BRIAN GLUBOKBrian is a highly accomplished American bridge player hailing from New York City. Glubok, an alumnus of Amherst College, has consistently excelled in North American Bridge Championships, securing numerous titles, including wins in the Jacoby Open Swiss Teams, Reisinger, and Spingold events. In addition to his domestic success, Glubok came close to victory in the World Mixed Pairs Championship in 2010, finishing as the runner-up.. Archives
October 2024
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #4010/23/2024 Springfield, October 20 I've been trying to tap into ethereal dimensions lately and like many other endeavors (think skiing, or visiting Yosemite National Park) risks arise, typically where you don't expect them. The bridge pro in me wants to make these blogs instructive as well as entertaining - though some readers simply want more stories - systems wonk may crave details on second - round transfers after Stayman - others may want tales from the trenches, bridge deals from BBO or the regional circuit. What's a writer to do? ***** This writer has to plan his trip to California which begins in a few days - Ventura regional, the WBS Crew has a major assignment - follow our progress here - several team members will be blogging on the experience, we hope - who knows what will happen? Here's hoping that hijinks and mayhem ensue. Enter Snuffleupagus My DBP blog has been taking the turns kind of wide lately - could be because we're launching for a wider audience shortly - who knows why things happen? A trusted reader asserts that I'm a light-spreader - listen to your (possibly deceased) ancestors, she suggests - I try and key into my father, Phillip Roth, Alvin Roth, Edgar Kaplan, Eddie Kantar - that leads me to Justin Lall - I decide to go with it - Justin (my fictitious rendering of his ghost I mean) visits me at Venice Beach, by Kantar's old hang-out - he says he came to this terrestrial plain so I might help his sister in her quest to become mayor of LA - he's got some other requests too - like I don't have enough going on. ***** But I agree to consider it - take it under advisement, right? Swiftly I realize that I may need Justin as much (or more) than he needs me - whatever his other requests, his sister will either become mayor of LA or she won't - whether I take an interest or not. But either way, I could use Justin - a sounding board for ideas, a potential target audience of one for me to write for, a chance to heal some of the despair we are suffering, collectively, as a society - stop me before I make a complete fool of myself - ("You are, but continue, please - A. Konisberg to this writer, late 2019) ***** So Justin, I accept - you just sit over there by the shoreline, or on this bench over here, and I'll consult you as we go along, call on you as a consultant as required. We can discuss your sister's mayoral campaign, and your other wish list as well. Agreed? "Absolutely," Justin replies. "Say, did I I show you the hand I used to get this trip to LA? Let me know when you have a minute, it's one of those second-round bidding problems you really like...." ***** What a rich bridge scene Los Angeles enjoyed! Justin, I've got you as a captive audience. I walk along the boardwalk, mount my parked bike - this early in the AM you can ride bikes here, so I head off, southbound, with a vague promise to Justin to return before long. "Take as long as you like," Justin laughs, "It's not like I've got where to go." Three years deceased, one of the truly elite bridge players of the early 21st century undoes his shoelaces and rolls up his trousers, preparatory to an early-morning romp in the SoCal sand. ***** I decide to head north instead, that's the natural direction - keep going up the coast and you hit the Bay Area - decades ago they told me that Northern California and Southern California were like two different countries, if I didn't know that already - I'm pleased with the prospect of telling my stories to Justin - not so much because he's deceased and imaginary, I'd be similarly stoked about the prospect if he was extant and animated - whatever his mood, or internal level of despair - and obviously you are carrying a high level of despair, I'll suggest, if you leave a duplicate game and take the Lexington Avenue 4 train downtown to City Hall Station - but no matter what his level of despair, and certainly that anomie remained in the decade he was with us, after his jump from the bridge - but oddly, he was pretty much always great company - no, there were no "off-days" for Justin Lall - he was great company, the life of the party, pretty much every time I saw him. ***** Neal Cassady had that quality, they say. Dean Moriarty in On The Road - *****
