Better Bridge in Barry County March 22 2012

Better Bridge in Barry County

By Gerald Stein

North

                                                                             ª: 9 8  

                                                                             ©: A 9 4 

                                                                             ¨: K 7 5 2

                                                                             §: J 9 6 5

West                                                                                                               East

ª: 6 4 3 2                                                                                                        ª: Q 10 5

©: K J 7 5 3                                                                                                     ©: 6 2

¨: 8 6                                                                                                               ¨: J 9

§: 8 3                                                                                                             §: A K Q 10 7 2

                                                                              South 
                                                                                             ª: A K J 7

                                                                              ©: Q 10 8

                                                                              ¨: A Q 10 4 3

                                                                               §: 4

Lead: ª5

As Ms. Tiffany W. Casement sat down at the bridge table, her thoughts were certainly not on her cards. Her mind was still back on Valentine’s Day when boyfriend James B. Bondo had proposed on bended knee. She still remembered the little black box that James had extended in her direction. With trembling hands, she  had opened it to find an exquisite one carat marquise cut diamond in a stunning setting. She smiled to herself at the bridge table.

Ms. Casement was abruptly brought back to reality when the three others, including her partner, all cleared their throats. “Oh, it’s my bid,” she thought. Without much thought at all, a disaster in the bridge world, she pulled out the green Pass card from her bidding box and placed it on the table. “Oops,” she thought to herself. “What have I done? What have I done?” She straightened up in her chair, and then she realized what a powerful hand she had just passed with. “It’s time for concentration, dear girl, and no time for a diamond reverie.”

The bidding went as follows:

Dealer:	South	West	North	East
	Pass!	Pass	Pass	1♣
	Dbl!	Pass	1♦	2♣
	4NT!	Pass	5♦	Pass
	6♦!	Pass	Pass	Pass

Ms. Casement recovered in time to make several astounding bids to make up for her faux pas on the opening bid. With her partner North playing the hand, and the lead of the ª5 (not best), it was clear to all at the table that the vulnerable North-South team would make the small slam in diamonds, losing the §A and scoring an impressive 1370 points.

How differently things had gone at the other table, when South, paying attention to her hand, had opened as follows:

South               West                North               East

1¨                   Pass                 1NT                  2§

2¨                   Pass                 3¨                   All Pass

Lead: 8§

The contract at the second table ended up in a part-score in diamonds instead of the small diamond slam of the first table. Although the lead was better, (it is important to keep your partner happy by leading to their bid!) it made no difference at all in the playing of the hand. North-South still ended up with twelve tricks, losing just the §A as had happened at the first table. What a difference in scoring, however. At the second table, North-South had a three-trick bonus for 170 total points, nowhere close to the first table’s sparkling score of 1370. Was the first North-South team lucky? You could argue that, but the recovery for South was a brilliant shine on her part. Sometimes there are “potential train wrecks” due to bidding or playing the hand or defending in the game of bridge. How you cope with the situation at hand determines a plus score or a poor score.

As she looked over the score for her team, Ms. Tiffany W. Casement glanced down at her diamond engagement ring once again. With a big smile on her face, she thought to herself, “Diamonds are forever!”

New this week: A Bridge Question somehow related to the column above: What old movie featured a bridge hand that totally befuddled a villain by the name of D_ _ _?  Who was the declarer on this hand? The bridge hand in question is often called “The Duke of Cumberland” hand and is a classic bridge hand. Good luck! No, it was not “Diamonds Are Forever” either although that is a good place to start looking. 

Gerald Stein

February 17, 2012

668 words

Visit my bridge blog: http://betterbridgeinbarrycountymichigan.blogspot.com/

Play of the Hand Review March 15 2012

Better Bridge in Barry County

By Gerald Stein

Title: Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand

Authors: Barbara Seagram and David Bird

Publisher: Master Point Press Toronto, Canada

Published: 2009

This week’s column will be devoted to reviewing a recent bridge book I had the good fortune to read and study during the last few weeks. Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand by well-known bridge teachers and writers, Barbara Seagram of Canada and David Bird of the United Kingdom really resonates with the beginning bridge player but also speaks loudly to the intermediate bridge player as well.

