June Chitchat

BRIDGE TIP FOR JUNE LIBRARY CORNER

Why You Lose at Bridge Good judgment is required to be S. J. Simon

successful at sacrifice bidding. In the book’s introduction, the author bluntly states the two primary reasons why we lose at bridge: lack of technical skill and losing tactics. First published in 1945 and updated sev- William Root eral times since, this book offers ways to avoid common technical errors as well as how to improve your psychology in DON’T FORGET playing the game. Chapters on points lost refer to such losing ways as ignoring the odds, misplaying the dummy, misman- aging trumps, misdefending, and overbidding/underbidding. Please remember to wear your Chattanooga River One of the author’s major pieces of advice in the second half City Regional buttons at all upcoming tournaments — of the book is, “Don’t teach your partner.” There is a lot more We need to promote our July to learn about the psychology of the game in the latter half of 2012 River City Regional at the the book, making it a good choice for those of us who want to Chattanoogan! win more often than we lose at the game we love so much. UNIT 206 CHIT CHAT Volume 3 Issue 6 Monthly Publication of ACBL Unit 206 June, 2012 Editor: Sandy Cervantes Assistant Editor: Cheryl Whitfield Staff: Teresa Moore Features Editor: Marcia Lanphear Myra Reneau

MEMORIAL DAY SECTIONAL SUNDAES ON SATURDAY

Summer is here and the weather is hot … what better way to cool

down than with a nice bowl of

ice cream — and if it’s decorated with nuts, hot fudge, whipped cream, and cherries, well, what could be better.

On Saturday, June 30, the CBC will celebrate another Sundaes on Saturday with an 8-Is-

John Enough game at the club. The four members of the team need to have no more than 8 combined points calculated as follows:

0– 500 1 C 500-1500 2 B Pictured at the top clockwise are Keith Honnold, Kathy Ellis and Bert Shramko. In the photo below are 1500+ 3 A Sophie Field and Nevin Ozkaya. We owe a very big thank you to our Tournament Coordinator Jody Plum- Sign up at the club today — the cost is $20.00 for mer for a job well done. See more photos on page 4. a four-man team. A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

How wonderful the Internet is. Several months ago, when I was looking online for information on snapdragon doubles, Bob Sen- dall’s page from the Tahoe Bridge Club popped up. Bob has archived a number of articles on bridge topics that are well written and informative as well as providing food for thought. I contacted him to see if he would be willing to share his articles with us. He was happy to do, so and this month we present his first article.

In communicating with Bob, I asked if he would share a little about himself so we could get to know him. He sent me the following message. Sandy

My favorite partner at Tahoe is the club manager’s husband so she knew I wrote many notes on bidding to define what I play with better partners. A few years ago they asked me if I would write a weekly column that would be of general interest to the members for the club Web Page. After thinking about it, I decided the area where most players could improve the most, regardless of their bidding systems, was Intruding on Opener’s auction. It is a very important part of competitive bridge, and while it is an area where you get better as you develop an appreciation for the whole table, it is really important to know the basics. The articles written so far have been on “Intruding and Advancing” at the competitive bridge table. I have personally gone back and reviewed many of the articles which tend to depend on the previous articles. I found it difficult to keep the articles down in size to basically one page and keep them bite size without referring to the earlier foundation articles. Mike Lawrence is the author who has done the most and best writing in this area.

The past year has been difficult for me as my wife of 52 years died of cancer in April 2011, and I could not get myself to do much of anything. I am a student of the game, but my career and life have been in the high tech world of infrared military and advanced electronics for night vision and missile guidance. Most of my career was two terms at Hughes Aircraft Co. in Southern California. I had a wonderful wife, and we have three children and four grandchildren. While I worked hard, we played hard together and all that interrupted my bridge game. Bridge and work were the only things Joan and I did not do together so now I am trying to play more but am clearly getting old and lose focus more than usual.

I started playing bridge in college (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) being influenced by the Whale (Paul Heitner) before he went from straight A student to failing in our second year and now being honored in the Bulletin for starting Swiss Team games. I played in SoCA for a few years in the early ‘60s against many good players (and played at the North Hollywood bridge club the night Bob Hamman won his 20th point; a bigger deal back then than now) but gave up the game because of the demands of my job. In ’74 a young man from U of M came to Hughes and wanted to play tournament bridge and develop a partnership. As he asked around he found me and would not take no for an answer. He said a new bidding system was now available called the Chinese club (Precision), and we should learn it and play seriously. I finally succumbed, partly because of my interest in information theory. K. Scott Nelson and I played together for almost 10 years before we decided we were both two busy. There were a large number of very good players in the LA area at the time and we had some very good times but gave up Precision as not being worth the effort when played against good opponents playing match points. (I really enjoyed Bob Hamman’s book because of the discussion of the players at that time).