I make it maybe a quarter mile south, to the Steel Pier and the first of the Salt Water Taffy stands before I decide to head north instead - no, I"m not likely to head north to the Bay Area - probably I'll go two or three miles up the boardwalk, max - but even as an east coast guy I understood California mostly as a coastal metropolis, bracketed to the north by Berkeley and North Beach, and to the South by Hollywood and Venice. So for now, I'm trying to stay in my lanes. As I pass by again, Justin is standing by his bench, his rucksack open to receive his Mango - brand loafers. "Hey, let me give you that bidding problem,". he calls to me. "You can think about it while you're riding." With only the tiniest bit of resentment for the delay, I pull over to listen. "Ace-fourth, King-ten-third, Jack doub, Jack fourth," Justin recites, punching the air to punctuate each suit in turn as he presents the hand. "Your partner opens One Diamond, you respond One Spade, your partner bids Two Clubs, and it's up to you, Opponents silent." A Mod Japanese fashion photographer roars past on a Vespa, his Ray-bans sparkling off the broken glass on the boardwalk. "It's a two part problem, you can tell me what you bid on this round when you come back," JSL tells me. "What if I pass Two Clubs?" I ask him. "Then it's a one part problem. You got a thought for the day?" Justin asks me. "I'll file it for you if you don't get back by deadline." "I do, actually," I tell him. "Shoot," he says. He laughs his JSL laugh and adds, "Using the term loosely." A fallen girl from the Valley, former fast food worker, former hair stylist, shuffles past us on the boardwalk, her expression vacant and her prospects poor. ""Always try to see the divinity within the squalor," I tell him. "Thanks, bro," he replies, and I head off north along the boardwalk.
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #399/24/2024 Springfield, April 23 Trying something different with the blog/column today - I wrote these tips back in April, and I revised them this morning at a September regional in downstate Illinois. I’ll return to the usual format in Blog #40, but here, below, I present some broad advice for any of you among the readership who might wish to enter the industry and attempt to earn a livelihood by playing professionally. How to best go about this is a frequent subject for casual discourse when pros congregate, so I offer this up as a kind of collected wisdom, accumulated over the years. Here goes: Seven Tips for Aspiring Bridge Prosby Brian Glubok with Denis Wilsonovich 1) You are in the "Entertaining Rich People" business, not the "Playing Bridge" Business. Your success or failure in the industry is based on your capacity to be a good companion to rich people. Rich people have certain traits in common, generally. While an individual, specific, wealthy person may not have these traits, and there are "exceptions to every rule", as a bridge player we know that we should "go with the odds until proven otherwise". 2) Be punctual - early, even. This one is hard to adhere to, especially in large cities where there are myriad distractions and constant traffic. Incidentally, this tip will serve you well in your dealings with middle-class and poor people, too. 3) Be aware of societal norms. I was never very good at following this tip, but this collection of advice falls into the “Do as I say, not as I do,” category. Rich people generally don’t like to be conspicuous. 4) Make allowances for the special nature of bridge players. Bridge players are immensely more likely than the general population to suffer syndromes like Asperger’s or autism. Bear this in mind and try to manifest kindness and compassion, towards yourself and others. 5) Be conscious of the reasons people hire pros. There are of course all of the obvious and apparent reasons, like “They want to get better at bridge,” or “They want to finish higher in tournaments.” But there is also this: “They want to show other people how smart they are.” Arguably, this is one of the major reasons we compete in tournaments in the first place. Thanks to Chris and Donna Compton for that insight. 6) Talk to your clients as though they are grandmasters (at bridge) I want to thank Miami’s Tudor King for this one. He offered it to me when I solicited some advice from him on how to better serve my clients. It proved to be great advice, but I want to be clear on one point - I am suggesting that you treat your clients as grand masters, in conversation, not in the game itself. In the game itself, you must consistently 7) Build a fence around your partner - protect him from himself. This is sound advice to follow with other top players, but is especially useful, naturally, when partnering weak players. Following this tip can take many forms: On defense, make it obvious. In the bidding, don’t set traps. Don’t make a complicated bid when a simple one will do. Bonus Tip: Have a good time, all the time. If you can manage to appear to be enjoying your bridge game and your day, you will be far more valuable to your clients than otherwise - no one wants a sullen bridge pro. I want to acknowledge that I lifted that “Bonus Tip” from the epilogue to Rob Reiner’s Spinal Tap. Here’s the clip: Thanks for reading!
