The Newsletter  No.5- March 1996

Staffs and Shropshire Green-Pointed Swiss Teams March 10th 1996 Newcastle Bridge Club can feel proud of their only non-hybrid team (Roy Martin-Harold Goodwin, Marion Jordan-David Owen) who dominated a useful field to win the event from the front. Paul Birks partnering Hope Harrison with Stafford teammates almost made a name for himself, when their opponents came nowhere near making a Grand Slam. Paul found the correct play, only to lose concentration and strand himself on table, with the contract almost made. Jean and myself, playing with friends from Chester, had won 3 and lost 3 when the following board appeared in the last match:

¹ Just as expected -not what I wanted to hear

² Should I leave this or bid 3NT?

There was a double disappointment for me when partner’s hand went down on the lead of the §10. We did have some fit in diamonds, whilst her spades were not what I needed for 3NT. I won the first trick with dummy’s §K and ran the ¨ J to the two, three and King. West switched to the ª4 and there seemed to be little point in not trying dummy’s King. East produced the Ace and I threw a heart. East pondered and, to my astonishment, played not a club nor yet a spade but the ©9. It was my turn to go into the tank. East hadn’t led a club because he hadn’t got one. The ¨2 suggested three cards in the suit, which meant West had begun with ¨ K doubleton. East hadn’t returned a spade because he wanted another lead through spades. He would surely have played the ªQ, so perhaps he had ªJ9 sitting over dummy’s ª10. Turning to West I knew he was marked with six clubs to the AJ and the ¨ K doubleton. My guess in spades, based on East’s return was four to the Queen. This left West with a singleton heart. Since ten points is thin for an overcall at unfavourable vulnerability his singleton had to be the ©K. A second pointer came from the fact that East would hardly underlead ©K towards a dummy holding ©QJ and devoid of entries. Breathing deeply, I popped up with the ©A… and felled the singleton King. Now there were two more heart tricks in dummy and five diamond tricks in hand. 3NT tick! Privately I was unhappy with partner’s failure to support diamonds and her rebid of a frail spade suit. But our teammates came back with a moderate card and the big swing on this board (the opposition played in 3¨ down one) was just enough to give us a fourth win.

GAME FOR A LAUGH “Twenty five year ago.”

The ides of March are not only the anniversary of Caesar’s murder but also of the death of the famous Oriental strong-passer, Lu, Sing Trik.  Lu had collected a massive stock of bridge books, masterpoints and bridge memorabilia, which he kept on a high shelf, remote from the hands of borrowers and other light-fingered gentry. On March 15th 1971, the addition of an omnibus version of Bridge Movements and the Bridge Players Encyclopaedia collapsed the shelf upon Lu, fatally killing him. An Appeals Committee judged Lu had only himself to blame.

P. J.

Conventional Wisdom

Lebensohl for the Club Player (1)   by     Tog   (on request)

Opposition interference over your 1NT opening bid prevents your side using Stayman, Transfers, Weak Takeouts or any other preferred gadget Lobensohl helps you cope after the opponents have interfered. Let us as an example, take the situation where you have a 5 + card suit.

 Partner opens 1 NT (12-14), RHO overcalls 2ª and you hold:

(a)         ª Q75                                    (b)         ª 9
             © AK10984                                        © QJ98763
             ¨107                                                   ¨ 765
             § KJ                                                    § 52

In both hands there must be prospects of a heart contract but (a) is the forcing type, whilst (b) is of the weak takeout variety. Lebensohl enables you to make clear to partner which hand you hold and not allow the opposition 2ª bid to keep you out of contract. On hand (a) a bid of 3© is natural and forcing, guaranteeing 5 + cards in the suit. The same would apply to immediate bids of 3§ or 3¨

To show the weaker type of hand, a conventional Lebensohl bid of 2NT is made which requires opener to bid 3§. This will be left if the long suit is clubs or converted by responder to his long suit, in this instance, 3©. Opener is expected to pass. Some club players might wish to play no more than this. If you do, read on  

There are five options for responder holding better cards. An immediate bid of an unbid Suit, as mentioned above, is one it is Natural forcing and 5+ cords in the suit. Now consider the following two hands, after 2© has been bid over partner’s 1NT.

             (c)        ª K83                                     (d)        ª A943
                         © 87                                                     © 1052
                         ¨ AJ74                                                ¨ KQJ
                         § AJ9B                                               § K92

                         13HCP enough for game                     13HCP enough for game
                         No four card major                              An unbid low card major (ª)
                         No stopper in their suit (©)                 No stopper in their suit (©)
                         No 5+ suit                                            No 5+ suit

We cannot adopt the method of hand (a) because we have no long suit. The difference between (c) and (d) is the holding of a four card major in (d). A bid seems to be necessary, since to let them play in 2©, even doubled, will not compensate for the missed game. Using Lebensohl, we make an immediate bid of 3NT with (c), whilst we show the four card major of (d) by an immediate cue-bid of their suit viz 3©.

