♠ ♥ Wolverhampton Bridge Club ♦ ♣ Newsletter Number 61, March 2017

Chairman’s Chat A young man knocked on the club door on a Monday afternoon at the end of last year. Although unable to speak very many words of English, he and I managed to convey to each other that he was interested in playing bridge. I assumed he was a beginner and could not play bridge. As he appeared keen, and as he was on his own, I suggested he joined us during the afternoon and watched us play bridge.

It transpired that he could play bridge. His name was Emil and he was from Bulgaria. He turned up for several sessions subsequently, watched over some tables, played with a few partners and proved to be a competent player. His spoken English improved immensely over the few weeks that he visited us. He also managed to find employment in a factory, albeit some distance away. I often wonder if he is still playing bridge somewhere in this country.

Shortly afterwards, we were visited by a couple from India, who visit their family in Wolverhampton on a semi-regular basis. Mr and Mrs Puri attended our playing sessions regularly and their enthusiasm for the club and the game of bridge was huge. They attended the Christmas Party and American Supper contributing their Indian cuisine that was enjoyed by all. They proved to be more than capable players and clearly enjoyed our hospitality.

It is a credit to the club that visitors, both local and from further afield, are made so welcome by our members. It is important for the future of our club that we have a reputation, both locally and nationally, as a friendly and welcoming club and I will endeavour to protect that reputation.

Yours in Bridge Ron

Committee News ♠ The notes of the committee meetings held on 12 November 2016, 3 December 2016, 14 January and 18 February 2017 are now available on the website. The next meeting will be held on 8 April 2017.

♠ Much time has been spent within the committee reviewing the security arrangements in the building. A new lock has now been fitted to the front door. All members are required to familiarise themselves with the coding system.

♠ The date of the Annual General Meeting has been altered to Sunday 21 May 2017.

♠ Following concerns raised by members, it was agreed for the Chairman to apply a graded disciplinary process in instances when the behaviour at the bridge table by a member is unacceptable.

1 ♠ Car parking on Monday and Friday afternoons by some club members is continuing to create problems for neighbouring organisations. All members are asked to ensure that they do not park in the spaces or obstruct the access road to “Angel Water”.

Management arrangements

♥ Bridge club needs ongoing support This edition highlights the work of Ron Stevenson who has been the chairman of the club for the past five years.

Ron was born and educated in Glasgow and retired 10 years ago from a successful career as a civil engineer. His bridge career started in 2006 when he signed up for lessons at this club and has now been playing for 10 years.

The responsibilities of chairing a club are not new to Ron. He was previously the chairman of Wolverhampton Lawn Tennis & Squash Club and this year, as president, saw that club win the Daily Mirror “Sporting Club of the Year Award”.

Describing his role Ron said “I admit to enjoying the role of chairman and also contributing to the work to assure the ongoing success of this club.” He prefers a relaxed style of leadership that supports efficient and sensible management of the club. He seeks to be friendly and approachable to all members and supportive to club officers, encouraging them to fulfil their roles without undue interference - but being available when required.

Amongst his achievements, Ron has overseen five years of the club’s continuous success financially. The extension to the building was completed without undue fuss and good progress has been made on repayment of loans. He expects all debts to be paid over the next two years resulting in the club being owned by the members completely.

A key objective is for members to enjoy coming to the club for good or very good bridge in a pleasant atmosphere. He recalls that when he first became chairman, he was asked regularly to step in to resolve disputes about bridge rules between players. Nearly all of these have been resolved and such occurrences are now sorted without becoming disruptive.

Ron considers the total success of the Gentle Bridge session has been a terrific boon for the club offering all members the choice of competitive and social approaches to playing. However, the poor attendance at some sessions is a major concern. The average age of the membership is increasing without younger players learning to play. This is a challenge that Ron is trying to address.

He has been told that there is a perception among some members that we do not assist our “ gentle” players enough to integrate with the rest of the club. He believes that this is a misconception as he is aware of very many friendly and experienced players who go out of their way to help the less experienced players. “My concern is that most club sessions need to attract more players and the obvious source is from the gentle sessions. Yet moving on from the gentle sessions does not happen enough”. He would like to hear from members as to how this can be resolved.

Ron’s overall long-term aim is to maintain a successful, enjoyable, competitive and profitable club and to witness it. He wants to build up the membership and to do more to

2 strengthen the bonding of members within the club. He is considering whether suggestions such as the organising of a club dinner, possibly a bridge club holiday, should be tried.