- BG/DW
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #389/16/2024 Springfield, April 20 Department of Alarming News: I noticed yesterday that the regional in Wisconsin is requiring "Proof of Vaccine" once more. This is beyond amazing to me. August Update: Attendance was terrible at the Wisconsin regional which required proof of vaccination, so - the League came up with the right policy for the wrong reason (imo), specifically: By fiat of the ACBL, effective immediately, districts can not require proof of vaccination as a condition of participation in their tournaments. ***** Here's a deal I was sent from the Gatlinburg regional, which is happening this week. Responder holds: AKJ9x, Jx, x, QT9xx - Opener begins with One Diamond, and the opponents stay silent: We respond One Spade, Partner rebids Two Diamonds. What do we bid now? ***** 
I'm going to spend much of the balance of this column about this deal from the recent regional in Florida - Board 22. I was West and held xx, xx, T9x, AQTxxx - Partner Opened One Diamond, RHO passed. I like to treat 1D - 3C as showing this type of hand - six or seven clubs and 7-9 HCP - Walter and I play a similar treatment, but I knew Wall Street Walter would expect more high cards for an invitational 3 Club response, so I contented myself with One No Trump. This floated around to RHO, who reopened with double. I retreated to 2C, and the lovely and talented Sandra Rimstedt, my LHO, competed with Two Spades. Walter raised to 3C, and Sandra took the push to 3S. Here’s the full sequence: 1D - (P) - 1NT - (P) - P - (Double) - 2C - (2S) - 3C - 3S - All pass. Walter led a club, dummy tabled KJxx, Kxx, Axx, Kxx, and I won my queen. The ten of diamonds shift was appealing, but eventually, after my longest tank of the tournament (two minutes? Very rare that I think as long as two minutes about a single play or bid), I shifted to my doubleton heart - I decided that my best chance to :beat 3S was to find Walter with both major suit aces, and secure a heart ruff. He had both aces, but we didn’t find the winning defense. During the bidding Sandra had kept her hearts concealed, and Walter misread the position, so he tried for something else (diamonds, I think). Here’s a line you can use next time someone complains to you about their partner’s bidding or play, I’ve found it pretty effective at bringing those conversations (typically they’re more of a diatribe than a conversation) to a merciful conclusion: Thought for the Day: Partners are the bane of humanity! ***** Here’s a tough pair of hands I was given to bid, imagine yourself responder after partner opens One Heart, you have this powerful duke: AKQxxx, K, Axxx, Qx. You bid One Spade, partner continues with 2D. . I’d like to recommend a 3S bid here - in Standard systems this second - round jump to 3S is invitational. There’s a lot of merit to playing this bid as a natural force. In WBS, we have an easy time playing this as forcing - 1H - 2S is invitational, so we have that hand covered - using standard methods, you have to “go through fourth suit”, so a second round bid of 3C is obligatory. This makes the bidding more difficult, as we’ll soon see. Swing around to opener’s side of the table - he holds x, AJTxx, KQTxx, Kx - after 1H - 1S - 2D - 3C, many would bid 3 No Trump - they treat Fourth Suit as “Asking for a stopper” - I prefer 3D at opener’s third turn. At the table, my correspondent chose 3 No Trump, the popular bid, I’ll bet. Responder took out to 4D, and then - the specter of a Redwood 4 Hearts hovered over the auction. Ever pragmatic, our opener simply bid 6 Diamonds. Responder, annoyed that Opener hadn’t bid Blackwood, corrected to 6 No Trump. This might have made, if spades had broken 3-3, or a squeeze manifested - neither eventuated and 6 No Trump went down