Win silver points at your local club District 8 Sectional-at-Clubs -- November 1-7 Plan now to play in your local club the week of November 1 in District 8’s annual Sectional-Tournament-at-Clubs (STAC). All club games this week can award sectional silver points to winners and runners-up in three flights. In last year’s event, almost 1800 District players won more than 2900 silver points in STAC games at their local clubs. Masterpoint awards: In addition to the silver-point section awards at each site, each session (day and evening) will be scored across the District for overall awards. In last year’s STAC, the biggest session was Wednesday day (239 pairs), which paid 14.77 silver points to the ACBL Director's Report District winners. Stratification: Open Pair games will have three strata — A: 1500+; B: 0-1500; and C: Non-Life Master (0-500). Clubs can also run stratified novice pairs and victory-point team games. by Georgia Heth, Morton IL Entry fees: Sanction fee is $6 per table, so expect to pay an extra $1.50 over your club’s regular entry fee. Proceeds help fund the Advocate District 8 Representative on the ACBL Board of Directors and other District 8 activities. Online results: District-wide results from each session will be updated daily on the STAC website: http://www.ilstu.edu/~mjtomlia/district_8_stac.htm Board of Governors: I would like to thank everyone who volunteered to fill our District's empty seats on the National Board of Governors, the advisory body to the ACBL Board of Directors. District President Tom Oppenheimer has appointed two members to fill the vacancies. All Game sites: Call your club manager for details on the STAC games in your area. If you have other questions, call or write: of the volunteers were qualified to serve, and he had to make some hard decisions. Leah Newell of Springfield IL (Unit 208) and Jack Bryant STAC chairman: Mike Tomlianovich (309-662-5832) [email protected] of St. Louis (Unit 143) will serve three-year terms beginning on January 1, 2005. Director-in-charge: Jim Chiszar (630-355-5560) [email protected] Our District has five seats on the Board of Governors -- three appointed members, plus our first and second alternates to the ACBL Board of Directors. Our third appointed member is Chris Benson of LeRoy IL (Unit 208). Bob Carteaux of Fort Wayne IN (Unit 154), who is second alternate to the ACBL Board, is our fourth representative. In memory: Sadly, our District President now has another vacancy to fill. Don Kerry (photo) of St. Louis, the first alternate to the ACBL Board of Directors, passed away in September. Don, who was an Army veteran, had just celebrated his 71st birthday. He's survived by his wife Carol, three sons (Michael, Kevin and Sean), two grandchildren and two brothers. We will all miss Don very much. A Silver Life Master, he was very active in many roles in the bridge community for many years, and he was a very nice man. St. Louis Regional: In August, District 8 entertained the ACBL President and CEO, Bruce Reeve and Jay Baum, at the St. Louis Regional. Both men spoke with the District 8 Board of Directors and met with groups of volunteers over the dinner breaks on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The Unit 143 website has some photos from their visit. North American Pairs: Good luck to you all at the North American Pair District Finals, November 13 and 14 in Springfield IL. The site was moved to the IDOT Building in Springfield in response to complaints about the old site in Bloomington, so be sure to show up! If you have questions or suggestions about ACBL Board actions or other bridge matters, please contact me at [email protected] or 917 S. Main Street, Morton IL 61550-2419. The Griffins Club Revisited delighted that he had just convinced the Secretary Bird to play odd-Even discards, so he discarded the Spade 5 and the Heart 6 on the third and fourth clubs. At trick five, SB obediently returned the Spade 3. by Jim Diebel, Chicago IL What could RR do? With the diamonds hopelessly blocked, he had but one entry to dummy. Clearly, the only realistic hope for the contract would come from a heart finesse, but with only one side entry to dummy, there would be no way to get back to cash the Heart Ace. He tried Along with thousands of others, I lament the loss of those delightful fictional characters created by Victor Mollo in his Bridge in the Menagerie dummy’s Spade Jack with the prayer that if it held, it would be the entry he needed, but no luck: Karapet produced the King. series. This