Too often beginning bridge players hear these words from their bridge instructors: “Be sure to make a plan.” Good enough advice, but mostly this well-intended admonition falls on deaf ears, at least at the beginning of their bridge journey. Learning all that is expected of them in a few short weeks, learning how to make a plan falls somewhere near the bottom of the information pile.

Seagram and Bird address this common weakness of many bridge players, and together they offer a plan on how to plan a bridge hand. With straightforward prose with easy-to-understand bridge hands, both bridge authors guide the reader through 17 short chapters in 231 pages. In the Introduction, the authors claim the following: “One note: bidding can be complicated, but the focus of this book is on card-play. We have therefore elected to use only a few simple conventions in our example auctions, including old-fashioned Blackwood (not Roman Keycard), so as not to distract readers.”

The first chapter explains their methodology of teaching bridge players how to make a plan. Of course, everyone has already heard that old adage to stop and look at the hand your partner has presented to you as dummy. The fact that Seagram and Bird have written this book is testimony to the fact that few beginners actually take the time to make a plan. Their eyes simply glass over, and they start to take tricks, hoping that somehow the technique will work and that they will come up with the needed number of tricks to make their contract. This can work, but usually there is a disaster, and the discussion that follows later is usually not a pretty thing to hear.  “Why did you…” We have all heard that much too often.

Authors Seagram and Bird break the technique down into two parts: the suit contract and the no trump contract. It sounds surprisingly simple, and the good news is that it is simple to hear, but not so simple to put into action. Here is what they say to do with a suit contract: begin counting the number of losing tricks that you have even before you ever take trick one. Stop and count the number of losers in a suit contract. If your contract is four hearts, and by counting the number of losers first, you may have discovered early enough that you have four losers. That is one too many. Your plan, then, for a trump suit is to make one or more of your losers go away. The ways and means of making those tricks go away is the gist of this book, and each chapter offers ways to make those losers disappear. You will make your contracts and smile more.

The second part of the Seagram-Bird approach in this book is to look at no trump contracts, sometimes the more difficult of challenges for beginner and intermediate bridge players. In this approach, instead of counting the losers as in a trump suit, you merely make your plan by counting the number of winners in your hand and in your partner’s hand. This allows you to determine how many tricks that you have and how many tricks that you need. It is the opposite approach of the trump suit approach, and subsequent chapters offer ways for the reader to gain extra tricks in no trump contracts.

Two ways of making a plan, one for suit contracts and one for no trump contracts, take a no-nonsense approach to making and playing better bridge. Short chapters of six to seven pages, practice quizzes at the ends of each chapter, and detailed answers on the quiz problems are all benefits of this must-read bridge book. To use Barbara Seagram and David Bird’s approach as demonstrated in this little bridge book, do what the authors suggest!

PLAN: I will run right out and borrow, order for purchase, or find someone who has a copy of Planning the Play of a Bridge Hand, and I will read and use it.

Now that’s a plan!

Gerald Stein  February 26, 2012  829 words.

(Update on this column: One of the Snowbird readers of the Banner called me from sunny Florida to say that he was enjoying my column. He really wanted to know, however, where he could play bridge in Barry County. Hmmm…that sounds like a future column. Happy Bridge in 2012. )

Visit my bridge blog: http://betterbridgeinbarrycountymichigan.blogspot.com/

The Cardturner: Reviewed by Gerald Stein October 2010

The Cardturner, A novel about a King, A Queen, and a Joker

Author: Louis Sachar

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Date of Publication: 2010

Available at TK Community Library

Reviewed by Gerald Stein

                Imagine that you have just finished your junior year in a small high school.  Imagine that it is the beginning of summer vacation. Imagine that you do not have a job, nor do you have much interest in going out and getting one. Imagine that you have an Uncle Lester who is blind and very rich.  Imagine that your parents want you to be especially nice to Uncle Lester.  Imagine that your parents want you to work for Uncle Lester during the summer as his cardturner, whatever that means. Imagine that your name is Alton Richards, and imagine that most of your teachers mix up your name as well.  You have the basic ingredients for Louis Sachar’s summer hit, The Cardturner.