one. I thought this deal revealed a lot, about the psychology of modern bidders, and the downside of fourth suit forcing. Everyone loves the idea of “going through fourth suit” to show their forcing hands, but there’s a lot of merit in allowing Responder to simply show the nature of their force with a second round jump. Certainly we might be more comfortable with a start of 1H - 1S - 2D - 3S - 3NT - 4D. Just sayin’ - Here’s one more modern-day mishap from a recent regional pair game - Our auction began 1C - 2C (inverted raise) - 3NT - I thought that showed a two no trump rebid, somewhere in the 17-19 range - apparently that’s not a universal treatment. Our hands were Ax, Axx, xx, AKxxxx facing KJx, KJ, AQTx, QJxx - Six Clubs is cold (heart ruff in dummy for the twelfth trick) and Six No Trump is on either of two finesses - you just have to choose which one(s) you want to take - in Three No Trump I won the heart lead with dummy’s jack, and played a diamond to the queen for my thirteenth trick. The old plus 520.... Thought for the Day: Modern players don’t like to define ranges. But you have to, how can you bid effectively otherwise? It makes no sense for one guy to think 1C - 2C - 3NT shows a good 13 or 14, while the other guy thinks it shows 18-19. Gotta go, I’m at a regional and it’s not much more than an hour to game time. - BG
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #379/15/2024 Springfield, April 17
Going through a mystical period, a good time to cite a pair of books that have helped me along the way. I’d like to elaborate on what these two books mean to me later on down the line - here's the first: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. The lessons in this slender book are more useful when I write this today, in 2024, than when the book was written back around 1971. Just as Suzuki brought Buddhist teachings to the west, I aspire to have a similar impact on world bridge thinking. Here's another one you might want to read -- the Steve Jobs biography from about ten years ago. Jobs is a hero to all kinds of people, naturally - I like to think there are three of us who share a characteristic, Steverino, yours truly, and Carrie Fisher - Ms. Fisher put it best in one of her novels (Delusions of Grandma?) - “...I felt as though I would always be tragically in-between, with too much personality for one person but not quite enough for two....” ***** Sometimes the cards aren’t worth a dime, if you don’t lay ‘em down.... If you want to order Delusions of Grandma, or perhaps one of her other novels (Postcards from the Edge?) Click here. As an abstraction, I determined that these thirty-something numbered blogs should allow for more scope for reflection, a little less bridge - just as the personal growth gurus like Roshi, Ram Dass, and Gail Sheehy might advise about the decade of the thirties - gotta know who you are before you figure out how to shake loose of that guy! Buddhist Thought for the Day: Sometimes we are playing bridge, and sometimes we are not playing bridge. ***** To excel at bridge, one must learn to concentrate. If you can't hold a train of thought, you can't do well at bridge ***** Roshi Suzuki, author of ZM/BM, was asked to leave Japan in the late 1950's to establish a Zen Center in northern California. Roshi said that he couldn't do that, above his pay-grade. He was, after all, a simple guy. He did, however, agree to move to California and meditate there, and allow others to join him. I could be mistaken with some of these assertions, but I believe it was around 1958 that Roshi established a daily meditative practice in San Francisco. Within weeks there were a dozen people joining him, and within months, more still. Not long after he established a center farther down the coast, near Carmel: The Zen Mountain Monastery. Bridge hooks - Originally from Vancouver, Canadian bridge legend Allan Graves was my personal portal to Buddhism - I guess it began in the 80's, our series of casual conversations on the subject, mostly in tournament playing rooms. Around 1989 or '90, I ventured up to Barnet, Vermont, to the Karme Choling Center, where Allan was working. I took the beginner course over one August weekend and launched a pleasant summer / autumn romance with a fellow student, a nurse from outside Philadelphia. Certainly I didn't become an ardent Buddhist, but that weekend did change my life. That book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, lit the way. Roshi, we call him - or Suzuki. ***** It's pleasant for me to recall where I read the Steve Jobs book - it was on the living room shelf at the Mahaffey estate near Orlando. The house had of course a pool, and it was on a lake you could swim in - I was fortunate to be a houseguest of Mahaffey there at least twice - Passell or Gary (Cohler) told me the house valued at 10,000,000 - Mahaffey himself was a legend. He died in his early 80's around the first month of lockdown, back in March of 2020. It is pleasant to recall him here - he liked to be called King James, that was his nickname - fascinating guy, "Mahaffey Stories" could fill this blog, and the next entry too. He had a great caustic sense of humor, and he was a big party animal. His Florida friends like Shannon, MIke C., the Tudor King, others - more deceased than living, now - would all have "Mahaffey stories" to contribute.- Jeff Overby or Jay Whipple would have a few, no doubt - here's one from me, probably hasn't been heard before, at least it's got that going for it: ***** One year at the end of the last century, the fall nationals were held in Seattle. I'm guessing that this was 1998 or 1999. This was the year that Jayne Thomas, a Tournament Chair and District Representative from Florida, was president of the league. The even bigger convention in town that week was some sort of international organization - maybe the World Economic Forum, I recall there may have been protests. Jayne had almost as big a sense of herself as Jim had of himself, and they got along just fine. She was on his payroll for something, I forget what. Certainly if he needed to call upon her in her role as Tournament Chair she was likely to listen. Mahaffey sought to live an epic life - driving jeeps into fountains, ala F. Scott Fitzgerald. He nicknamed Jayne “The Demon Dyke”, and was immensely pleased with himself for coining that moniker. The scuttlebutt that week in Seattle said that The President of Singapore, in town for the Conference, had offered $25,000 a night for the Presidential Suite, which the ACBL had under contract - Jayne gave that offer the big passerooski - anyway, the first day of the tournament, the opening Friday, I'm walking back from the dinner break, just after twilight, about a block from the venue. Mahaffey is walking there too, I'm thinking he might have been returning from the meal break for the second session with Shannon. We're stuck on the sidewalk waiting, there's a huge, long convoy of SUV's and police vehicles with spinning blue lights,- probably an escort for the King of Siam or something - that was it, it was some kind of Pan Asian Conference. So all these official vehicles are crawling their way down the main drag of Seattle, Olympia Blvd or whatever - Mahaffey looks over the convoy, quite vast really - a dozen cars or more, stretched for close to a block - he sees that he has an audience of bridge players congregating on the street corner, and with his loud booming voice, he comments on the convoy: "Jayne Thomas, coming back from dinner." He laughed at his own joke and I remember it still, a quarter century later. Funny guy, Jim Mahaffey.
