A NEW BRIDGE MAGAZINE EBL Triumph Aces and Knaves Reading Matters EDITION 16 April 2019 A NEW BRIDGE MAGAZINE – APRIL 2019 Bridge Masters vacancy is to be filled If you are looking to improve your declarer play, by Geoff Hampson one of the best options currently available is to and Eric Greco and it pay a visit to: appears that their spot on the team captained http://www.bridgebase.com/ by Marty Fleisher will A NEW v3/?bridgemaster=y&cb=lIjJt5KarR be taken by Thomas There you will find Bridgemaster 2000, a won- Bessis and Frederick derful piece of software that affords you the Volcker. opportunity to test yourself against a variety Meanwhile, Eric has confirmed that he has no of problems at five different levels. Andrew Rob- plans to retire! son suggests it has the potential to improve your BRIDGE speed and quality of thinking at the table. The Impregnable Quadrilateral MAGAZINE The program, which was a great commercial suc- Searching for a way to describe Bobby Jones Editor: cess, was created by Fred Gitleman and is now achievement in winning the Open, the US Open Mark Horton available to everyone free of charge. Every one and both the British and US Amateur Cham- Advertising: of the constructed deals illustrates a technical pionships in the same year (1930) one writer point. Taking the correct line will lead to your Mark Horton described it as a Grand Slam, but it has become making the contract, but if you make a mistake Photographers: enshrined in the annuls of golf as The Impreg- the program will exploit your error and ensure nable Quadrilateral. As Manchester City advance Ron Tacchi the contract fails. At the end of each deal you can Francesca Canali to what would be a historic season of four tro- listen to (or read) an explanation that explains Proofreaders: phies, I started thinking about a possible bridge the correct line and the thought process behind equivalent. Monika Kummel, Herman De Wael it. Typesetter: Could one team so dominate the game that they It’s another wonderful contribution to bridge Ron Tacchi could win say the Reisinger, Spingold & Vander- players around the world by Fred and Sheri Reviews: bilt in the same season, while adding a world Winestock, talking of which BBO will be broad- title in the same year. Martin Cantor casting live from the Yeh Bros Cup, later this The English equivalent would be to win the Gold A NEW BRIDGE Magazine is published monthly. month, April 9-13, where many of the world’s Views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of Cup, Crockfords, the Schapiro Spring Fours and the Editor. Editorial contributions will be published at the Editor’s top players will be competing for massive prizes. discretion and may be shortened if space is limited. the world title. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the prior express permission of the publishers. All rights reserved. ♥2018 The Merry-go-Round Glancing briefly at the records I noticed that in Advertisements: Although staff of A New Bridge Magazine take 1944 B.Jay Becker was a member of teams that all reasonable precautions to protect the interests of readers by In the March issue of the ACBL’s Bridge Bulletin, ensuring as far as practicable that advertisements in the pages won the Vanderbilt and Spingold and finished of A New Bridge Magazine are bona fide, the magazine cannot George Jacobs revealed in his regular column accept any undertaking in respect of claims made against second in the Reisinger. In 1993, 1994 & 1995 advertisers. Legal remedies are available if redress is sought, that Meckwell, Eric Rodwell & Jeff Meckstroth and readers who have complaints should address them to the are leaving the team captained by Nick Nick- Nick Nickell, Richard Freeman, Bob Hamman, advertiser. Readers should note that prices advertised may not be Bobby Wolff, Jeff Meckstroth & Eric Rodwell accurate due to currency exchange rate fluctuations or tax changes ell. Other sources reported that the resulting Page 2 A NEW BRIDGE MAGAZINE – APRIL 2019 won the Reisinger and the Spingold, adding the Beijing Bermuda Bowl in 1995 –the closest any team has ever come to immortality. Help!!! In the UK more than one team has won two out of the Gold Cup, Crock- A Cri de Coeur from the Layout Editor fords and the Schapiro Spring Fours, but a treble (let alone a quadruple) remains elusive. As you may know the magazine’s staff consists of your illustrious edi- tor, responsible for the words, and myself who is responsible for all the technical