                Seventeen year-old Alton reluctantly talks to his Uncle Lester one day shortly after school is out for the summer. With no job and no prospect for one, Alton hears his uncle’s voice in one ear, and his mother’s voice in the other, “Alton, tell him he is your favorite uncle!” she hisses. Alton ignores her as usual. His uncle Lester sounds sick, gruff, old, and Alton knows that he is blind as well. “Do you know how to play bridge?” Uncle Lester asks over the phone. “No,” Alton answers truthfully. “Good,” comes from the phone line. “I want you to be my cardturner at the bridge club four days a week.” The phone line goes dead.

                From here on, Alton is pulled into the addicting world of bridge cards, tournaments, matches, and competitions. He learns the basics of bridge playing, not by being taught by his uncle, (Uncle Lester couldn’t be bothered!)  but by merely observing the cards and playing the cards as his uncle calls for them. With 52 cards out, Alton soon learns that his uncle has a phenomenal memory, recalling all of the cards in his own hand after Alton has listed them for him in a quiet part of the club room as well as the other three hands of the other three bridge players at his table.  Soon Alton is caught up in the game of bridge, a game that rivals Euchre, Poker, Crazy Eights, War, and Go Fish all put together. Alton first begins to try and learn the game on his own; then with the help of his bright 11-year old sister, and finally with a strange young lady who used to be Uncle Lester’s cardturner but who was fired for unknown reasons.

                Author Louis Sachar, an avid bridge player himself, has written a witty, insightful novel for the young and the young-at-heart about the self-discovery that happens every so often in a person’s life. Sprinkled throughout the narrative, Sachar gives the reader an easy-to-understand grounding in the art of bridge playing with definitions, games, strategies, failures, and successes.  Before long, you are caught up in the tale, wondering how Alton will take his new-found knowledge and apply it to his life.  The novel is compelling, entertaining, and worthwhile. Readers who play cards will especially be interested in learning about this challenging new-to-them game. For those who have never played cards, The Cardturner will turn you into a 7 No Trump Bidder in no time.

                                                                                    The End

(Gerald Stein is a TKHS retired English teacher who, with his favorite partner Regina, plays bridge and teaches Beginning bridge classes wherever there are willing students. He and his wife Regina reside in Middleville. Their oldest grandson, six-year old Evan, knows how to do dummy play in the exciting world of bridge.)

Visit my bridge blog: http://betterbridgeinbarrycountymichigan.blogspot.com

Better Bridge Number Eight March 8 2012

Better Bridge in Barry County

By Gerald Stein

     North

                                                                              ª: 2 

                                                                              ©: 9

                                                                              ¨: A K J 10 5 4 2

                                                                              §: A Q 9 8

West                                                                                                                      East

ª: A Q 9 8 7                                                                                                         ª: J 10 6

©: 8 2                                                                                                                    ©: Q 7 3

¨: Q 7                                                                                                                   ¨: 9 8 6 3

§: K 7 5 4                                                                                                             §: J 10 3

                                                                              South

                                                                              ª: K 5 4 3

                                                                              ©: A K J 10 6 5 4

                                                                              ¨: ---

                                                                              §: 6 2

Lead: §4

“He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said… ‘Please, sir, I want some more.’

‘What!’ said the master at length…

‘Please, sir,’ replied Oliver, ‘I want some more [gruel].’”  (from Oliver Twist, Chapter II).

In last week’s column, North was “broken-hearted” because he did not get the contract with such a pretty heart hand. Will it happen two weeks in a row? This week, poor starving Oliver Twist is desperate for more food, even if it is the thin gruel served up to the London orphans. In this week’s bridge hand, the North-South team is not as desperate for good cards as Oliver. Together they have very good cards. They just need to reach the right contract.

The bidding went as follows:

Dealer North               East                 South               West

            1¨                   Pass                 1©                   1ª

            2¨                   2ª                   4©                   All Pass

Last week, North was enjoying his solid heart hand but all for naught; this week, he looks at another solid hand with strong diamonds, strong clubs, and two singletons in spades and hearts. He opens the bidding with the diamond bid and plans to rebid the suit with or without partner support. The singletons are the big help in this hand for the North hand.  

