North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 07/04/2022

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

Schedule Update. Starting on July 6, we are suspending the 0-50 game on Wednesday morning and replacing it with the Shuffle and Deal at 9:30 a.m. Accordingly, there will be no Shuffle and Deal on Thursday afternoon. We will restart the 0-50 game at the end of the summer.

July 9 - Robot Individual

July 4-15 - NAP Qualifying Games

July 27-August 1 - Club Championship Games

June Regional

The Valley Forge Regional was back this June! They had about 68% of pre-pandemic attendance. Everything seemed to run well. The only problem was they had the room cooled to the point where people were wearing jackets when it was 90+ outside. Congratulations to our members who did well (apologies to anyone I missed):

Monday Top-Flight Pairs:

X first: Gary Hillenbrand & Clarence Kofron
X third: Mitch Snyder & Bruce Schwaidelson
A third: Andy Kaufmann & Barry Gorski

Monday Mid Flight:

Third: Rex Saffer & Judy Robbins
Fourth: Evelyn Melchiorre & Jeanne Moon

Monday 299er:

Fourth: Carol Chiodo & Karen Batchelder

Monday Side Pairs:

First: Ed Leach & George Matuch
Second: Gerry Jawer & Sandra Kayson

Tuesday Mid-Flight:

Eighth: Kay Garrity & Elaine Watters

Tuesday Gold-Rush 3:

Seventh: Brendan O’Malley & Linda O’Malley
Eighth: Christine Sgro & Priscilla O’Connor

Tuesday 299er:

Second: James Waters & Sastry Dasika
Fourth: Karen Batchelder & Carol Chiodo

Tue-Wed Bracketed Knockout 2:

First: Dave Dresher, Dave Dodgson, Tom Salter, Ken Salter

Tue-Wed Bracketed Knockout 3:

First: Rex Saffer, Cheryl Rouge, Becky Levinson, Pamela Scalamandre
Third: Al Fitzgerald III, Steve McReynolds, Perry Mitchell, Charlotte Bailey

Wednesday Mid-Flight:

B Fourth: Lisa Mita & Susan Morse
C Fifth: Jane Pelullo & Toysie Walker
C Sixth: Betsy Cutler & Gilbert Deleeuw

Wednesday Gold Rush 3:

Eighth: Linda & Brendan O’Malley

Thursday Top-Flight Dupli-Swiss:

X First: Ken Salter, Tom Salter, Dave Dodgson, Dave Dresher
X Second: Bruce Schwaidelson, Al Ronderos, Stephen Serota, Everett Young

Thursday Stratified Open Pairs:

A First, Andy Kaufman & Neal Satten
A Fourth, Bob Muhlhauser & Ed Leach
B Second, Lisa Mita & Susan Morse
A Tenth, Steven Gewirtzman & Clifford Wilson Jr.
B Fourth, Toysie Walker & Don Baker
C Fifth, James Waters & Sastry Dasika

Thursday Mid-Flight Dupli-Swiss:

B Second, Betsy Cutler, Gilbert Deleeuw, Rex Saffer, Robin Siegel

Thursday Gold Rush 3 Dupli-Swiss:

First, Brendan O’Malley, Linda O’Malley, Ellen Luchette, Joyce Levin

Friday Top-Flight Pairs:

X Third, Steven Gewirtzman & Clifford Wilson

Friday Gold Rush 3 Stratified Pairs:

B First, Peggy Michaud & Ross Currie
B Fourth, Nancy Parke & Anne Cheney

Saturday Top-Flight Pairs:

Fifth, Andy Kaufman & Michael Shuster

Saturday Side Swiss:

C Second, Betsy Cutler, Ellen Berkowitz, Robbee Perlman, Betty Abrams

Saturday Mid-Flight Pairs:

Third, David Dodgson & David Dresher

Saturday Gold-Rush 3 Stratified Pairs:

A Second, Christine Sgro & Diane Luedtke
C Fourth, James Waters & Sastry Dasika

Fri-Sat Bracketed Knockout 1:

Fourth, Tom Salter, Lisa Mita, Bill Bauer, Ken Salter

Fri-Sat Bracketed Knockout 2:

Fourth, Beth Dimler, Gilbert Deleeuw, Robin Siegel, Rex Saffer

Fri-Sat Bracketed Compact Knockout 2:

Third, Al Fitzgerald III, Steve McReynolds, Gerry Jawer, Toysie Walker

Sunday Top-Flight Dupli-Swiss:

First, Tom Breur, Andy Kaufman, Michael Shuster, Jeffrey Ehrlich

Sunday Mid-Flight Dupli-Swiss:

Third, Gerry Jawer, Bunny Van Adelsberg, Edie McAlpin, Sandra Kayson
Fourth, Evelyn Melchiorre, Sharon Weintrob, Steven Rellis, Harriet Rellis

Sunday Gold Rush 3 Dupli-Swiss:

Second, Ellen Luchette, Emily Losciuto, Brendan & Linda O’Malley

Bobbie Gomer Team Challenge

North Penn will be hosting the next Bobbie Gomer Eight is Enough Team Challenge on Sunday, August 7 so let’s get busy forming teams to represent our club! Lunch will be provided at 11:45 a.m. with the team game beginning at 12:30 p.m. Entry fee for each team is $48. Pairs or individual players who want to participate and need help finding partners/teammates should email the club at northpennbridge@gmail.com so we can assist. The attached flyer provides all the details.

Partnership

Please contact the club at northpennbridge@gmail.com or 215-699-4932 if you are looking for a partner or if you are willing to be on our Standby List.

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

“If you have decided not to lead your long suit in no-trumps and hope to hit partner’s length, beware of leading a major which partner could have conveniently indicated at the 1-level.”

From 100 Winning Bridge Tips (new edition)

by Ron Klinger

Deal of the Week

by John Dickenson

Optional Keycard, and Pulling 3N to 4m

I have a friend and bridge partner from Vancouver, British Columbia. We play together at most of the NABCs but have not had many other chances to play given the geographical separation. I enjoy playing with her because in addition to being a fine player, she teaches me many advanced bidding conventions. This year my wife thought it would be a good idea to book a family vacation during the Valley Forge Regional, so I thought that entitled me to fly to the Penticton Regional in British Columbia, which is sort of the “Gatlinburg of Canada” – a very large regional in the middle of nowhere and immensely popular.

Now it is an established principle among good players that when a minor suit fit is found and 3N is bid, one does not pull to 4 of the minor out of fear that 3N won’t make, but rather because one has strong slam interest (or “SI” as Shelley likes to say) and wants to explore slam in the minor. Consider the following hand:

Playing in the two session Top Flight Pairs here in Penticton, I held the West hand. RHO passed and I opened 1D, LHO preempted 2S and Shelley bid 3S. Now this is what I call a “DSI bid” or Do Something Intelligent. Having a spade stop and a source of tricks, I bid 3N. Shelley took it out to 4D and our agreement that this shows SI in diamonds and is “Optional Keycard”. I can bid 4H, take control and ask Shelley for keycards, or bid my keycards in steps, starting with 4S. My hand is not suitable to be the asker, with two quick losers in both round suits, so I bid 5D to show two with the queen (we play 0314 – 4S would be 0 or 3, 4N 1 or 4, 5C 2 without, 5D two with). Shelley now bid 6D which was cold and worth 24.5 out of 25 matchpoints.

Note that using our system, it is impossible for the keycard response to take the partnership beyond 5 of our minor.

Takeaways

One does not pull 3N to 4m out of weakness but out of strength
Minor suit slams are hard to bid. To bid them well, one needs advanced tools such as Minorwood, Redwood, or Kickback. Using old school 4N finds you too often having to bid 6m off two keycards.
Said advanced tools are fraught with danger unless you have sound agreements with your partner.