I retired in ’93 to play golf at Incline Village and after a year or two an old doctor determined I had played some serious bridge and drew me out of retirement. The game had changed again but the big changes were “no smoking” and bidding boxes and zero tolerance (all im- provements). Also 2/1 GF was now almost standard. Max Hardy had written his Yellow Book which is much more readable than the earlier Red and Blue books. (I had played against Richard and Rhoda Walsh at local sectionals in one of my earlier bridge lives). Anyway, now I had time to play bridge and started playing in the Reno Area… Dr. John Faulkner and I had some good games winning the senior Swiss at the Reno Regional two years in a row. It was fun to see some of the old players like Mike Shuman playing in the events. The next phase of my bridge was online. My old partner from the ‘70s retired and moved to Escondido. We joined OK Bridge and started playing regularly. Scott is now playing quite a bit in the San Diego area. He and I play online and at least once a year at a tournament somewhere. In the past few years I have become active playing BBO tournaments. While I enjoy the online bridge I really do not believe in the masterpoint payout for many of these events…especially BBO speedball and robot games which are such crap shoots.

Anyway, I am not a professional bridge player or writer and have had a good life with bridge coming and going. I now play a rather com- plex 2/1 of a major Game Forcing convention card. BALANCING

Another form of intruding that we did not discuss last year is “Balancing.” This is when you are in the pass-out seat and you chose to intrude at a low level. It is a very important and special form of intruding on your opponents’ auction, and we will briefly introduce it now. The most basic case is when an opponent opens and that bid is followed by two passes. You have to decide whether to pass and let the opponents play the contract or to compete. This is not a trivial decision, and in 1980 Mike Lawrence wrote a whole book totally devoted to the subject: The Com- plete Book on Balancing. This article will attempt to cover some of the more important concepts.

In the basic case your left hand opponent (LHO) opens one of a suit which is followed by two passes. You know responder is broke and that you and your partner hold almost all of the points that opener does not have. You also know it is much easier to play a hand when all the opponents’ points are located in one hand. Be- cause partner did not overcall or double, he is either balanced or has strength in opener’s suit. If responder has anything it is most likely in a suit lower than opener’s suit. All of this means you can safe- ly bid on almost anything. It does not however mean you should bid. If you lack an unbid major you must be concerned that you will push the opponents into a better contract than their current contract.

Mike’s book on balancing is more aggressive than I am so you may take that into account. What is presented here may seem conservative to you but it will be easy to remember. Basically all overcalls and the TOX are made with a king less hand when balancing than when in direct seat. This means that hands with the right shape without wasted values in opener’s suit can be very weak; you know partner must have points. Of course because we already bid weak one level overcalls (7-18 HCP), we will not really reduce the low end of the one-level overcall down to 4 points, but we will be more aggressive than with the low quality direct overcalls.

Now a one-level overcall can be made on almost any 5-card suit with 7 (or even fewer) to 15 HCP so long as the hand does not include shortness in a major where the opponents are apt to find a better contract. The TOX becomes a king less in the balancing seat, but when really weak, it will have perfect distribution and shortness in the opener’s suit. You should have some defense since partner is more apt to hold a hand with values in the opener’s suit and want to leave the double in for penalty. At favorable vulnerability, Mike recommends a TOX after 1♣-P-P with ♠8765, ♥KT93, ♦QJ82, ♣3.. While this is slightly below my threshold, because partner should be able to count on some defense and he is very apt to be leaving this double in for penalty, I expect Mike is more likely correct. There is little chance the opponents’ will have a good contract in a major, but it is possible. He also recommends (without any qualms) this hand at any vulnerability and I guess this is my absolute minimum: ♠T654, ♥KJT7, ♦K985, ♣3. You will note that with a King more it is a mar- ginal direct TOX.

When not short in the opponents’ suit but holding a suit to bid, the top end of the balancing TOX is also lowered by a King ( e.g. from 19 down to 16HCP). This would seem unwise except there is no need for a weak Jump overcall in balancing position. We do not preempt in this seat. A jump overcall is an intermediate (14- 18 HCP) jump overcall with most likely a 6-card suit. If the jump overcall is to three of a minor, it indicates a desire to get to 3NT if advancer has a stopper and anything in Intruder’s suit.

Similarly the bottom of the big NT hand, that in direct seat is shown by rebidding NT after first making a TOX, is reduced from 19 to 16 HCP. This is logical since the Balancing 1NT overcall is reduced by a king and is now 11-15 HCP with the appropriate shape and stoppers. Again as mentioned last year, we may find game with only 24 HCP when the cards are well placed over the opponents’ located points.

The last balancing bid for the basic case is the QB. It is no longer needed as a weak conventional bid. It is now a very strong TOX that is very short in the opener’s suit where the Intruder does not want to have advancer pass a TOX for penalty.

It is important that all of these bids need discussion and agreement with your partner since they are different than how you would intrude if not balancing.

CHATTANOOGA MEMORIAL DAY SECTIONAL TOURNAMENT

We had a total of 224 tables in 9 sessions versus 240 in 10 sessions for Memorial Day 2011. Our net profit was $3488 which is up $1844 from last year! In 2011, we were blind-sided by high directors’ fees. This year, we worked closely with the directors to keep costs down. Lower fees and the incredible generosity of our players resulted in record profits for our club.