East has nothing to say with only four points, and she passes appropriately.

South has almost the same hand in hearts that North had last week. What a switch, but bridge is a team game, and South bids the solid heart suit, also intending to rebid again with encouragement from his partner North.

West with a five-card spade suit and two honors feels the need to throw in an overcall. Although he knows that the East-West team will probably not get the bid, it is a good lead-directing message to his partner East. With 11 high card points, he feels that at the one level this is a safe bid. West bids 1ª.

North has listened to the bidding, and he knows that his singleton spade will be useful for a North-South contract. North confidently rebids the diamond suit, promising at least five or six diamonds, and an interest in going on further.

East chimes in with a rather meager bid. (Perhaps she was desperate like Oliver; there is nothing in her hand), and she bids 2ª.

South has heard enough. There appears to be enough points in the North-South hands to make a game, and the best game in town is 4©. That is exactly what South bid, and all pass.

The lead is the §4 from West. North puts down the dummy, and South, as a bridge courtesy, immediately thanks his partner for the cards, and he then sets out to make his plan. He sees that he has ten tricks in both hands if all goes well: seven heart tricks, two diamond tricks, and one club trick. This is the plan that South comes up with: I will take the §A immediately, and next lead the ¨A and ¨K pitching my last loser club and one loser spade. I can use the ©9 to finesse the ©Q if I need to.

South begins as planned, taking the §A first although some might have taken the chance that West was leading from the §K. The ¨A and the ¨K are led next, and South pitches his last club loser and one of his spade losers. When South sees that the ¨Q falls on the third trick, South must reevaluate his plan. Should he finesse the ©Q by leading the ©9 or lead the top diamond, the ¨J, knowing that West will most likely trump it?

Actually South gives himself two advantages by taking the finesse first. If it wins, then he is still in the dummy hand, and then he can lead the ¨J, planning to pitch another losing spade. The finesse works as East has the ©Q, and South plays the ¨J, pitching another spade loser. The North-South team ends up with ten tricks as planned, losing the three as expected, making a vulnerable game.

Although North did not play the hand, he had a lot to do with the success of it. The best contract for the North-South team is definitely in the major suit of hearts, avoiding the diamond suit and using it to discard losers from the South hand. No, the North-South team was not at all desperate, unlike our poor starving mistreated Oliver Twist, one of Charles Dickens’ most memorable characters in all of literature.

(An update from Kellogg Community College Institute for Learning in Retirement: For Intermediate and Advanced Beginner Bridge players, class number two The Play of the Hand will be offered in Battle Creek for nine weeks, beginning April 23, 2012. For more information, call the ILR office to reserve a spot at 269-948-9500, Extension 2804.)

Gerald Stein

895 words

February 10, 2012

Visit my bridge blog: http://betterbridgeinbarrycountymichigan.blogspot.com/

Bridge Flyer Number Two for Play of the Hand Class

Institute for Learning in Retirement

Presents

Intermediate and Advanced Beginner

Bridge Lessons Class #2

“PLAY OF THE BRIDGE HAND”

Nine Weeks of Bridge Classes just for you!

Join your friends and neighbors for nine weeks of fun.

Learn how to improve your play of the world’s best card game.

Chapter One: Making a Plan

Chapter Two: Developing Tricks-Promotion and Length

Chapter Three: Developing Tricks – The Finesse

Chapter Four: Eliminating Losers – Ruffing and Discarding

Chapter Five: Watching Out for Entries

Chapter Six: Watching Out for the Opponents

Chapter Seven: Managing the Trump Suit

Chapter Eight: Putting It All Together

Chapter Nine: The Jacoby Transfer: Bonus Chapter

Classes begin April 23-June 25, 2012

10:00AM-12:00PM at RMTC, 405 Hill Brady Road,

Battle Creek for nine weeks.

Gerald Stein, American Contract Bridge League

 Accredited Bridge Teacher,

Will lead you through the Second Class for Advanced Beginners and Intermediate Players: The Play of the Hand!

