GEELONG BRIDGE CLUB NEWSLETTER

VOLUME 10, ISSUE 2 M a y 2 0 2 1

From the President

148-152 Portarlington Road, Newcomb VIC WELCOME BACK!

PO Box 1546

Geelong VIC 3220 We are well and truly back to normal, currently running six sessions (03) 5248 2978 per week, including two popular supervised play sessions, Tues

morning and Thursday evening. Recently, with Pizza Sunday

included, we ran seven sessions in one week.

Dot Read, with assistance from Geoff, has recently completed two

training courses, following which 25 new members joined the club. This is a great result. The Thursday night supervised play is catering

for new members who still work and will continue until July. After that they will be ready to play Wednesday evenings, albeit with initial help from mentors. Disappointingly, a relatively new member recently resigned. I phoned to find out why, and was informed she club.org - was treated harshly when she played on a Thursday. It is totally against the club’s ethos to treat anyone, and especially new players, harshly or with disrespect, regardless of them perhaps playing poorly. A huge effort has gone into getting and fostering new members. We don’t want this undone by one or two discourteous members.

For many years we have used the software ASE 9, and

it has served us very well. However it is no longer supported with software updates, and is now problematic. Consequently the Match Committee has recommended, and the Committee has agreed, that we switch to the widely used and well supported program, Compscore 2.

Early this year we sent members a copy of the club’s Strategic Plan. In it we listed near and long term priorities. Now that we have more

www.geelong.bridge clarity regarding the cost of the car park, consistent with the strategic plan, we are considering proceeding with a number of projects.

Continued next page P a g e 2 Continued from previous page

Replacement of carpets. Lead by Jennifer Blyton, the committee will consider quotes for the replacement of the well-worn clubroom carpet, with either carpet, carpet squares or wooden flooring.

External painting of club rooms. Some repairs will first need to take place. Quotes are being sought for painting the club rooms.

Landscaping. On completion of the carpark there will no longer be parking on the grassed area on our eastern boundary. This area will be planted with trees, albeit small trees that will not damage the drive way. We will also consider improvements to general landscaping. We have two large water tanks which I understand have not been used for six or more years. Consequently we will consider connecting these tanks to water the gardens at the front of the club rooms, and also, reconnecting them to flush toilets. Currently GBC spends around $270 pa on water attributable to toilet flushing. Garden water without tanks would cost up to a further $200 pa.

Best Wishes

Alan Blackburn

President

Grand National Open Teams (GNOT) The Grand National Open Teams (GNOT) competition is one of the ABF’s broad-based events with sixty teams selected from clubs/regions nationwide to play-off in the National Final.

Two teams from Western Victoria Region are selected for the GNOT.

BARWON team is selected from ten teams - six from Geelong Bridge Club (GBC), three from Ocean Grove and one from Torquay; the teams will play in the final to be held at the GBC on 26 September 2021.

Three teams each from the Open Teams and Helen Drinnan competitions make up the six GBC teams.

The WESTERN VICTORIA team is selected after a pairs’ event in Ballarat. The event is limited to players with less than 500 every alternate year. Since the 2020 event was cancelled, in 2021 is restricted to players with less than 500 masterpoints. GBC members, with less than 500 masterpoints, should contact Ballarat Bridge Club to enter in the event scheduled on 11 July 2021.

This year the GNOT final will be held in Brisbane and not the Gold Coast (as in previous years).

Piyush Jain P a g e 3

Club Results Restricted Pairs NS Restricted Pairs EW Thursday 22 April Thursday 22 April

!st P Carland, G Barfoot 1st J Prowse, D Casey

2nd J Flitton, P Smigowski 2nd L Johnston, J Munro

3rd J McGonigal, M McMahon 3rd K Fraser, M Sinclair

Restricted Pairs Restricted Pairs

Thursday 29 April Thursday 29 April (cont.)

1st J Prowse, D Casey 4th P Carland, G Barfoot

2nd A Blackburn, K Thomas 5th P Horan, J Horan

club.org/ 6th L Bennetto, P Donoghue - 3rd K Fraser, M Sinclair

Restricted Pairs Restricted Pairs Overall Result (cont.) Overall Result 1st J Prowse, D Casey 4th K Fraser, M Sinclair

2nd P Carland, 5th J Flitton, G Barfoot P Smigowski www.geelong.bridge 3rd A Blackburn, 6th L Johnston, J Munro K Thomas

GEELONG BRIDGE CLUB INC. P a g e 4

CAR PARK UPDATE

No date has been decided for the commencement of construction, nevertheless progress is being made in preparation for a start.

