A publication of District 4 of the American Contract Bridge League
SEPTEMBER 2015
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE ED BISSELL [email protected]
The June Philadelphia Regional in Valley Forge went well. Table counts were up compared to recent years and attendees enjoyed the schedule changes. My teammates and I got lots of practice in the daily Swiss events for dislodged competitors. Good job Meyer Inside this issue: Kotkin and team on the fine Regional. District Director’s Report 3 District 4 annual awards were made in three categories of Player of the Year contest for MPs won in D4 events in 2014 (not including From the Four Corners 4 STaCs): Master Solvers Club 9 Dave Treadwell Award .. to Rick Rowland, his 2nd. Jeanne Fisher Award .. to Gary Hillenbrand, his 2nd award. ABC of Bridge 22 Jane Segal Award .. to Samuel Amer, a junior player from 2015 NAP 23 Delaware. District 4 is again firing up efforts to educate bridge teachers. In The Advancing Player 24
Lancaster we have inserted a Teacher Accreditation Program (TAP). Lancaster Regional 26 It begins one day before tournament play and costs only $50 for District 4 members. Take a look. (See Page 27). Another TAP will be Chesapeake Regional 28-29 held at a District4 Regional next year. District 4 Stars 30 Despite their popularity we are having difficulty distributing STaC games to clubs in the district. We will be trying to simplify these Tournament Index 31 regulations. Numerous suggestions to modify the GNT-Open bracket conditions of contest have arisen. Also, ACBL has recently made changes to the CoC. The District participation has leveled off to fewer than nine teams. A comprehensive CoC is under review.
PRESIDENT ED BISSELL [email protected]
1st VICE PRESIDENT DAN BOYE
SECRETARY BILL BAUER
TREASURER RICK ROWLAND
DISTRICT DIRECTOR EDITOR CRAIG ROBINSON Elaine Landow 215-699-6134 2556 Morris Road [email protected] Lansdale, PA 19446 215-699-6134 e-mail: [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without per- mission of the editor.
Deadline for December Issue: November 20 DISTRICT 4 WEBSITE - district4.info
Unit Websites
112 - acblunit112.org 120 - nepab.com 121 - unit121bridge.com . 133 - lvbabridge.org 141 - philadelphiabridge.info 168 - web2.acbl.org/hosted/units/unit168/index.htm 190 - unit190.org . 217 - unit217.nepab.com
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DISTRICT DIRECTOR’S REPORT CRAIG ROBINSON [email protected]
Henry Bethe, Ithaca NY, passed since my last column. Henry was a great player, a Grand Life Master with three national titles (Silodor Open Pairs, Keohane NA Swiss, and Nail LM). Throughout the years he made great contributions nationally to masterpoint calculations and conditions of contest. I called Henry in April to ask his opinion on carryovers from day one to day two in match- point, IMP, and VP events. (I expressed my opinion that I felt the IMP carryover was unfair.) He responded that he thought all three could be improved, but then added that he wasn’t feeling well and he would get back to me with his thoughts on each. He died two months later, and sad- ly, I had never heard back from him. Henry also contributed locally and District-wide. He was a contributor to this publication for many years. Phil Clark, also of NY, died earlier. His name came up at the Chicago board meetings. Phil had qualified to play with Doug Ross in the North American Pairs in New Orleans. In Chicago we passed a motion to allow the partner of a deceased player to find a replacement. Also in Chicago, a motion to reduce the masterpoints of players on five and six player teams was defeated. The intent of the motion was to halt giving masterpoints for those not playing (seemed logical to me) and the general inequities of a five or six person team. A six per- son team pays the same entry fee as a four person team yet they get 50% more hospitality, reg- istration gifts, prizes, etc. and MASTERPOINTS. In New Orleans, this motion passed 17-7 and then failed in Chicago 15-10 after an extensive campaign by those who benefit from this system. (Masterpoint motions require two readings). Looking forward to our Lancaster Regional at the end of October. Hope to see you there.