The other two options use the Lebensohl 2NT, but enough for now, I think...

News in Brief.

The Young Cup was won by John Mills and Ian Webb from a disappointingly small field. A far cry from the days when pairs had to qualify to play in the event.

Anne Berrisford has put the champagne on hold in the Handicap Teams competition, though, for Anne to fail, the Jean Brandon team would need to win their remaining games whilst the leaders slipped up. At the other end of the table, Bradley, Dumbleton and Keele are battling (?) to avoid the wooden spoon, with Maddock (four defeats in the last five games) still not out of the woods.

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS  Ideas from our excellent cook-bridge players.

This month, why not take a mouthwatering dip into       

Pheasant Casserole a la facon (RuthTimmis )

Readers Letters

Sir, I take issue with Tog (Feb edition) who calls the Little Major difficult to play. If he wants a seriously difficult system, let him try our modification of Precision called “Descision”. I recently partnered the Designer of the system. On one board, I made my usual couple of bidding errors¹, and, after asking partner to describe his hand, left him in the response. This meant he had to play in a vulnerable small slam doubled in a 3-3 fit, missing the Queen of trumps and with a bad trump break. So I went to the bar, not in despair, but thinking that some good might come out of it, like our adopting a reasonable system. On my return, however, I found partner writing 6© x making 12  for +1660 on the traveller. This was a top against a batch of 6NT +1 scores for + 1470. The deal was:

South declarer in 6©X

‘It is only because Descision is difficult,’ said partner,’ that we got into such a fabulous contract. it didn’t matter what West led, though he chose the §10. I played off the six top tricks in the minors, pitching a spade from dummy. Next the ªA, ªK, leaving West with just his five trumps. A third spade threw West in and he had to play a trump, which picked up East’s Queen for me. On my last spade West’s ©6 was over ruffed by dummy’s ©8 and I ruffed dummy’s last diamond, with the ©J, West having to under-ruff with the ©7. Now my ©9 was covered by West’s ten and dummy’s Ace.’ He stuffed the traveller into the board before continuing, ‘You and Descision are perfect partners like eggs and stilton, fish and bacon or claret and chips. You must never desert Descision.’  I agreed, somewhat ruefully, my hopes destroyed.

 ‘Only two errors? This casts doubt on the writer’s veracity. (Ed.) “Otis Henty”

HANDICAP MATTERS

The EBU are pushing the idea of clubs using a handicap system on duplicate nights. The intention is to offer a more realistic chance of doing well to modest pairs and minnows. This has some merit and an approach being adopted by a number of progressive clubs works along the following lines:

Each time a pair score less than 50%, an addition of 1% is made to their existing handicap, up to a maximum of 10%. For pairs scoring more than 50%, a deduction of 1% is made from their handicap, with the proviso that no-one is permitted a negative handicap. An open set of results is published plus a second set in which the open score has been adjusted by adding the handicap. (We would need a good records system and there are implications for prizes and masterpoints.) Any comments?

There has been a deal of offstage grumbling over the handicaps given in the Handicap teams this season and the absence of any adjustment when the make-up of teams changed. The handicapper is placed in a no-win situation and perhaps consideration should be given to a more objective approach, say along the following lines:

Take a team, as an example a fictitious one: Wharton (Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Marjorie Hazledene, Bessie Bunter)

Find the most-recent positions of each member from the Long term performance tables of Fred Moore and add them together to get a Team Score. e.g. Harry =36 Bob =52 Marjorie = l8 Bessie = 90   Team Score  = 36+52+18+90 =196

What if the player is a club member but not a rated one?

I would suggest a maximum position score of 100. Less may be awarded if the handicapper deems the occasional player to be of a  higher standard.

What if the team use a substitute or replace a player permanently?

The team score is recalculated e.g The Wharton team replace Bessie Bunter (90) with George Wingate (5). The team score will fall by 85 to 111.

What if the player is from another club (Basford, Stafford etc)?

e.g. Instead of Bessie Bunter, the Wharton team include Tom Merry, a good player from Wolverhampton. The handicapper uses his skill to rate Merry as 12 and the team score drops to 118. In the situation where an unknown guest is used, the new player could be rated as the average of the other three, which would be about 35 for the Wharton team.