summer, I played a session where those familiar with the personalities of Mollo's characters would swear that for one afternoon, the ghosts of the Griffins Club had inhabited and assumed control of the players of my local club. What’s more, imagine my surprise to discover Winning the Spade Ace, RR surveyed his options. He had 4 diamonds, 2 hearts and 2 spades, and virtually no hope of a ninth trick. Having that I was the Rueful Rabbit! All of the following are actual hands that came up during a single STaC game I played in July. watched the Hog thousands of times, the Rabbit remembered that miraculous things happened when the Hog ran his long suits. The opponents nearly always presented him with a gift. With that in mind, he cashed the Diamond Ace and Queen, and then stopped to think. Author’s Note: It should be noted that while all the deals presented are actual hands from a single session, none of the given conversations took place. The dialogue was attributed later, to fit the story. There is no attempt here to ridicule “When I’m over in dummy, I won’t know whether to discard my Heart Jack or my Spade 8 on the fourth diamond,” he thought to himself. So anyone. In addition, it is not my intent to use or misuse the characters of Victor Mollo without due recognition that they are he carefully cashed the Heart King (in case there was a singleton queen lurking about), and when that didn’t materialize, RR led the Heart Jack. copyrighted property and this narrative is being provided without remuneration. Any infringement of intellectual propriety SB covered with the queen and dummy’s ace won the trick. Dummy now had: 6 8 K10 -- . In his own hand, RR held: A8 is unintentional and without malice. -- J -- The Rabbit and The Mule Just as he was thinking that his only losing card, the Spade 8, would be discarded on dummy’s fourth diamond, he realized that he was a card short in his hand. Questioning the opponents, it was discovered that both still had four cards. Molly now noticed that the third trick, stacked It was Thursday afternoon and the Rueful Rabbit (RR) had partnered with Molly the Mule for a Sectional-at-Clubs game. It was a warm, humid neatly in front of the Rueful Rabbit, was uncommonly thick. It appears that the humidity had caused the cards to stick, and when the Rabbit had day, but most of the Griffins had turned out to play in the afternoon matchpoint event for the chance to win masterpoints for the best played to the third trick, he had inadvertently played two cards. percentages scored across the city. There were two 9-table sections, and with the Rabbit’s usual good luck, the Hideous Hog was playing in the other section. The Secretary Bird hissed, but reluctantly conceded that since RR had correctly followed suit to the first nine tricks, there could be no penalty. The mystery card was picked up and replaced into RR’s hand. It was the Diamond 3. Things had been going especially well, as several contracts had either been “Rabbit-proof” or the opponents had stumbled onto the only lead to allow the fatal overtrick. For some reason or another, when arriving at Table 5, most of the club members had either overbid badly or underbid “That was pretty lucky,” thought the Rabbit to himself, as he realized that if he had seen that card earlier, he certainly would have opted to lead equally ridiculously to miss games that were bid at every other table. low to dummy’s Diamond 10 and take the losing heart finesse. He seemed no better off now, however, as unless the opponents threw away winners, the contract was doomed. He played the Diamond King, underplaying the Jack, and twitched ever so slightly as he noticed that The Chimp and The Siren Karapet on his right was very uncomfortable in parting with the Heart 9. For example, when Timothy the Chimp opened 1H on Q KQJTxx AJ KTxx, he noticed that his partner, Sophie the Siren, pulled Remembering that the Heart AKQJ had all fallen in the last two tricks, RR had no difficulty in recognizing that if someone foolishly let go of the Pass card from the bidding box before deciding in favor of 1NT. The observant Chimp conservatively rebid 2H, buying the auction. RR led the Heart 10 on the next trick, dummy’s Heart 8 would be good. He cashed dummy's last diamond, but it didn’t work, as Karapet released the the Club 8 from Axxx Axx KQxx 8x and Sophie tabled: Jxx x xxxx AJxxx Spade 9. Imagine RR’s surprise when his Spade 8 won the 13th trick and it was revealed that he was the only declarer in the room not to go down.