North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 05/02/2022

From the Club Manager

Dave Dodgson

May Events. May is Grassroots Funds month. POINTS. POINTS. POINTS.

May 4 - 9:30 - duplicate practice. The club is working to sanction this game and until approval is received, the practices will continue. Stay tuned! We hope to have good news soon.

May 2-13 extra points for Grassroots Funds Month.

May 16-29 extra points for StaC week.

May 23-27 extra points for Club Championship week.

May 30-June 3 extra, extra points for SUPER Club Championship week.

Upcoming Tournaments:

May 2-6 - Regional in Rehoboth Beach.

Calendar

Click here to see a file you can enlarge.

Health and Safety at the Club

In recent weeks, we have heard from several North Penn players who have had Covid. No severe illness was reported, and all are improving or recovered. The current CDC Montgomery County Community Level remains Low which means there is no change at this time to the Club’s policy of “Masks Encouraged” at face-to-face games.

We want our players to stay healthy and urge everyone to use good health practices. Sneeze into your elbow, cover your cough (do not cough into your hands), and wash your hands frequently. Wearing a mask is a great option to protect yourself and others which is why we are encouraging their use. And as always, if you have cold or flu-like symptoms or feel unwell in general, please refrain from coming to the club.

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

“Playing a 5-3 trump fit, declarer may wish to draw exactly two rounds of trump before going about her business. Easier said than done when one defender has Axx of trump. Best defense to countermand this strategy is to win the SECOND round of trump and play a THIRD.”

From Defensive Tips

by Edwin B. Kantar

Deal of the Week

by Mitch Snyder

Trump Promotion - Not!

You all know what a ruff and sluff is, and its usually not good for the defense. A common situation might be something like this:

Against a heart contract, if West cashes the AK of clubs and leads a third round, declarer can ruff in dummy with the shorter trump suit and throw a spade or diamond loser from his hand thus gaining a trick that would not otherwise be available. East, good partner that he is, signals discouragingly and West switches at trick 3.

Now let’s change it a little bit.

In this case a club continuation will still provide declarer with a ruff and sluff but it also promotes East’s ♡Q into an immediate overruff or a winner for later on. East should encourage a club continuation which will always gain a trick for the defense.

Additionally, West has the opportunity here to influence East’s return. A high club, the Queen, would suggest a spade return while a lower winning club, the 8, suggests a diamond return.

You did notice the fall of the J & T of clubs, making the Q98 all equal.

Look at this hand from a BBO ‘just declare’ robot game that I played recently. In all cases South opened 2S and played it there.

The auction:

This is pretty typical weak 2 bid. It’s at the top of the range but nonetheless, a weak 2 bid.

The play:

West led a club and I looked over the hand counting 5 or 6 losers. 1 each in clubs, hearts and spades and 2 or 3 in diamonds. I won the club lead and considered a diamond switch in hopes of guessing right and maybe getting to ruff a diamond too, but no competent defender would let that happen so I put off the diamond guess until later. I played spades with West winning the 3^rd round. A diamond switch netted 3 tricks for the defense reaching this position.

East led the last diamond in an attempt to promote West’s remaining trump. A careless low ruff by me would give West his trump trick and with a heart and club still to lose the result would be down 2. However, I pitched my last club, a loser on loser play of sorts, and now I could win the next trick and get to hand with a club ruff to pull the last trump for down 1.

You’ve all heard the expression that ‘down 1 is good bridge’, well that was certainly the case here as -50 was worth 95% of the matchpoints.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

P. Hal Sims a great expert of yesteryear had the reputation of never misguessing a queen in a two-way finesse position. He finds himself playing against two ladies missing a queen and finally announces that neither one of them has it. Sure enough the queen was on the floor.