North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 12/25/2023

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

December 26, 27, 28 and 29. Club open as usual.

New Year’s Day Game. Come celebrate the New Year with a game of bridge at noon. We will provide franks and sauerkraut and Bob Mulhauser will bring his special deviled eggs. Side dishes and desserts most welcome. Please sign up so we’ll be sure to have enough food!

January Sectional. Reminder...be sure to register before the end of the month!

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.

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!

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 – December Schedule:

Wednesday, Dec 27 - normal Shuffle and Deal at 9:30am
Sunday, Dec 31 - NO Shuffle and Deal (New Year’s Eve)

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

“Do not play third-hand high if it will benefit only declarer. Do not cover an honour with an honour if partner is expected to be short in the suit and you have no clear-cut card to be promoted.”

From 100 Winning Bridge Tips

by Ron Klinger

Deal of the Week

by Bruce Schwaidelson

(bruschwade@aol.com)

Hot Off the Presses: Gumby's First Bridge Book

With the holiday gift-giving season just about over, here’s hoping you were lucky enough to receive a copy of Gumby’s Guide to Flexible Declarer Play. Besides Gumby’s wonderful advice, he is a North Penn DBC member and many of the deals he presents are ones you may have encountered at our club.

In an early chapter, Gumby discusses this intriguing board played at North Penn on a Thursday afternoon (E-W hands omitted):

Gumby asks the reader to assume its matchpoints and you are South declaring a 6♠ contract. What is your line to make all 13 tricks after West’s leads a low trump, both defenders following? He also wonders if you would play the board the same way if you were in 7♠.

Unfortunately for Mrs. Gumby, she was the declarer in 6♠. Our author describes his wife as a “uni-linear” bridge player -- a term that he himself coined -- and I don’t think he meant it as a compliment. He laments that when she declares, she decides what she thinks is the best line and begins to play it accordingly. It is only when something goes wrong that she considers what Plan B might look like. Sadly, it is of course too late to backtrack. Mrs. Gumby does not use what our author calls the Gumby Flexible Approach.

Mrs. Gumby’s line for today’s deal was solid and, in fact, she was sorry she hadn’t bid the grand. She counted 11 top tricks, and the club suit was extremely likely to yield the rest. Her plan was to win the 1^st trump in dummy and cash a 2^nd one there. Next she would unblock the ♣A, and play a trump to return to dummy once more.

If spades were 3-2 (as they were), she would continue clubs, ruffing one in her hand if necessary, then return to the board with the ♥A and claim 13 tricks. Mrs. Gumby’s husband had no doubt that if his wife had found trumps to be 4-1, she would have ruffed a small club after playing the 3^rd round of trumps. This would allow her to draw the final trump, pitching the ♥J in dummy, and then play to the ♥A and claim (hopefully).

Easy as apple pie on Christmas Day, you say. What could possibly go wrong? Here is the full deal:

After Mrs. Gumby returned to dummy to pull the final trump, she was horrified to discover that when she cashed the ♣K, her RHO pitched a heart. All of a sudden she still had only 11 tricks, but there was still a chance for twelve. Looking for Plan B, she noticed that if diamonds were 3-3, she could still make her contract. She ducked a diamond and hoped for the best, but when the diamond suit broke 4-2 she was forced to concede down one. Her uni-linear approach had failed!

After the game, Mrs. Gumby asked her husband if he had been successful in his 6♠ slam. Gumby informed her that he and Pokey, his side-kick and favorite partner, had in fact bid the grand. Then he added: “after a trump lead, you should have no problem making 7♠, dear, if you would just follow the Gumby Flexible Approach.”

Here’s their uncontested auction, with Gumby (South) bidding 1♠ after East passed:

Gumby------1♠-------------2♣--------Pokey

-------------.2♦------------.2♠

-------------.3♣------------3♥

-------------.4♦------------.4NT

-------------.5♣ (0 or 3)----5♦ (Q-ask)

-------------.6♦ (♠Q,♦K)----.7♠ All Pass

Gumby informs us that after spades were agreed, the next 3 calls were control-bids. After the 5♣ response to RKCB (0 or 3), the 5♦ bid was the Q-ask, and 6♦ showed the ♠Q and the ♦K. Pokey’s horse-sense told him that the club suit was a huge favorite to provide 5 tricks, so he bid the grand.

Gumby had words of praise for Pokey’s grand slam decision plus words of wisdom to share with his wife and his readers: “The best time to develop Plan A and your backup plan is before you play a single card from dummy. Ask yourself what could go wrong with Plan A and consider what precautionary measures you might take just in case.” This was indeed the theme of Gumby’s book: to be a successful declarer, you must be as flexible as Gumby!

Gumby agreed with his wife that the best line was to rely on the club suit for 5 likely tricks since both 6♠ and 7♠ would easily succeed if trumps were 3-2 or 4-1 and the clubs were no worse than 4-2. But the always flexible Gumby asks his readers: What if clubs are 5-1? Do you have a bad-break insurance plan?

Gumby admits that if spades were 4-1 and clubs 5-1, the grand would not succeed, but what if trumps behave and the clubs don’t? At the table, Gumby made the key play at trick 2: after winning the trump lead on board, he unblocked his stiff Ace of clubs. Why? He could go back to the dummy with a trump and then test clubs by ruffing a club in his hand – his no-cost insurance policy. If both players followed, he would return to the dummy’s ♠K to draw the final trump and claim. Gumby would be able to pitch his losing heart and 3 diamonds on the remaining 4 clubs.

When his RHO pitched a heart on his 2^nd club trick, the Gumby insurance plan paid dividends. You can follow Gumby’s actual line of play by clicking here and keep hitting the Next button. By preserving a high trump in dummy, he was able to cash the ♦A-K, both opponents following, and ruff a diamond. This enabled him to get rid of one of his diamond losers while providing an entry to work on the club suit.

As Mrs. Gumby discovered earlier, the diamonds broke 4-2, but this was no longer a problem. Gumby was able to ruff another club to establish the club suit. Next he drew the outstanding trump, pitching a heart from dummy, and the board was good, the ♥A having been preserved for the final entry to the good clubs. Game, set and match!

Gumby mentions that only an initial heart lead would have held him to 12 tricks as the cards lay. He also notes that had the E-W hands been reversed, his line of play would have still succeeded, but only because the hand with the singleton club did not have a 3^rd spade.

Gumby’s Lesson: While many authors talk about the ABC’s of Bridge (Always Be Counting), his favorite acronym is ABF – Always Be Flexible! Look for ways to test Plan A before being totally committed to its execution. If you fail to do so, it may be too late for Plan B. Testing the club suit early in the play, cost absolutely nothing – but it paid off handsomely.

Book Review: Not only do I highly recommend this enjoyable paperback, but it would not be complete without the humorous foreword by SNL’s long-time favorite, Eddie Murphy. Eddie is clearly excited about Gumby’s approach to declarer play, as he discusses his own declarer capabilities: “I’m Gumby, dammit! Of course I’m flexible!”

Gumby’s Guide to Flexible Declarer Play is an absolute must read. If you didn’t receive a copy this holiday season, don’t fret. Not only is December 26th Boxing Day, but also the start of Kwanzaa… and of course there’s always National Spaghetti Day on the 4^th of January.