♥ Club walk Chris Penny and Anna Lis are proposing to arrange a walk for members on the fourth Tuesday of each month, during the next six months, starting on Tuesday, 28 February.

The walks will be led by Chris and will be about four to five miles long over easy routes – definitely no cows or bogs to navigate a way through! All members are invited and are welcome to bring their family. The routes will be chosen to include a local pub at the finish for a well-deserved drink or lunch.

The details of each walk will be posted on the website and on the club notice-.

Members

♦ Congratulations go to club competition winners: • Dan Crofts and Sandra Fenton, winners of the Yuletide Pairs, played on 4 December 2016; and to • Marcus Eassom and Kate Eccleston, NS winners of the County No Fears Pairs competition played on 23 February 2017;

♦ Master Point Promotions Congratulations also go to members promoted in the national Master Point scheme: • Advanced Master: Maureen Kenny • County Master: Julie Rissbrook, Megan Walton • District Master: Peter Crozet • Area Master: Jackie Bannister, Peter Marsh and Richard Shortridge • Club Master: Elizabeth Allan

♦ EBU 2016 National Master Point Rankings In February, the EBU published the national master point ranking list together with individual lists for each participating club. In Wolverhampton, the winners were: First Alma Richards with 1800 master points Second Trevor Freeman with 1622 master points Third Judi Stevenson with 1289 master points

The list of all members are grouped by county and the Staffordshire & Shropshire County ranking list can be found on the EBU website http://www.ebu.co.uk/mpreports-data/data/2016/5/staffs%20and%20shrops.pdf

Please note that the ranks are fixed as they were on 01/01/2016 and the master point count relates to those won during the calendar year 2016.

Forthcoming events Please put the following key events, to be held in the next months, into your diary:

3 ♣ Winter Handicap Competition, 2016–17, played each Wednesday, will finish on 29 March 2017. ♣ Winter Teams Competition, 2016-17, played on the third Thursday, will finish on 16 March 2017. ♣ The dates of the next and following American Suppers are Saturday, 18 March, 15 April and 20 May 2017. ♣ The Mixed Pairs Competition will take place on Sunday, 9 April 2017. ♣ An Open Teams event will take place on Thursday, 20 April 2017. Players who previously have not tried to play in teams are particularly welcome to this event.

Captain’s Tip

Opening Leads Against Suit Contracts Making the right can sometimes defeat a contract and a bad opening lead can let a contract make that should not - or it can give extra tricks.

How do you decide what to lead? • Listen to the bidding (did your partner bid? If so lead their suit) • Was the contract reached confidently? (attacking lead required) • Was the contract reached tortuously? (passive lead required)

Best Leads • Ace/King – lead Ace from ace/king (Play high if you hold the Queen, and also play high if you only have a doubleton; partner will continue with the King) • Singleton (not trumps) • Top of a sequence e.g. QJ94 or KQ105 or J1096 • Partners suit (if you lead partners suit, lead as if they had not bid) e.g. K 6 2 or 8 4 or 9 8 4 or J 10 2 or Q 4

Average Leads • Doubleton (always lead high low) • Trumps (always lead low) • Suits with broken honours e.g. K J 8 5 • Suits with only small cards (a small card normally promises an honour)

Poor Leads • Leading away from an ace e.g. A 9 6 2 • Leading the Ace without holding the King e.g. A 9 6 3

What does your lead tell your partner?

Honour Leads Card Led Ace King Queen Jack Ten What it shows King Queen Jack Ten Nine

High Spot Leads 9 8 7 6 High = Hate (I do not want this suit returned unless of course you deduce that it is a singleton)

Low Spot Leads 5 4 3 2 Low = Like (I want this suit returned; I hold an honour card in this suit)

4 Players are encouraged to try this system now. In the next newsletter I will cover leads in No contracts.

Linda Curtis Club Captain

A hand that sparked a revolution The following hand caused a furore in the bridge-playing world when it came up at the London Year-End Congress a month or two ago. Just imagine you have been dealt this powerful-looking collection in a Swiss Teams competition. No one is vulnerable, you are second to call, and your right-hand opponent passes. You are playing Benjamin with a weak no trump, a very popular system in non-expert tournament circles in the UK:

♠AKJ98752 ♥- ♦105 ♣AJ10

What opening bid would you choose? 1♠? There’s a danger this will be passed out when you can make game. 4♠, then? No, this is a pre-emptive bid, and partner will pass on many hands that can make a slam. What options are left? Well, although it doesn’t have many high-card points, it looks as if it’s good for a lot of tricks, perhaps not quite enough to insist on game, but luckily we have a near-game-forcing opening bid available which will encourage partner with a modicum of spade support and perhaps a likely trick: a Benjamin 2♣ bid.