Upcoming District 4 Regional Tournaments
October 26 - November 1, 2015 LANCASTER RED ROSE REGIONAL
March 28 - April 3, 2016 DELAWARE FIRST STATE REGIONAL
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From The Four Corners
217 141
120
168 190 133 112 121
NORTHEASTERN PA 120 Walter Mitchell [email protected]
Party, party, party! It was party time in Unit 120 since the last 4Spot publication. Members of the Scranton JCC Bridge Club honored Marlene Meyer's achievement as Gold Life Master. Carolyn Landi is now a Silver Life Master. Unit Secretary Doreese Torrey celebrated with the Dallas Bridge Club for reaching her Life Master plateau. Fay Pacchioli and the Honesdale Bridge Club gathered for cake and kudos after Teri & Alan Trynz achieved life master status together. Congratulations to all! Unit 120 held its annual meeting in conjunction with the Patriotic Party in Stroudsburg in early August. New members elected to the board are Helen Tansky and Mary Zabresky. President Walter Mitchell, Vice-President Bill Orth and Treasurer Bill Haynes began the second year of their two-year terms as unit officers. The annual Architzel Bridge & Buffet will be held on Sunday, September 27th at Beech Lake. Always a popular unit event, the affair includes two sessions of bridge flanking a bounteous multi-course dinner. Contact hostess Fay Pacchioli at [email protected] for reservations. No reservations needed for our Fall sectional, scheduled for October 2-4 at the Independent Firehouse in Kingston. Sessions at 10 am and 3 pm Friday and Saturday; full Swiss at 11 am Sunday. Call me for partners: 570-709-0850. Full details and directions can be found on the flyer on Page XX and the D-4 website. Remember the Bridge Golden Rule: as in life, treat your partner as you would hope to be treated. I have yet to see players make mistakes intentionally. They feel bad, of course. Adding insult to injury, even mentioning the error publicly is hurtful and rude. Pull your partner aside between rounds, admit to making your own share of mistakes, and ask what was the thought process leading up to the error. This will help keep your partnership on strong footing & may resolve any lingering misunderstandings.
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BERKS MONTGOMERY 121 Sue Wessner [email protected]
The Bridge-Casino Trip to Atlantic City, September 9-11, has a few seats left. Please call Sue Wessner for more details. Congratulations to the following people who have achieved new masterpoint milestones: Club Master; Geri Buczewski, Harriet Baskin and Ludwig Schmidbauer. Life Master; James Allen. Regional Master; Jack Boyd. Silver Life Master; Bill Detterer Please mark your calendars for our Fall Sectional, September 25-26, 2015 held at Sacred Heart Villa, 51 Seminary Road, Reading, Pa. 19605, Friday and Saturday 10am/2:30pm games. There will be no Sunday game. There will be limited pair games for both afternoon sessions. Game location at Sacred Heart will be in the basement of the facility. There is elevator access to the area. Note: You will not enter through the door of The Bridge Room At The Villa. Park on the side lot and enter through the front door. For more information please ontact Eugene O’Brien 484-269-3831 or [email protected]. Coffee and breakfast foods will be complementary. Hope to see you there. “Let’s Go Nuts!!” Unit Game will be held on Sunday, October 18th at 1pm at The Bridge Room at The Villa. For information please contact Sue. Our Annual Meeting will be held on Saturday, November 14th at The Bridge Room At The Villa with the meeting to start at 11am, followed by lunch at 11:45am with an Open Pairs game to start immediately afterwards. Cost is $20.00. For questions please contact Carl Ziegler, 610- 914-9479 or [email protected]. . LEHIGH VALLEY 133 Dave Kresge [email protected]
The unit web site has been updated and includes many new and updated items. Barbara Berk and Mary Ann Sharpless have updated the LVBA Library inventory listing and it is posted online on the unit web site. Many thanks to Barbara and Mary Ann. Now unit members can sign out books. There is no cost for this service. The unit does request that you return books promptly so that others may be able to access them. The library is at the Lehigh Active Life Center and books can be signed out at anytime there is a bridge game at the center. Upcoming unit games are Sunday, September 13 at Brith Sholom Temple in Bethlehem at 1:00 PM. This is an 8 is enough team game which is always a unit favorite. The unit will hold its annual meeting and holiday party on Sunday, November 13 at the Brookside Country Club. Tickets can be obtained from Jane Havighurst or Jeanne Kuebler. Our Fall sectional will be held at the Active Life Center in Allentown October 16 - 18. Please see the flyer on page 39. The unit requests that you be scent sensitive. Congratulations to Pat Clarke and Julie Brooks for becoming Silver Life Masters and to Larry Kemmerer, Deb Butz, and Frank Kuebler for becoming Bronze Life Masters.
