North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 01/01/2024

Upcoming Sectional

Our Club is excited to be hosting the Intermediate/Novice games for the upcoming Unit 141 Sectional this weekend. We ask that players planning to participate in the Friday A.M. and/or P.M. games rideshare to the extent possible and avoid parking in spaces designated for our landlord, HOF, LLP or co-tenant, Pennbrook Dentistry. Also, please note it is legal to park on the street in front of our building if necessary.

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

January Schedule. January is Junior Fund month with extra points awarded. And, we will be having several special events.

Monday, January 1 is our New Year’s Day game and lunch.

Thursday, January 4 is our first handicap Swiss game. Please sign your team up in the book so we can compute the handicaps. If you and your partner want to play, and you don’t have a team, sign up and we will match you with another pair. For a full explanation of how this new handicap team game works, please see our website.

Friday, January 5 through Sunday January 7 is the Unit 141 Sectional. Open pairs are at King of Prussia and the 0-500 games will be held at North Penn. Registration forms are available at the club. Here’s the link for the Flyer and Registration Form.

Monday, January 8 is our next board meeting at 10 a.m. All are welcome.

Wednesday, January 10 is our first 4 is Enough Game. Pat Andrews can help you find a partner. For a full explanation of how this new pairs game works, please see our website.

Saturday, January 13 is the Robot Individual.

Tuesday, January 16 is our Silver Linings online game. Earn silver points from your house!

Wednesday, January 17 is our 0-50 game.

New Stay and Play Policy. Effective January 3, anyone who pays to play in Shuffle and Deal on Wednesday morning, can stay and play in the noon open game for only $6. Come out and make a day of it!

The End of an Era

As I write this on Friday evening Dec 29, 2023, the North Penn Bridge Club’s last 0-750 masterpoint game ended just hours ago. After a one-week hiatus for the PCBA Sectional, Friday mornings will resume as a 0-500 game. I’m sorry to have to say goodbye to those of you with 500-750 masterpoints, but I’m sure you will all do well in the Tuesday 0-1000 game and even in the open games should you decide to give it a whirl.

This game was my baby, starting in November 2008 on Tuesdays. It’s selling points were no “sharks,” a guaranteed partner, a mini lesson, an early start time and done by about 1pm. Although the guaranteed partner and mini lesson have gone by the wayside the other things are still true except when a Swiss team game drags on until 1:45. 😊 (BTW- The first Swiss was in January 2013 and drew 6 tables.) The game limped along with 2 to 3 tables until June 2009 when it moved to Friday so as not to conflict with the country club games. By the end of 2009, 5-6 tables were the norm.

On December 3, 2010 we had 7 tables for the first time. It was perfect for a 21-board movement and a milestone I remember.

By the end of 2013 games of 10+ tables were the norm, The May 2014 Swiss team game was the first “BIG” game with 16 tables; what a rush running a game like that!

By 2018 the game was regularly 14-15 tables, spiking at 19 a couple times. Since the pan-demic the game recovered nicely and 9-10 tables became the new norm. With the change to a 500 masterpoint limit, a couple tables will be lost when it resumes in January. Nothing would please me more than to see the game rebound again.

Happy New Year,

Mitch

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 northpennpartner@gmail.com. We will do our best to match you up with others who are looking for someone to play with.

Upcoming Tournaments

January 5-7, 2024 is the Sectional Tournament at North Penn and KOP. You can find the tournament flyer and registration form here.

Education

Shuffle & Deal – Upcoming Schedule:

PLEASE NOTE there will be no Shuffle and Deal on Sunday, January 7. HOWEVER, because of this cancellation, Deb will be holding 2 special Shuffle and Deal sessions on Tuesday, January 2 and Tuesday, January 9 at 7:00pm.

Here's a look ahead at the full month of January:

Tuesday January 2 and 9 at 7 pm: Shuffle & Deal

Wednesdays 9:30 am:

January 3: Shuffle and Deal
January 10: NO Shuffle and Deal. Four is Enough game starting at noon.
January 17: 0-50 game (let me know if you plan to play) AND Shuffle and Deal
January 24: Shuffle and Deal
January 31: Shuffle and Deal

Sundays at noon:

January 7: NO Shuffle & Deal due to Unit 141 Sectional at NP
January 14: Lesson with Deb on the Takeout Double; $20 per person
January 21 and 24: Lessons with Linda on Stayman & Transfers; $20 per person

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 toysiewalker@gmail.com. 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

Misjudging a Sacrifice

“Try to arrange the auction to involve partner in any final decision about a sacrifice. Describe your hand accurately early in the auction so partner has a good basis on which to base his decision. Remember that if your hand is very distributional, the bad breaks may cause the opponents’ contract to fail. Be wary of sacrificing on a balanced hand.”

From 52 Bridge Mistakes to Avoid

by David Bird

Deal of the Week

by Rex Saffer

An Exclusive Offer For You

Introduction

With balanced or semi–balanced hands, we usually require a combined count of 33 or more HCP for a slam in notrump, although we might get by with slightly fewer if we have a good 5– or 6–card minor. But in suit contracts, quality of fit and the particulars of distributional features assume more importance. It is not uncommon to have enough trick–taking potential for slam on less raw power, increasing the risk that we might be off two fast tricks. We use slam bidding tools such as splinter raises, so–called “Italian” cue bids at the 4–level, and keycard asking bids to identify the necessary controls. These treatments work well enough in most situations, but hands with a void are more difficult to describe.

If partner makes a 4NT RKCB ask, we can respond above 5♠ to show our void. However, as we are advised over and over again, we should not ask for keycards if we are the player holding the void, as any response we receive is likely to be ambiguous. We are concerned with specific controls, not the total number. Enter Exclusion Keycard Blackwood (EKCB, or “Voidwood”), a variation of Roman Keycard Blackwood (RKCB) introduced by late American expert and world champion Bobby Goldman (1938–1999).

After agreement on trumps, a jump to the 4–level in a side suit higher–ranking than the trump suit, or at the 5–level in a lower ranking suit, asks for the number of keycards excluding the ace of the side suit. Steps above the exclusion suit follow a 1430 or 0314 response structure as played by the partnership. This leaves single jumps to suits below the trump suit available as splinter raises. For example, if playing inverted minor raises, a sequence like 1♣ – 2♣ – 3♥ would be a game–forcing splinter, while 1♣ – 2♣ – 4♥ would be EKCB.

The Deal of the Week

Our Deal was played in a recent 8–1/2 table F2F game at a nearby Club.

The Auction

After South opened 1♠, West made a 2♠ Michaels Cue Bid showing hearts and an undisclosed minor. At our table North passed, although one could make a case for a preemptive raise to 3♠. Unsure of the strength of the West hand, East made a minimum raise to 3♥, South rebid 3♠, and West jumped to 5♦, an EKCB ask excluding the ♦A. E/W were playing 1430, and since West held both trump keycards, East’s 5♥ response showed one black ace. That was all West needed to bid the small slam.

The Play

Play of the deal was routine; South led the ♠A, and that was it for the defense. Here are all the results:

Three E/W pairs did get to the heart slam, but East declared only at our table, so two West players must have overcalled 2♥ or doubled after South opened 1♠. Your author considers the West hand far too strong for a simple overcall and would have doubled initially if the intent were to show the hearts first. This could also explain how three pairs arrived in club contracts, all declared in the East. At Table 7 the North player must have led the stiff club, hoping for a ruff, but that handed declarer an overtrick and a cold top.

What Could Go Wrong?

One way for a slam investigation to go off the rails is for a keycard response to take the auction past five of the trump suit. In a heart contract this happens for a RKCB response of 5♠, showing two keycards with the trump queen. It gets worse with minor suit contracts since additional responses can go past five of the trump suit. In this week’s Deal, E/W were playing 1430, and the 5♥ response to the 5♦ EKCB ask showed one black ace. But if East had held no ace or only the ♦A, the response would have been 5♠, forcing the auction to 6♥ off two side suit aces outside the void.

Should we then employ 0314 step responses? If so, a 5♥ response to a 5♦ EKCB ask would show no ace outside diamonds, allowing West to pass safely. What about other trump suits? We find that using 1430 responses, the trouble exclusion suit is the one ranking immediately below the trump suit. If clubs are trumps, 4NT (one keycard) and 5♣ (no keycards) are available as the first and second step responses to a 4♠ EKCB ask, and either way it is possible to sign off below slam. But with diamonds, hearts, or spades as trumps, the second step response (no keycards) to a 5–level ask in the suit below the trump suit takes us beyond five of the trump suit. Clearly, we should prefer 0314 over 1430 for EKCB responses.

Further, why make a space–consuming jump above the trump suit to the 4– or 5–level needing more than one keycard outside the exclusion suit for slam? Lower–level options might be more appropriate to try first, and a compact 011 response structure could serve, where the steps would show

1^st = no keycards outside the ask suit,

2^nd = 1 keycard without the queen,

3^rd = 1 keycard with the queen.

As with any other convention we might consider adopting, partnership discussion and agreement on variations of these details is crucial if a costly system meltdown and consequent recriminations are to be averted.

Happy New Year!

All the best,

Rex