stuff. This includes laying out the magazine and maintaining the website along with the database of subscribers. In all these areas, as in most areas of my life, I am self-taught. You are also probably aware that last month there was a delay in the magazine as a result of a catastrophic technical glitch in the layout office. In the cold light of dawn I discovered it was almost certainly due to the aged and failing laptop I use when remote from my office. Thus Mr Dell was approached who delivered a new state-of-the-art portable PC in return for a handsome shed-load of sterling. You may think all problems and anxieties were resolved, but, like most of my decisions about finessing, WRONG. I use the Adobe Cloud Suite for all the work for the magazine. This includes ‘Muse’ for maintaining the website. I was vaguely aware that Muse was not a long term member of the Adobe family but imagine my chagrin when I came to install the Cloud Suite on the new equipment when I found out that Muse was no longer available. It transpires that if you have Muse installed then it will continue to function for some time yet but it will not be updated or available as a new download. As my licence only allows two current machines I had already removed all Adobe programs from the aged laptop and thus the new one does not have the same software installed. This means, currently, when I am remote I cannot update the magazine’s website. I had always planned that at some future date to migrate to Dream- weaver (another web maintaining software from Adobe) but it is not something that can be done overnight. It frequently happens (as per this month) that I am travelling at the end of the month and not in my office and thus need to be able to finalise the magazine whilst on the road. What I am hoping is that there is some subscriber out there who has either a suggestion as to a short term fix for this situation and/or can assist in migrating the website. Should you be that miracle worker then please contact me at [email protected]. Page 3 A NEW BRIDGE MAGAZINE – APRIL 2019 In This Issue 4 FUNBRIDGE — Test Your Technique Test Your Technique 5 Lisbon2019 — The Editor reports on the 2019 European Mixed Championships with Christophe Grosset see Page 95 79 GOTO Bridge 19 ♠ 7 5 3 83 FUNBRIDGE — Misplay These Hands With Me ♥ Q 6 4 85 Aces and Knaves ♦ A J 9 5 86 Deals That Caught My Eye — David Bird looks at the Australian Open Teams 2019 ♣ A Q 6 90 Bid72 94 Defend With Julian Pottage ♠ A K 10 95 FUNBRIDGE — Test Your Technique solution ♥ A K 7 3 2 96 It Ain’t What You Do But The Way That You Do It — Alex Adamson & Harry Smith with ♦ 2 ♣ 9 7 3 2 another tale from the Over The Rainbow Bridge Club West North East South 101 Defend With Julian Pottage — The Answers – – – 1♥ 102 Bridge With Larry Cohen 2♥* 2♠ Pass 4♥ 104 Book Reviews — Martin Cantor You play 4♥ from the South hand on the king 109 Kit’s Corner — Kit Woolsey of diamonds lead. West has shown a two-suiter 113 Excerpt from Patrick Jourdain’s Problem Corner with spades and diamonds. Plan the play after 118 Angie Booker’s Bold Idea — David Bird winning with dummy’s ♦A. 122 The uBid Auction Room — Mark Horton 126 Master Point Press Bidding Battle — Moderated by Brian Senior 140 Master Point Press Bidding Battle Competition — Set 16 144 Hands for This Month’s Auction Room 145 Comments on Bidding Battle 14 — Brian Senior Page 4 A NEW BRIDGE MAGAZINE – APRIL 2019 Lisbon 2019 The Editor reports on the European Mixed Teams Championship By any standard, the first European Mixed Teams Championship was an are sure to be competitive. Norway will be one of Scandinavia’s hopes, outstanding event. while Poland will surely challenge for a medal. Portugal has the advan- The venue was close to the airport, in an area of the City that offered tage of playing at home – will that be enough? Watch out for Romania, a wide range of restaurants in reach of the hotel. The combined efforts and the powerful Russian team. Scotland and Serbia are both teams of the European Bridge League and the Portuguese Bridge Federation of four, which may be a challenge in such a strong event. Spain will be ensured that everything ran on oiled wheels. optimistic, as will Sweden, who are also playing as a foursome. Swit- Apart from the prestige attached to winning a major title the prize zerland will be hoping to do well, as will Turkey, who play host later in on offer for the eight leading teams was a trip to China later in the year the year in Istanbul.