplaying my partner at trick 9. The line would be similar, but this time there would be no ♣A to ruff Dummy’s last diamond. My poor partner would have no choice but to ruff and then lead a trump up to the KQ10. If my trick 2 play had been the ♥K, Declarer could still manage 10 tricks by endplaying my partner.

The value of leading trumps is easily missed by defenders, even on opening lead. However, the worthlessness or even harm that a trump lead can do is not to be understated. I find some opponents lead a trump when they don’t want to lead anything else and more times than not it helps me as Declarer.

Learning when it is wise to lead a trump and when it is not, can be a rough road to trod, as illustrated by the following story. The new but rather young bank branch manager asked his outgoing predecessor about his secret to success. “Good decisions,” came back the terse reply. Then the young man responded, “Yes. Yes. Of course, but what is the secret to good decisions?” “Experience” came the reply. Again, the young man said, “Yes. Yes. Of course,” but then he asked, “How does one get the experience needed to make good decisions?” Once again the reply was brief: “Bad decisions.”

I wish you well as you gain the “experience” needed as a defender to know when to lead a trump and when not to. You can see I haven’t mastered the skill myself.

Alternatively, one way to speed up the experience-gaining process is to take a class on “Leading Trumps as a Defender.” If only someone would offer it.

Post-mortem: After spending so much time with this deal as I wrote this article, my opening lead should have been my singleton club, not the ♠A. Why? Because I had the other suits locked up. Looking at my hand, Declarer could not set up a side suit for 10 tricks; he could only make 10 tricks by a cross-ruff.