• We have advised the selected contractors of their selection. • Following a Council of Greater Geelong (CoGG) request, we have written to CoGG advising suitable dates for the official launch of the project, suggesting a Thursday at 1200 pm. We have provided the Mayor with a suggested program, and details about the project. • We have made contact with the project officer with CoGG with whom we will liaise. We have provided her with the information required to populate the contract documents that GBC and CoGG will sign. CoGG has advised that their solicitors are updating the pro forma contract forms that Grant recipients need to sign. Documents cannot be signed until this is completed. CoGG has requested that we make further contact on 24 May. We are hopeful that contracts will be signed shortly after that. • We have requested confirmation and clarification re how CoGG will pay GST, and clarification on what process to follow if we seek to access Grant funds for contingency items. • GBC has to get the project approved by CoGG’s Planning Department. We have been assisted with this by an excellent Planning Consultant. CoGG has required GBC to reinstate kerbing where the informal crossover exists. A quote of $1600 exc GST has been provided from our contactor. This cost will be added to ‘contingencies’. • Advertise the project. A sign was placed in the front of our allotment and remained there for two weeks to 16 May. • The Maintenance Committee has recommended that trees on the west side of the existing car park be removed prior to construction, as their roots will likely affect the new car park. Quotes are being sought for this work. GBC will seek to have the cost included under ‘contingencies’.

Alan Blackburn

NEW MEMBERS The Geelong Bridge Club welcomes the following new and re-joining members: Christine Anketell Sue Dunn Andrea McVean Sheridan Ayton Brian Baldwinson David Frederick Jacqui Mitchell Julie Heath Chris Baum Sheila Hedderick James Powell Aileen Ingles Sue Bennett Pam Jackman Judy Ramage Richard Giles (affiliate) Lisa Cheshire Peter Jackman Julie Reid Heather Comisel Bryan Johnston Heather Ryan Michael Currie Pat Longland Sherryn Van Den Bosch Megan Dean Sue McDermott P a g e 5 Bidding the Unbiddable Many thanks to Doug Newlands for this article. Sometimes we find ourselves with an unbiddable hand because the opponents have rudely intruded in the auction. Consider Hand 1. Hand 1 When partner opened 1C, you intended bidding 1H, but your right hand S: 87 opponent bid 1S. Now what? There is no real problem here. You can bid H: KQ1065 2H since you have the required 5+ cards and the 11+ HCP. Thus you bid D: AK8 2H and the auction carries on normally after 1C-(1S)-2H. (Bids in brackets C: 765 are the opponents’ bids).

Now consider Hand 2 after the same start of 1C-(1S)-.

Hand 2 You cannot bid No without a stopper, you cannot raise Clubs S: 876 because partner may only have three of them and, most importantly, you H: KQ105 cannot bid 2H because you don’t have five of them nor do you have 11+ D: KQ8 HCP. It is always a problem, mainly with a four card Heart suit, when the C: 765 opponents bid Spades. Is there an answer? A similar problem arises with Hand 3 after 1C-(1S)-. Hand 3 Now you have the necessary 5+ cards in Hearts to bid them, but you are S: 87 well short of the 11 HCP which you would be promising if you did so. H: KQ10652 Again there is no obvious answer. You would like to bid 2H but without D: K8 promising 11+ HCP. You don’t want to pass in case the hand is passed C: 765 out. Is there an answer? Surprisingly, there are three answers to these problems. The first basic answer is the Negative Double (NEGX) which says three things:

• I have the unbid major (usually Hearts)

• I have 8-11 HCP but occasionally I will be stronger. But don’t worry about that, I will tell you later

• You are not allowed to pass this double out. Why is it 8-11 and not 5-11? The answer is simple. If it goes 1C-(1S)--P-(P), partner will always find a bid with 18+ HCP and often with 16-17. If we have game values, 25 HCP and partner is borderline for a bid 16-17, we need to help him. That is why 8 is the minimum. Do not use the NegX with less than 8.

Why is the top end 11 HCP? With 12 HCP, you will usually have enough for a natural bid. If you have 12+ but no obvious bid, you can start with a double then make another bid.

Now we see the solution to Hand 2. Just double to show 8-11 and 4 Hearts and leave it up to partner who will bid Hearts if they also have 4. If partner instead rebids 1NT (12-14) or 2C showing 5+ Clubs, just pass.

Continued next page P a g e 6 Bidding the Unbiddable cont. The solution to Hand 3 is also simple. Double now and bid 2H on the next round. Partner knows that with 12+ HCP (maybe 11+), the auction would be 1C-(1S)-2H, so doubling then bidding Hearts is weaker (8-11) but with long Hearts. This 2H bid is passable.

