Bedfordshire Bridge Association BULLETIN No.238 April 2012 Bulletin Editor: Peter Scott 21 Salters Way, Dunstable, Beds, LU6 1BT Tel: 01582 668488 or 07956 820530 Email: [email protected] Inside this Issue: YOUR BULLETIN REPS Letter to the Editor.............. 3 Please note that the following At Crockfords - nearly! ........ 5 people will be handing out the Easley Blackwood................ 8 latest Bulletins at your local Declarer Play Quiz............... 9 club: Fracas in Poland ................10 Ampthill ................Mike Field Red Suit Transfers .............12 Clifton.................... Alan Ellis Suit Preference Signals.......16 Leighton B ......... David Gilling How Many Queens?............19 PM Bridge.......... Ann Pillinger BBA Committee Report .......20 Bedford ............... Alan Cooke Mike Vogel ........................22 Cranfield ........ Erica Sharrock Answer to Declarer Quiz .....23 Milton Keynes .... David Gilling Brian Keable Part 2 ............24 Wardown............. Peter Scott More on the Merrimac.........26 Please ask one of them if you Recent Results...................27 have not received your copy. An Ethical Dilemma ............28 BACK HOME AFTER AN EVENING AT THE BRIDGE CLUB “Pass me the hairdryer” 2 Editorial: Thank you for your many and varied contributions to this issue which are always very welcome. Please keep them coming. As well as the usual mix of bridge features is a report on decisions recently made by your County Committee which may affect you. So, read on and please let me have your comments and thoughts on the content and anything else you wish to share with others in the next issue. Over to you ... Letter to the Editor English Bridge Union (EBU) membership at club and county level Ever since the English Bridge Union, the counties, and EBU affiliated clubs, introduced the Pay to Play (P2P) scheme into the bridge world, all members of affiliated clubs automatically became members of the EBU. This means in theory (but perhaps not in practice) that all players who play in affiliated clubs, at county level or in national events should adhere to the prevailing EBU standards for behaviour and etiquette within the current EBU rules and regulations for administering the duplicate (tournament) bridge game. The above means that all EBU members should know about and implement the following items: • Provision and display of a partnership convention card when they play with a regular partner. • Proper knowledge of the rules for use of the Stop card, and the Alert card, when using bidding boxes. • Knowledge of the situations that require the use of Announcements and of Alerts. • Ability to implement Announcing and Alert procedures correctly. One might have thought that by now the majority of regular players within affiliated clubs would be adhering to the above rules, but that is not so. Players fail to have convention cards and do not understand the Announcing procedures (either not announcing properly or make announcements when an Alert is required). Similarly, very few people 3 correctly implement the Alerting rules, particularly with respect to a penalty double of a suit bid (below the four level). I know of one club where it seems to be unnecessary to have a convention card and I have been to County events where players (including committee members) have not displayed a convention card. Unless the county and club committees can find a way to educate players and implement the required standards to the EBU members, it is likely that things may get worse. How will new players to the game ever realise that they have a responsibility to adhere to the required code of procedural behaviors for EBU membership, if the existing EBU members do little or nothing to promote those procedures? I am not asking for the County and clubs to come down like a ton of bricks on those players who do not know or do not take any notice of the required procedures (that would be very unfair to new players just entering the game), but I do think there is a requirement for the County and clubs to put into action an education process to raise the level of awareness of EBU rules and their application within bridge in Bedfordshire. Yours sincerely Brian Keable (EBU member for 50+ years) Consider this: A WINNER listens to his partner’s point of view. A LOSER just waits until it’s time to express his own. 4 By John Hurst I was amused to read Brian Keable’s Memoirs because back in 1972/73 or thereabouts, I had the fortune – or misfortune – to