This was the choice at a number of tables, and those of you who direct at the club, or who share an interest in the game’s regulations, can probably guess what happened next. One of the opponents called the director at the end of the hand and asked for a ruling. What was the problem?

The regulations state that, in all EBU-licensed competitions, an artificial two-level suit opener has to meet a certain minimum standard of strength: either have (i) at least 16 high card points (hcp), or (ii) sufficient hcp that when added to the number of cards in the two longest suits it comes to at least 25, or (iii) at least 10 hcp and a guarantee of making at least eight tricks in spades if partner has a and one opponent a small singleton (providing this last possibility has been adequately disclosed to the opponents).

If you understand all that you will see that this hand falls short of the requirements in all three categories. So the director had to decide if the pair had an illegal agreement to open this hand 2♣, or whether it fell outside their agreements and the player had just decided to bid it on a whim. Unfortunately for them, they thought this was a normal Benjamin 2♣ bid (or an old-fashioned Acol two in any suit), so they were judged to be playing an illegal system and their flat board was changed to an average minus (-3 IMPs).

This was not the first time a player has been caught out by this regulation, which is designed to stop players routinely opening something like

♠107 ♥- ♦KQJ109542 ♣A32 with 2♣ and describing it as “an Acol two” or “eight playing tricks” or any other description that suggests a strong hand. The rule has been invoked many times over the ten years or so that it’s been in force, but it caused an uproar when details of the incident were posted on the Bridgewinners online discussion forum. Part of the upset was the way that an expert pair invoked the rules to gain an inconsequential advantage

5 over another competitor in a manner that was seen by some to be unsporting. There was also outrage at the regulation that stops players from opening this hand a Benjamin 2♣ by agreement. Those who thought it qualified for an Acol two included such well- known experts as Artur Malinowski, David Gold, Tony Forrester, Espen Erichsen, Richard Fleet, David Bird, Kieran Dyke, Tom Townsend and Iain Sime.

The upshot of all this is that the EBU Laws and Ethics Committee will be reviewing the requirements for an artificial strong two bid, and it’s possible that a change will take place in the summer of this year. It’s likely that some sort of minimum strength will still be required, but we can hope that it will be couched in terms that the average player finds easy to understand, and the average director finds easy to apply.

James Vickers

Foolish or Inspired? Doubling a conventional bid made by the opposition which requests partner to lead that suit is not uncommon. For example, doubling a Stayman or a transfer bid. What about doubling a natural bid though? Here is an unusual example.

West was the dealer with North/South vulnerable and they were playing ‘Benji’ Acol so that 2♦ showed 23+ points or a game force, and 2♥ was a relay. Other bids were natural – well sort of! North ♠ AK75 N E S W ♥ AK9 P ♦ AKQJ9 2♦ P 2♥ P ♣ 8 3♦ P 3♠ Dbl(!) P(!) P P ♠ - ♠ 9642 West ♥ J10763 ♥ Q84 East In passing, North realised that 3♠ ♦ 1043 ♦ 652 doubled plus the odd overtrick was ♣ J7642 ♣ AK5 going to score considerably more than 4♠, with or without overtricks. ♠ QJ1083 Quite correct, and West felt pretty ♥ 52 foolish as N/S scored +1330 for ♦ 87 game plus three overtricks whilst 4♠ ♣ Q1093 plus two overtricks would only have South scored +680.

Wait a moment though! If N/S bid the ‘cold’ spade slam, they score +1430 and E/W get a top! If, as West had hoped, North is declarer in a diamond slam (or even game) contract, the result can be a spectacular success for E/W. Note however that to hold N/S to 10 tricks in diamonds, East has to trust partner implicitly! Lead the two of spades for a first and to point towards his Ace of clubs as to enable the second ruff. As the cards lie, leading the club ace before a spade ruff only gives the defence two tricks. Looking at the results afterwards, two N/S pairs bid the spade slam, and two bid game only. Looked like 50%/50%, but 5♦ plus one and 3NT plus two results reduced the E/W - 1330 score to 33%.

Ian Carless

If you have any questions or comments about the newsletter, or would like to contribute an article, please contact Anna Lis, Tel 07971 952335 or email [email protected]

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