It’s not possible to list everyone who contributed to the incredible success of the tournament, but I must give a special thanks to Bert and Sue Shramko. They went above and beyond in food preparation, drinks and ice, clean up, and serving. You never hear a complaint, and they are the first to volunteer for every function. The selfless group who served lunch while the rest of us played bridge included Kathy Ellis, Janie Hunt, Betty Sue Farmer, Susan Kimm, Gloria & Norm Poynter, and Harriette Hereford. Thanks again for all of the generous donations of food and money.

We had a great turnout of 299er players. Four of our own 299er players, the team of Keith Honnold, Rob Berghel, Mary Pierce, and Marty Hershey, won the Friday Compact KO! Ray Feher led the 299er masterpoint race with an impressive 13.49 after a win in the Saturday KO with his lovely wife Joyce and the infamous partnership of David Vine and Bill Adams. Our overall masterpoint leaders were Stephanie Felker and teammate Earl Rothberger with 21.85.

We cannot rest on our laurels. We have the much anticipated River City Regional right around the corner. Cheryl and I are in the process of fine tuning our sign-up sheets for volunteers. We have much to do and need many volunteers. The Chattanoogan is already sold out for Tuesday through Thursday nights, so we are expecting a good crowd. Regional volunteers will be rewarded with free plays based on participation. We look forward to working with you to put on a tournament Unit 206 can be proud of!

Jody Plummer Tournament Chair

Pictured clockwise from left top: David Brown, Judy Monen & Buddy Landis; Past President Bill Adams with Sue Shramko; Liz Norris, Earl Rothberger & John Herrmann; Bob & Car- olyn Agnew. HIGH GAMES FOR MAY NEW MONDAY GAME

Don’t forget to mark the 4th and Chattanooga Open Kyle/Ellie Weems 75.00 18th in June. Call someone with whom you haven’t played in a NLM Norm/Gloria Poynter 67.46 while to catch up and enjoy a fun game of bridge and Cleveland Corinne Madden/John Sughrue 68.17

Fairyland Cotty Kale/David McKenzie 70.00 CHANGE OF RANK

CHATTANOOGA BRIDGE MAY 2012

CENTER GAME SCHEDULE

Carolyn Agnew Junior Mast J Joyce Feher NABC Master Sunday 1:30 Open Game Ray Feher NABC Master Monday 10:00 1st, 3rd & 5th/ Frank Hughes Bronze Life Master Open Game MJ Levine NABC Master 6:30 Mini Lesson Cetin Ozkaya NABC Master 7:00 NLM Game Nevin Ozkaya NABC Master Tuesday 12:00 Open Game Lois Wyche Bronze Life Master Wednesday 12:00 Open Game Thursday 5:45 Lesson 6:30 Open Game Friday 2:00 Novice Lesson/ Play & Practice ♦♣♥♠♦♣♥♠♦♣♥♠♦♣♥♠

IN MEMORIAM

We were saddened to learn of the passing this past April 29th of Chattanooga Bridge Cen- ter player Carolyn Stilwell. Although recently Carolyn had been absent from the club, for many years she was a regular who enjoyed partnering with a variety of players.

Carolyn was a gracious partner and formidable opponent, and her contagious laugh, good nature and happy disposition brought a ray of sunshine into the club. It was always enjoyable to play at her table. Her banter and wit enlivened the game and made the time pass quickly—even when you came out on the losing end.

We truly will miss this lovely lady and send our prayers and thoughts to her family as they deal with this loss. CLEVELAND NEWS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

ALERT!

Until further notice, the Jim or Ruth Miller 6/1 Cleveland Club will host only Opal Henley 6/15 the Tuesday afternoon game. Jean Snider 6/22 Chris Reynolds 6/26 Sandy Cervantes 6/30

CLEVELAND GAME SCHEDULE: Tuesday — Game at 1:00 P.M.

Please arrive at least 15 minutes prior to game time. Reservations are requested.

DUMMY’S RIGHTS & LIMITATIONS

1. Dummy is entitled to give information, in the Director’s presence, as to fact or law. 2. Dummy may keep count of tricks won and lost. 3. Dummy plays the cards of the dummy as declarer’s agent as directed (see Law 45F if dummy suggests a play). 4. Dummy may ask declarer (but not a defender) when he has failed to follow suit to a trick whether he has a card of the suit led. 5. Dummy may try to prevent any irregularity by declarer. 6. Dummy may draw attention to any irregularity, but only after play of the hand is concluded. (L43.A.1.a) 7. Unless attention has been drawn to an irregularity by another player, dummy should not initiate a call for the Director during play. However, once another player points out an irregularity, the Dummy may summon the Director. 8. Dummy must not participate in the play, nor may he communicate anything about the play to declarer. 9. Dummy may not exchange hands with declarer. 10. Dummy may not leave seat to watch declarer’s play of the hand. 11. Dummy may not, on own initiative, look at the face of a card in either defender’s hand. 12. Dummy may not look at opponent’s convention card during play. (L43.A.1.C)