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The Lehigh Active Life Center is planning to restart the Saturday morning game in the fall. Details will be forthcoming shortly. . PHILADELPHIA (PCBA) 141 John Dickinson [email protected]
The Regional at King of Prussia was a big success with table count up 12% over last year. Two of our three I/N Sectionals were sell outs, proving once again the need to get your entries in early at these ever popular events. Speaking of our I/N program, let's all give a hand to Bruce Lang who has done an outstanding job with the I/N community but is now moving to Florida to escape those harsh Philly winters. And if anyone knows someone capable of filling Bruce's shoes, please drop me a line as we are actively searching fora replacement. Upcoming tournaments to mark on your calendar: .October 9-11: Sectional at Bala October 20-21: I/N Split Sectional at Bala / Cherry Hill October 26-November 1: Regional in Lancaster November 20-22: Sectional at Bala . CENTRAL PENN 168 Kelly Zeller [email protected]
Hello again Unit 168 Members Cooler weather is setting in and while you are putting away all the pool and summer furniture, mark your calendar for these Fall Bridge dates: 10/16-10/18 - Hagerstown Sectional 10/17 - NAP Flight C at the Clubs 10/24 - NAP Flight B Harrisburg, PA 10/24 - I/N Sectional - Harrisburg 10/26 - 11/1 - Lancaster Regional - Host INN - Go for GOLD 11/9-11/15 - UNIT STAC - Great way to earn those Silver points at the Clubs 12/4 - 12/6 - Harrisburg Sectional Keep Smiling and let others guess at what you’ve been up to. See you at the Tables.
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DELAWARE 190 Ala Hamilton-Day
The Lewes Sectional drew record crowds and was a fantastic tourney. A shout out goes to Dini Romito, Barb Saulsbury, Mike Moore, Scott Freber, Peter Harris, and Director Hank Meyer, for their help in making this First State Southern Sectional a superb success. The Delaware Open Pairs Championship, took place on August 29th and Rick Rowland and Greg Burch were the victors. The 99er Champions are Carol Niebler and Carlyn Bryan. Congratulations to everyone who played in this fun event! There are battalions of Unit 190 players who have advanced in the ranks. Marching on are Junior Masters Joan T. Fultz, Elizabeth N. Janairo, Susan Powers, Teresa E. Spicer, Mary Pat Urbanik and Stanley A. Urbanik, along with Club Masters Kathy M. Baxter, Judith Cronin, Deborah A. Flayhart, Joan Graves, James C. Hart, Marilyn E. Haskins, Ruth D. Hoch, Francis W. Rode, and Denise Ucciferro. New Sectional Masters are Walter R. Bernadzikowski, Diana R. Erney, Beverly Greenberg, Bessie O. Houck, and Karin Schwenk. New Regional Masters are Chuck E. Nelson and Pat Tylander, while new NABC Masters are Anthony J. Cardinal, John L. Flanagan, Joan W. Flanagan, Thomas N. Tully, and Teresa Young. New Life Masters are Ruth S. Grulich, Karen Pollak, Charles R. Seaver, and Barbara A. Stepanuk. John Rubinsohn is a new Bronze Life Master, and Joseph M. Brown is a new Silver Life Master. Kudos to all! Playing at the Chicago NABC, the Flight B GNT team, composed of Unit 190 players Sam Amer, Anne Taylor, Monty Taylor, and Robert Maier, with the later addition of Paul Amer (Captain) and Unit 141 player Zachary Madden, went the furthest of the District’s four squads. Looking at the posted scores from the third day, you know that there must have been much gnashing of teeth by their opponents: REBELEIN 40 60 89 95 AMER 21 48 80 158 When the dust had settled, the Amer team had won the fourth quarter by a score of 78 to 6 Imps! FREE FOOD. Now that I have your attention, please note that coming up quickly is the Diamond State Sectional, which will take place on September 18 – 20 at the Bridge Studio in Wilmington. (See page 33.) There is a new menu each day and the Annual Meeting will be taking place on Saturday, September 19th between sessions. Seats have been reserved for you and your pd. We’ll leave the light on for you.