There are two other places where the NegX bid is important. I assume that you play Jacoby 2NT so 1S-2NT says you have a raise of partner’s and either invitational or better (inv+) values or, forcing to game (FG) values. It’s a nice piece of kit to have in your bag but do you lose it when the opponents come in, say, 1S-(2D)-2NT. Does 2NT go back to being natural for you? It shouldn’t. Why voluntarily give up your good methods? Keep 2NT as Jacoby.! “But what if I want to bid 2NT naturally?” I hear you say. Well, that’s easy. Start with a NegX and bid 2NT (or 3NT) the next time round. Nothing can go wrong. Partner will bid over the NegX but if partner converts it to penalty with a good holding in their suit, you are very pleased since you have stoppers in their suit too. You will collect a tidy penalty (maybe a postcode*).

It is also common to use 1S-(2C)-2NT to show 4 card support and the of their suit, say, 1S -(2C)-3C to show 3 card support. Again I hear you say “what if I want to cue bid their suit, to ask for help for 3NT?”. The solution is the same, NegX this round and cue bid their suit next round for that meaning. Again, if partner converts to penalty with a good holding in their suit, you are very happy.

Hand 4 shows an example of a NegX which is stronger than 11 HCP. Hand 4 The problem is that, after 1C-(1S), there is no sensible bid, so start with a NegX S: 987 and if partner bids 2H, raise them to 4H. If partner bids 1NT, raise it to 3NT. If H: KQ102 partner bids 2C, cue 2S to try to push them into 3NT. D: AK8 If the auction starts 1C-(2S), still use the NegX for this hand but, when you are C: Q52 forcing partner to bid at the 3 level, the NegX has to promise more, say 11+ HCP. Even if the auction started 1C-(3S), you would NegX to show the Hearts with this, since there are sufficient values to bid game. Will it always work well? No but it improves your chances in contested auctions.

You mentioned two other methods

The first is negative Free Bids (NFB) where, over interference, new suits are weak, long and not forcing. All flat or good hands start with a double. I don’t like this method because if it starts 1C -(1S)-X-(3S), you haven’t managed to bid anything in your good hand and all the bidding space has vanished!

The second is Switch Bids where, in addition to the NegX, you play the two unbid suits are transfers to each other. Thus, 1C-(1S)-2D is a transfer to Hearts and 1C-(1S)-2H is a transfer to Diamonds. Clearly, since responder gets another bid over the transfer completion, these bids can be weak or strong but you do get to show your suit immediately.

*Postcodes? A postcode is a four digit number and big penalties have four digit numbers. Some players find it amusing to collect postcodes like Orange, NSW (2800). You can work out a few more. Many come from the opponents’ misuse of redoubles.

P a g e 7 WESTERN REGION BRIDGE ASSOCIATION

The Western Region Bridge Association (WRBA) was chartered in 2011 and the President was Gary Ridgway (Geelong), who recently retired. The new Committee was elected at the 2021 Annual General Meeting: PRESIDENT: Jenny Johnstone (Geelong) SECRETARY: Dot Peacock (Geelong) TREASURER: Terry Passlow (Ocean Grove).

OUR AIM To encourage all clubs within the region to assist by participation in our events. OUR FOCUS To attract entries to these events held in a pleasant environment with particular attention to newer players. OUR EVENTS 1. Western Region (WR) Congress – Geelong – Feb. (2days) The two winning pairs (Womens and Seniors) have the opportunity of competing in the Victorian State selection final. The two winning teams similarly join the Country Teams championship.* 2. WR Friendly Pairs – Ballarat – Sunday 8 August. 3. WR Friendly Teams – Ocean Grove – Sunday 21 November. 4. Novice Pairs – Venue and date to be advised

WE HOPE YOU ARE ABLE TO SUPPORT OUR EVENTS

A note from the new WR President

The charter for the WRBA was created in February 2011 and since that time Gary Ridgway has been President – I would like to thank Gary for all his efforts and time that he has put into organising events and supporting clubs in the Western Region.

I am pleased to be following in Gary’s footsteps (a hard act to follow) and working with Dot Peacock as Secretary and Terry Passlow as Treasurer.

Our first aim is to visit most of the clubs in the Western Region and introduce ourselves. We hope to encourage continued participation, particularly the novice players.

Jenny Johnson

*There was no WR Congress this year because of COVID so the results for the people playing at the VBA next month and also the Country Teams Championship were taken from last year's results.

GEELONG BRIDGE CLUB INC. P a g e 8

From the Geelong Advertiser Look what Dot found.

WESTERN REGION BRIDGE ASSOCIATION Friendly Pairs – Ballarat SUNDAY 8TH AUGUST 2021, 10am Ballarat Bridge Club 1001 Eyre St. Ballarat Central 3350 Cost: $20 per player (BYO lunch)

Director: Graham Hill Entries to Bruce Morley 0427413892 or [email protected] Morning tea provided and nibbles at completion of play. We look forward to seeing you at this event it will be a fun day! P a g e 9 If West held the King of Spades...but he didn’t.