play against several of the people he mentions. It brings back memories of something that might have been my finest hour – but in the event certainly wasn’t! Before reading on, look at these two West East hands and decide in what contract ♠ K982 ♠ AQ65 you would want to be in a keen team of four KO match. I think most ♥ Q7 ♥ 4 people would settle for 4 ♠ and hope to make it around half the time! ♦ KJ4 ♦ 97632 ♣ AQ52 ♣ K73 In the 1972/73 season (or 73/74, the memory blurs), my partner Don Gilbertson (Leicestershire – regrettably left us just over a year ago) played in the then prestigious Crockfords Cup with another local pair of improvers. The format was multiple teams qualifiers at some 8 venues, 4 KO rounds and an 8-team final. We qualified at Derby for the second year running out of some 50+ teams, in 2nd place, and continued by supreme effort and no mean luck, to reach the last 16. We drew ”Pencharz” at home, for a 48 board match 6 x 8 boards. We were at the disadvantage – apart from the obvious one - of having a 4 person team, against their 6. We provided dinner after 32 boards, and hoped we would still be in with a meaningful reason for playing out the last 16 after dinner. On the day, Bill Pencharz arrived “sans partner” who was too ill to play, and Bill himself spent the whole match lying on the sofa stricken with flu, which negated one of their advantages. The four who played were (Brian Keable note): Joe Amsbury (bridge columnist in the Telegraph) with Tony Sowter (Notts. fringe international, who we knew quite well as he came to Leicester occasionally) and the Sharples Brothers! So, to work. 5 I can’t remember the exact scores, but our best hope was in snatching some sort of early advantage before we tired. Some hope! After the first set, we were around 35 imps behind. Strange to relate, from that point on we recouped a good few imps every round, dispensed with dinner as the opponents wanted to play on, and unbelievably went into the final round with a respectable lead of 17/18 or so. The next round was turning into a dream. The first five hands were all part scores and we had the best of them at our table. Unless our partners had done something ridiculous it was nearly in the bag and we would be in the national 8 team final. Hold your nerve. I was sitting North against the Sharples; my LHO opened 1 ♣ - pass - 1♠ – pass - 3 ♠ - pass - 6 ♠ - passed out. Here’s your hand: ♠J3 ♥K109632 ♦Q10 ♣J84 Pick a lead. Don’t spend too long over it. After toying with a heart, I chose a ‘safe’ lead of the jack of trumps. When I saw ♥Q7 go down in dummy I heaved a sigh of relief; it was short-lived. Lead a red card and you’re in the final of the Crockfords, a black one and your team mates can rightfully say the average monkey would have got it right 8 times out of 13! You saw the E/W hands at the beginning. Here’s the full diabolical layout: Trumps drawn, fourth club takes care of the singleton heart, my ♦Q10 fall under the ♦KJ and we just take one trick with the ♦A. Anybody think 4 ♠ was an overbid at the beginning? ♠ 1074 6♠ by East ♥ AJ85 Lead is ♠J ♦ A85 ♣ 1096 ♠ K982 ♠ AQ65 ♥ Q7 N ♥ 4 ♦ KJ4 W E ♦ 97632 ♣ AQ52 S ♣ K73 ♠ J3 ♥ K109632 ♦ Q10 ♣ J84 6 If that wasn’t enough, on the next hand my partner opened 1 ♠. Holding KQJxxx, x, xxx, xxx I not unreasonably jumped to four. In the other room they bid 2 ♠ and 9 tricks were solid and no more! The last hand was no score. I forget now whether the margin of defeat was 2 IMPS or 3, but it was small enough that despite letting through an impossible 6 ♠, we could still have won had I bid 2 ♠. I seem to recall Sowter and Amsbury stayed for dinner, the other three left! C’est la vie. I did get to the 8 team final of the Crockfords Plate in the late eighties with a Bedfordshire team, but it was hardly the same, and even the Cup had lost some of its shine by then. Things that might have been. I can still remember the hands and will probably never forget them, even though now I struggle to remember what was in my hand when I get to trick five or six! “I knew that their psyches would get them in hot water one day.” (Cartoon by Marco Alcalay) 7 By Chris Watson Most bridge players use some form of the Blackwood convention where a bid of 4NT is used to discover the number of aces or key cards held by partner. That sentence sums up what most of us know about Blackwood. What you may not know is that Easley Rutland Blackwood was born on June 25 th 1903 in Birmingham, Alabama but lived mostly in Indianapolis, Indiana.