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Susquehanna 217 Jim McKeown
We held our State College sectional June 4-6. Pair winners were Barbara Mateer - David Hoover, Jacqueline Humilovich - Nancy Smith, Sandy Gilbert – Fred Gilbert, and Sarah Soster – Jim McKeown. Mary Ann Churba, Ed Bissell, Carol Reitz, and Jim McKeown won the Swiss. Top MP winners were Barbara Mateer and David Hoover. Since our original Mini-McKinney and Ace of Clubs award presentation was snowed out in March, we finally made the awards to: Mini-McKinney Ace of Clubs 0 to 5 Daniel Droz Kay Dando
5 to 20 Mary Capkovic Same 20 to 50 Marilyn Furry Same
50 to 100 Dave Hall Mary Lisko
100 to 200 Jill Anderson Same 200 to 300 Joanne Johnston Same
300 to 500 Susan Nichols Helen Shaffer
500 to 1000 Jacqueline Humilovich Nancy Smith 1000 to 2500 Judy Stein Fred Gilbert 2500 to 5000 Sandy Gilbert Same
Please join us for our next sectional October 16-18 in Williamsport, PA.
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BE SCENT-SITIVE! .
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The ABC of Bridge by
Dave Wachsman
In previous articles we focused on the three pillars or legs of the ABC of Bridge: Al- ways Be Counting, Always Be Communicating, and Always Be Curious. Each of the ABCs has an important common element for success at the bridge table. It is that bridge is a THINKING game and that most mistakes are made when we go on “autopilot.” To avoid the “autopilot” mindset, I suggest that on every hand you apply the counting princi- ples outlined in Always Be Counting and the losing trick count discipline discussed in Always Be Communicating. To recap – subtract your HCP from 40 to arrive at the HCP total held by the other three players and then process the information provided by the bidding to picture the other three hands as if you were seeing them in a bridge column. Using losing trick count, you count the num- ber of AKQs that are missing from your suits and add your LTC to your partner’s LTC and subtract the total from 24 to arrive at the likely number of winners in a SUIT contract. Another idea for avoiding the “autopilot” syndrome is to get into the habit of putting your- self into the minds of the opponents. When you are declaring a hand and the opening lead is made, pause as you look at dummy and ask yourself “why did my LHO choose that suit and that card to lead?” Just by asking that question to yourself you are likely to gain a better understanding of the defenders’ strategy to defeat your contract. In a similar fashion, when you are defending a contract try putting yourself into the mind of the declarer to possibly frustrate his/her approach to fulfilling his contract. An example is in order. North (your partner) holds, S – K42 H- KJ975 D- A432 C- 5 and you as South have, S - J965 H- Q4 D- Q C- AJ8762. Your partner decides to open 1H. Your RHO passes and you bid 1S. LHO overcalls 2D. Clearly your partner should pass but this is BBO (computer bridge) and North bids 2S which is passed out. LHO leads a low diamond and now it is time to put yourself into the mind of your LHO. Recalling the auction you decide to duck the opening diamond lead to your Q and lo and behold it wins the first trick. Now you mentally place the AH with LHO for his overcall. You know who has the QH but LHO has no clue so you lead a low heart hoping that LHO is thinking you may “misguess” by inserting the JH for the other defender to win QH. LHO obliges by ducking his AH and you play KH (good guess) and your heart loser then disappears on the AD. Be- fore the defenders know it you scramble to win 10 tricks via a cross ruff. Winning bridge is the result of avoiding mistakes in the bidding, defense, and declarer play. For bidding, clarify with your favorite partner which bidding sequences are forcing for one round, forcing to game, invitational, “drop dead”, or conventional. For defense, establish a clear agree- ment as to the mechanics for signaling and the situations that call for attitude, count, and suit pref- erence. For declarer play, glean as much information from the auction and the opening lead as you can and determine your strategy giving due consideration to entries to and from the dummy. For all three elements of the game – remember your ABCs!