Dealer North, NS Vul. S: Q 8 4 West led the nine of clubs won by dummy’s ace. H: Q 10 5 Declarer could count 11 winners and the twelfth would come if West held the spade king. D: A K 7 6 Consequently, declarer turned his attention to C: A 6 2 overcoming some cases where East began with S: J 10 6 2 S: K 5 the king of spades. H: 6 2 H: 8 3 Make a plan before reading on! D: 10 8 5 4 2 D: J 9 At trick two, declarer ruffed a club with the C: 9 5 C: K Q J 10 7 4 3 nine of trumps. Next, he cashed the ace of S: A 9 7 3 trumps and played a trump to dummy’s queen, H: A K J 9 7 4 finding the trumps to be 2-2. After ruffing D: Q 3 dummy’s remaining club, declarer cashed the C: 8 three top diamonds, discarding a spade from hand. Declarer continued with the ace of spades West North East South and a spade to dummy’s queen. When East took 1 NT 3C 3H the queen of spades with the king he found Pass 4C Pass 4S himself with a hand that only had clubs left; the Pass 5D Pass 6H forced club return allowed declarer to discard Pass Pass Pass his last spade and in dummy. Doug Newlands

Olga Jacobs Winners Congratulations to John Prowse and David Casey, the 2021 winners of the Olga Jacobs Award, coming first in the Restricted Pairs, held on the 22 and 29 May 2021.

It is good to see some younger players coming up through the ranks.

A note from the editor

As the editor, I would like to encourage you all to pass on anything you think will be of interest to the members regarding the Bridge Club. Thanks again to those who contributed information and interesting articles for this edition. Contact the Committee or me at [email protected].

Jennifer Blyton P a g e 10

Our latest graduates

The Monday evening class graduates

Dot was very pleased with the number of new students who finished the ten weeks of lessons, on either Monday evenings or Thursday mornings. Some have gone on to start playing in supervised play on Tuesday mornings and others are playing on Thursday evening supervised play. Some are doing both! Let’s make sure they feel welcome on whatever day they choose to play. It was pleasing to see some newbies at the April Pizza Sunday. Dot will be doing some follow-up lessons in the near future so keep an eye on the noticeboard for these dates.

The Thursday morning graduates

PIZZA SUNDAYS The next Pizza Sunday is on Sunday 30 May at 4.00pm Please come along and join in the fun, but be sure to put your name on the list if you wish to attend. P a g e 11

Vale Rank Promotions Paul Wendrich Congratulations to the following members who have received new 18/08/1934—11/05/2021 Masterpoint rankings in March and April. Graduate Janet Flitton Local David Casey Bronze John Prowse Local GP Macolino

Silver Local Mary McMahon

Regional Suzanne Smith

It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of one of Geelong Bridge Club’s regulars, Paul Wendrich. Paul came to Australia in 1965 after growing up in what Joan Wilson became East Germany. He worked at Alcoa. He joined Trophy Winners the Geelong Bridge Club in 1997 and was elected to the Committee in 2001. Paul was also a keen cribbage player, chess player (“I was a legend in chess”) and Feb P Jain stamp collector, recently requesting that when Paula Donohue sent him letters from the club, that she make sure she put the stamp in the corner of the envelope, as Mar D Newland he collected them. He loved woodworking and made some practical items for the club. When asked what his favourite was, Apr S Lester he replied, KISS. And which discard system did he

prefer? Rubbish. Paul is survived by his wife, Annaliese, daughters, Petra and Angela, and their families.

High Scores

Pair %

Feb A Robbins, 75.5 D Newlands Mar D Newland, 71.3 S Lester Apr A Robbins, 75.2 S Irwin

GEELONG BRIDGE CLUB INC. P a g e 12

BSB: 633000 A/c No: 107926404 (Please include your names on the bank transfer)

Program

Saturday—10.00 start—Swiss Pairs—Open and Restricted Sunday—10.00 start—Open and Restricted Restricted Pairs <50 MP as at 1 January 2021 Restricted Teams <200MP as at 1 January 2021 Lunch provided each day, with morning and afternoon tea. Bar open at end of play with nibbles provided. Please advise one week prior of any dietary requirements. Convenor: Denny Newland: [email protected] Mobile: 0407 532 498 Highly artificial systems will not be permitted. System cards mandatory.

GBC and Highton Bowls Club follow Covid19 Guidelines. You must not attend if you are feeling unwell, have experienced cold or flu symptoms in the last 14 days or have returned from overseas during that period.

GEELONG BRIDGE CLUB INC.