Contact the ILR Office to reserve a spot @ 269-948-9500 Ext. 2804 for more information. This class includes text for nine weeks of fun

Visit my bridge blog: http://betterbridgeinbarrycountymichigan.blogspot.com

Number Seven, March 1, 2012

Better Bridge in Barry County

By Gerald Stein

North

                                                                                     ª: K 10   

                                                                                     ©: A Q J 10 9 6 4

                                                                                     ¨: K 7 2

                                                                                      §: 3

 West                                                                                                               East

ª: 8 7 6 4 3 2                                                                                                  ª: A J 9

©: ---                                                                                                               ©: K 5 3

¨: A J 6 5                                                                                                         ¨: 10 8

§: J 9 8                                                            South                                        §: A K Q 4 2

                                                                                     ª: Q 5

                                                                                     ©: 8 7 2

                                                                                     ¨: Q 9 4 3

                                                                                     §: 10 7 6 5

Lead: ©2

“Do you know what I touch here?” Miss Havisham asked, laying her hands, one upon the other, on her left side.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Pip.

 “What do I touch?”

“Your heart.”

“Broken!”  (from Great Expectations, Chapter VIII).

In today’s bridge hand, North could feel much like Charles Dickens’ reclusive spinster Miss Havisham, jilted on her wedding day at twenty minutes to nine. Her world ended at that moment. North hopefully will shrug off the vagaries of bridge-playing and will look forward to the next hand. The bidding went as follows:

Dealer West                North               East                 South

            Pass                 1©                   1NT                  Pass

            4©                   Dbl                   4ª                   All Pass

North has a solid opening bid with strong hearts, a singleton club, and two kings. North has big plans for his team, envisioning a marriage of four hearts if his partner has some support. This is all supposition, however, barring interference from the opponents.

East has other plans for his team, and he bids a solid 1NT overcall, promising between 15 and 18 high card points. He has them too with a heart stopper behind North’s opening bid.

Poor South is poor indeed and reluctantly passes. Four points is too little to help out his partner North even with three helping hearts in his hand.

Enter West with six spades, but what miserable-looking spades, he thinks. However, per their partnership agreement, West bids a transfer bid of 4©, often called a Texas Transfer or a Super Transfer because it is a big jump, promising enough for game in the next suit, in this case, spades. Also he has just re-evaluated his hand upwards with the void in hearts.

North sees his promising 4© bid evaporate before his eyes. It is his “twenty minutes to nine” moment, and the best he can do is to double for a lead-directing message to his partner South.

West completes the bidding by answering the transfer bid from his partner to 4ª. All pass and East has an easy time taking his ten tricks, making a non-vulnerable game. North-South are able to take only the three tricks that come their way, and not one of them is a heart trick. North is indeed heart-broken. He ponders the thought of sacrificing by bidding 5©, but he realizes that even then, the best that the North-South team could do would be to take eight tricks, down three tricks, no doubt doubled by East, for a loss of 500 points. That would be a worse score than allowing the East-West team to make their 4ª contract.

All in all, sometimes even with an outstanding hand that North holds and is hoping for a good contract, the nature of bridge bidding is an auction, and the highest bidder wins the contract. While broken-hearted on this hand, North will play again and will do well on another hand. That is the nature of the game, and a wonderful game it is.

Finally, to honor the memory of Charles Dickens and his contributions to the world of literature and storytelling, it is most appropriate to bid a Happy 200^th Birthday to a great author and great social critic: February 7, 1812-February 7, 2012. Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens.

(An update from Institute for Learning in Retirement’s Beginning Bridge class going on currently in Battle Creek at Kellogg Community College: Students have learned to use the various numbers in bridge; they have learned to compare and contrast the Charles Goren way of the 1960’s and the modern Standard American way of playing bridge; they have learned the Stayman Convention, and they are playing hands of bridge and laughing. According to Mert, one of the students, “This is the fastest two hours of my week.”)

Gerald Stein

Visit my bridge blog: http://betterbridgeinbarrycountymichigan.blogspot.com/

February 9, 2012

711 words.