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A Spot 4 the Advancing Player
by Jay Apfelbaum
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2015 District Leaders (as of 8/6/15)
Mini McKenney Ace of Clubs
0-5 Rick Sadler Lalit Nigam 5-50 Susan Morse Debbie Schell 20-50 Alison Shoemaker Cheryl Abrams 50-100 Josh Rosenbluth Josh Rosenbluth 100-200 Susan Kennedy Susan Kennedy 200-300 Stephen Pope Bill Hettrick 300-500 Joshua Whittaker Francis Bizzoco 500-1000 Jonathan Forde Ralph Collins 1000-2500 Bruce Lang Robert Maier 2500-5000 Michael Zeller Elaine Clair 5000-7500 Bill Parks Randall Berseth 7500-10,000 Corey Krantz Jess Stuart over 10,000 Rick Rowland John & Selena Swanson
Top District 4 Masterpoint Winners
1. Bruce Lang ...... 63.53 2. Corey Krantz ...... 60.00 3. Barry Gorski ...... 59.05 4. Zachary Madden ...... 58.02 5. Bill Parks ...... 57.84 6. Ed Bissell ...... 56.14 7. Joann Glasson ...... 53.59 JUNE 22 - 28, 2015 8. Bob Glasson ...... 53.59 9. Rick Rowland ...... 52.27 10. Marty Rabinowitz ...... 52.27
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Tournament Schedule
September 12-13 Cicero NY (Syracuse) 32
September 18-20 Wilmington DE 33
September 25-26 Reading PA 34
October 2-4 Kinston PA (Wilkes Barre) 35
October 9-11 Philadelphia 36
October 10-11 Webster NY (Rochester) 37
October 16-18 Hagerstown, MD 38
October 16-18 Allentown PA 39
October 16-18 Williamsport PA 40
OCTOBER 17 NAP FLIGHT C 23
OCTOBER 17-18 NAP FLIGHT A 23
October 17-18 Endwell NY 41
October 20 Philadelphia I/N Pairs 42
October 21 Philadelphia I/N Teams 42
OCTOBER 24 NAP FLIGHT B 23
October 24 Camp Hill PA (Harrisburg) NLM 43
OCT 26 - NOV 1 LANCASTER REGIONAL 26
November 7-8 Waterloo NY 44
Nov 9-15 STaCs
November 20-22 Philadelphia 45
December 11-13 Camp Hill PA (Harrisburg) 46
December 27-31 Wilmington DE 47
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Syracuse Fall Sectional
September 12-13, 2015
Cicero Fire Hall Corner of Routes 31 and 11 Cicero, NY
Events Schedule
Saturday, September 12, 2015: 10:00 a.m. Stratified Open Pairs 2:30 p.m. Stratified Open Pairs
Sunday, September 13, 2015: 10:00 a.m. Stratified Swiss Teams- Two Session play-through
(Based on average master points)
Food: Pizza will be available on Sunday
Stratified Events: Unlimited/1500/500 Information & Partnerships: Robert Simard 315-656-3204; [email protected],
Directions to the Tournament Site: From the North: Take Route 81 Exit 30 Cicero. Turn right onto Route 31 West go second traffic light. Fire Hall is on the northwest corner of Routes 11 and 31. From the South or the NY State Thruway Exit 36: Take Route 81 North to Exit 30 Cicero. Turn left onto Route 31 West to first traffic light. Fire Hall is on the northwest corner of Routes 11 and 31.
Motels: Fairfield Inn: 3979 Route 31 West (315) 622-2576 Comfort Suites, 5875 Carmencia Drive, Cicero NY - (315) 752-0150
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