The connection between Team Score and Handicap

Once again the skill of the Handicapper is needed, this time to set a maximum handicap (given to the team with the highest score).  Suppose, as this year, it is 2000 and given to a team with a score of 230. Now all other handicaps are calculated pro rata. This is achieved by multiplying 2000 by the team score and dividing by the highest team score (in this example 230), then rounding-off to the nearest hundred.

For the original Wharton team this is 2000*196/230 1704 =1700 With Wingate replacing Bessie, it becomes 2000*111/230 965 1000

What if the team is from outside?

Either the handicapper will have sufficient knowledge and experience of the team, as at Newcastle with Simpson or Keele, or he will use his skill to place the team by a benchmark approach. e.g. a new team, Figgins, is perceived as better than Wharton 1700 but not as good as the next better team, Coker, on 1300. The handicapper should allot his choice from 1400, 1500 or 1600.

Again do you have any comments? This system does not intend to dispense with the role of the handicapper, but rather to protect him (or her) by limiting the proportion of subjectivity in a specific handicap.

The Newsletter  No.6         April 1996

ALL AT SEA AND SLAM HAPPY - Len Armstrong - “Oriana”

There is something exciting about a slam, especially a doubled slam and when a teams competition produces a doubled slam at both tables, even the brilliant blue sea, green palms and white sands of the Caribbean may be forgotten. The bridge-players had, by this time, become sufficiently acquainted for me to run a Teams event. Jim and Tony, Monty and Shirley were all of a decent club standard and everybody’s idea of the winners. This was highlighted on the following board

Away Table

¹ A stretch bid at favourable vulnerability to deter the opposition

East’s stretch bid might have worked against a better player than Shirley, who with good defensive values and poor hearts should have doubled. Harry with an outside Ace and the KQ of trumps apparently working, doubled 6© confidently. Monty thought about 6ª but, with probable losers in the minors and a likely bad trump break for South, he passed.

Declarer ruffed the ªA lead and attacked trumps losing the second round to the King and ruffing the spade continuation. The last trump was removed and Ace, King of clubs played to unblock. Entering dummy with ¨K, declarer was able to throw two diamond losers on the Queen, Jack of clubs to see the contract home.

Worse news awaited Harry and Ros at their home table. The bidding had been more protracted to 6© doubled, but Jim, in the East seat, had removed to 6ª, doubled by South. The contract had no chance with three losers in the minors. North’s lead of the ©A, however, was disastrous for the defence. Declarer was able to ruff in dummy and so establish his own King and Queen of hearts to take care of the diamond losers. Now there just one club loser and it was 6ª doubled tick. The swing was (1660+1210) = 2870 points or 21 imps, a formidable springboard from which they went on to win the event.

Readers’ letters on issues raised in the previous Newsletter will appear next month          __________________________________________

Conventional Wisdom Lebensohl for the Club Player (2)   by    Tog

Last month we encountered the use of the Lebensohl 2NT for a weak hand with a long suit. For a stronger hand (13 + HCP) we can bid a long (5+) suit directly at the three level. We also noted that with stronger hands, but no stopper in their suit, the bid depends upon whether or not we have an unbid four card major. With an unbid four card major we cue-bid their suit. (Cue-bid - Cards in major) With no four card major we bid 3NT (No trumps — No major)

For similar 13+ HCP hands that include a stopper in their suit, we revert to bidding the Lebensohl 2NT and following up the forced 3§response with a rebid. What the rebid is again depends upon whether we have an unbid four card major. Once again, with the major we cue-bid their suit. With no major we rebid 3NT.

Partner opens 1NT and RHO overcalls 2©

Beginning to get the pattern? Some club players will want to go no further. For those who would like to deal with artificial overcalls such as the Asptro 2§ or 2¨watch this space

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS  Ideas from our excellent cook-bridge players.

This month, K’s  Tiroler Grostl        

“Perhaps we should play Hackett?”                  a tale of   “Timorous”

Monday morning but instead of domestic chores, I am at the library, riffling through reference books to see what chef meant yesterday.

We had played in the Telford Swiss Teams and not enjoyed it. I am sure most of you have had the same experience at some time ….. you win the first match 20-0, find yourself amongst the “big boys”, get thrashed and then lose match after match, with your confidence diminishing to zero. Yes, that happened to us and the final match saw us up against a team that would be dignified by the description “minnows”. When the last board arrived, we must have been a Street in front. It was after this last board that chef said I “had piled a load of old Ossa upon Pelion.” I think sarcasm is a terrible thing in an educated man, don’t you? Though I’m not sure he was being sarcastic, which explains the reference books. Anyway, that last hand West was dealer and I sat South: