North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 12/205/2022

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

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

December 5-9 - Club Membership week. Extra points will be awarded. We will have someone at the club ready to accept your $20 dues for next year. You can also pay online (check the Membership item at the bottom of our webpage for details.)

Card fees for club members will remain at $12 per game in 2023, however the card fees for non-members will increase to $15 starting January 1, so members recoup their dues if they play at least 7 times next year!

December 6 - New Shuffle and Deal 7-9 p.m.

December 9 - Swiss team game 10 a.m.

December 10 - Robot Individual Online Game 4 p.m.

December 12-16 - Holiday Party Week. The party for open games is on Monday 12/12, for Shuffle and Deal on Wednesday 12/14, and for our limited games on Friday 12/16. Come early and enjoy the fun!

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!

Education

Shuffle and Deal:

Wednesday mornings from 9:30-11:30 a.m.
Tuesday evenings from 7-9 p.m.

All levels welcome! There is always at least one mentor roaming the room to answer any questions. You don't need a partner or a commitment. It's $5 per session - just drop-in to have some bridge fun.

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

Recognition

Club member Bruce Schwaidelson has won the annual District 4 Master Solvers Club Bidding Contest for the third time in four years (see the December 4Spot) - twice as a "Solver" and once as a Guest Panelist. His "three-peat" means that he will be a permanent Panelist going forward. Bruce notes that each victory is worth two free plays at one of the District Regionals.

For additional information, check out this link & scroll down to pages 10 and 11.

Partnership

To add your name to the player list or to request a partner for a game, please send an email to northpennpartner@gmail.com.

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

“When You Unexpectedly Double A Suit Game:

This is a well kept secret. When the opponents bid to a suit game with your side silent, you can double them with lead directing purpose just as you might double a slam. Usually, such a double indicates a void. This brings up an interesting defensive consideration. If your partner doubles for a lead, he will be interested in knowing if you can get in to lead the suit again. Believe it or not, the card you lead should be a suit preference card.”

From Opening Leads

by Mike Lawrence

Deal of the Week

by Bruce Schwaidelson

Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming In!

Believe it or not, you are reading my 25^th Deal of the Week column! Your DOTW writers (Mitch, Rex, John, Bucky, and myself) have been sharing our thoughts since the Summer of COVID 2020. I can’t speak for the others, but I have had loads of fun creating these things, and it’s gratifying that from time-to-time at least half a dozen “fans” have been kind enough to comment on my columns (mostly positive) either at the club or via email. Some have even mentioned that they’ve gotten a few chuckles or have noted they actually learned something new bridge-wise.

Although your emails don’t exactly pour in, I do get some bridge questions, too, including this recent request:

-----Dear Smart-Guy: all red in 2^nd seat my hand was:

----------J108xx AKJ108 A10 x

-----The bidding was:

----------1d - 2d* – p - 2h----*majors

----------3c - 3h - 4d - p

----------p-. - x-. - all p

-----I doubled 4d thinking it meant DSI.

-----Partner had xx xxxx xxx KQ9x. She passed and they made

-----4dx (-710); she insists that my X is penalty. What say you, O

-----Wise One?

------------------------------------- Your (One & Only?) Loyal Fan

Before getting to my reply, let’s talk about one of bridge’s greatest inventions: the so-called “DSI” double asking partner to “Do Something Intelligent.” Really!? Does that mean when your double is take-out, negative, responsive, support, penalty, SOS, lead-directing, etc., in those cases you want pard to be the happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care, unthinking person he or she usually is? Should we call the latter group the “NINNY” doubles (Nope-Intelligence Not Needed Yet)?

Why is a DSI double so great? Because it beautifully passes the buck to partner when things don’t work out well. “I had no idea what to do, pard, so I asked you to utilize your superior intelligence. I guess that was short-sided on my part.”

Many moons ago, we called those doubles “cooperative” but that indicated a shared responsibility. Now we get to put it all on partner. And so I responded:

Dear Fan Club President:

You and your beloved have come to a fork in the road. The sign on the left says "Man-Eating Tiger Ahead (devours females too)" while the sign to the right says "3 Very Large Bears (who have not yet had their lunch),” and you ask: “It's totally up to you, Darling, which way would you like to go?”

Let's review your auction, Mr. President. Your partner’s 2♥ bid promised at least 0 pts. and approx. 3 hearts (sometimes she can have 2, once in a while 4) and equal or shorter spades. When opener carried on with a 3♣ bid, you chose to bid 3♥ vulnerable, indicating that you have a pretty decent hand when hearts are trump - but not good enough to bid game. I suspect I would not have made that call RED, but you did and that’s OK. I would have been concerned about being ruffed down in hearts long before your somewhat anemic spade suit is established.

Meanwhile, opener - also RED - on his own has shown a 2-suiter in the minors, so he doesn't sound like a minimum balanced hand to me. After your 3♥ bid, his partner bid 4♦, so that guy must have some stuff too. In contrast, your partner had nothing more to say so she passed 4♦, which in fact says a lot about her hand.

Here comes your double in the balancing chair and you would like to know what it should mean. This is what it I think it shouldn't mean:

I have 1 sure defensive trick, partner, and possibly 1 more... if you have 2-1/2 or 3 sure tricks on defense let's play 4♦ doubled. Otherwise let's save against their PART SCORE contract. Since we already know we don't want to be in 4♥, let's play in 4♥ doubled. (By the way, Mr. President, I promise that at least one of your opponents will double 4♥, possibly both!)

I sense you are somewhat critical of your partner but she made a good pass hoping or expecting to beat 4♦. Her ♣KQ9x is worth zilch on offense (she knows you are very short in clubs) but it could be worth a trick or 2 on defense. Yes, she had a 4th heart, but I would not have pulled the double knowing that making 4♥ is pretty unlikely.

Bottom line: your double indicates you have more than a mere "willingness" to play in 4♦x but I believe you're not even close to that call. You have asked your pard to choose between 4♦x making 4 or 5 (-710 or -910) v. 4♥x going down 2 or 3 (-500 or -800). Do you really want to blame your partner?

If DSI means “pick the tiger or the 3 hungry bears,” your double is perfect!

------------------------------------------------------ Your Fan Club CEO

Although my pen pal played this deal online, he may not have realized it was a Common Game board I had played F2F at North Penn. The full deal:

You can see that neither 4♦xEW or 4♥xNS were good landing spots for the North-South pairs. Amazingly, there were 32 different scores reported in The Common Game, ranging from +730 NS to -800 NS. Of course -710 for 4♦x was not a big matchpoint winner for our president and his partner. Had they both passed 4♦, -130 would have been an average in their 17-table online game (and in The Common Game). Their actual score was worth 1 matchpoint on a 16 top; the cold bottom was 4♥x down 3 for -800.

Forgive me for having a little fun with my correspondent. I truly appreciate receiving general bridge questions or DOTW comments and enjoy responding. The Good News: it’s easy to join the “Schwaidelson Fan Club” - your $20 North Penn membership automatically gains your admission and we even allow non-members to participate.

As Dean Martin used to say at the close of his weekly TV show: “Keep those cards and letters coming in…” to bruschwade@aol.com. For additional writing inspiration, you might enjoy listening to Ernest Tubb and Loretta Lynn by clicking here. With any luck, you will be voted our next SFC president!