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #369/4/2024 Springfield, April 17 The weather started off amazing this morning, and my day did too. I arrived at the Discovery House around a dozen minutes before seven. Approaching the building, I fell into step with a gorgeous blond midwestern woman, a radiant artist type. In the meetings and around the group, Dana is always upbeat and encouraging. Today, in those marvelous minutes of the pre-meeting, she opened up to me about her own extensive trauma, and shared some tips on how she'd dealt with it. Yesterday, I spoke a few sentences in Group - rare for me. I read that script and was enchanted for life with one particular bit of dialogue from that scene: Dr. Evil: (world-weary): My childhood was typical - summers in Rangoon, luge lessons - (sighs) - ***** The outpouring of encouragement I received from other people there has been positive and transformative for me. I'll take this chance to encourage you to consider attending a meeting if you're thinking of it - and if not a 'Friends of Bill" meeting, then find your group uplift wherever you can - churches and temples are a natural place to go, but yoga classes and pickleball games are good choices too. Let me put in this Traveling Wilburys song here - I may have used it already but who cares? Thought for the Day: Find a group and participate - if only as an outsider. ***** Life is about change, they say - change is the single universal element. Coping with change is hard for most everyone - first you have to resolve to accept it, then you have to manage it - and, if you're here on the back nine (golf metaphor for the second half of life, post 35 or 40, say - like a majority of our writers and readership - then you have to manage that change with less energy and less societal support then you had yesterday, and a decade ago. And tomorrow you may have less still! One change that the entire society has undergone in the past five years: We are much less engaged with one another. This is the sort of change I would notice, and I certainly have - but lately I've heard others comment on this, as a voluntary assertion, not brought on by me. Let's look at a bridge deal, from my recent trip to South Florida to play in the regional there.  I held QJT8xxx, xx, Void, K97x - My partner Walter opened One Heart - I responded One Spade. I don't hate a 4 Spade response, but it is a bit of an overbid - the hand may be ours for eight or nine tricks in spades, why rush to a minus score: My LHO bid 2D, and partner bid 3C.
Bidding theorists could debate whether that 3C bid is forcing - as a practical matter it probably shouldn't be, for Opener doesn't want to have to pass with a good opening bid like Qx, KQJxx, x, AQTxx - but he doesn't want to force, either. Proponents of a limited opening bid system like Precision with trumpet the merits of that approach, but that isn't the point here, either. Most of us don't play Precision, and limited opening bid systems have its own problems associated with them. Over Partner's Three Club bid, I simply "put it in Four Spades", making our entire sequence: 1H (P) - 1S - (2D) - 3C - (P) - 4S - (P) - P - (P) I received the apparently favorable lead of the ace of diamonds, and Walter tabled a very solid hand: A, AQxxx, KJ, AQJxx - I ruffed the ace of diamonds and considered my line of play (not necessarily in that order). Clearly I would play the ace of trump at Trick Two. Now I would have to choose how to come back to my hand to drive out the king of spades. Two ways back: 1) Cash the king of diamonds, throwing a heart, then play ace of hearts, ruff a heart with the eight of spades, then lead the queen of spades. 2) Come to the king of clubs and lead the queen of spades from hand. Line One will be wrong (lose a trick to Line 2) when LHO has a singleton heart and the nine of spades. Line Two will be wrong when one player has a doubleton king of spades and three small clubs, , and the other has three small spades and a singleton club - in that variation, crossing to the king of clubs will expose me to a club ruff. I reasoned: A singleton club with three small spades is unlikely - if RHO had that he might well have raised diamonds - therefore, I should be safe crossing to the king of clubs. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that that was a poor play - the risk is real, and the alternative line - coming to my hand with a heart ruff - is much safer - only wrong when there is a singleton heart on my left, along with the nine of spades in that hand as well. So I made a bad play on this hand, exposing myself to a club ruff by coming to my hand in the wrong suit - I got away with it - LHO won the king of spades and didn't play a second club. Thought for the Day: No Good Deed goes Unpunished - but sometimes you get away with a bad play!
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #358/31/2024 I'm numbering this blog #35 to leave room to make #33 into two columns. Naturally as a frustrated novelist I tend to write long, but for this medium - short is good. Let me get the bridge hand in early, before I start talking about my Up Against the Wall Advice Straight Outta Compton. Here was a hand I featured recently from that very ballroom: AQJT, A, KQxxx, Axx - facing K98xxxx, Qx, Ax, Jx - Walter and I reached 7 Spades quickly, with an invitational jump shift. Here's a link to the diagram - I was responder.  The hand in question is what we used to call a “baby grand slam” - or, for short, a baby grand. If you want to buy a baby grand piano from Aaron Silverstein’s in-laws, click here. If you want to look at a deal where the offense (Walter and I in this case) has a gazillion tricks - a baby grand in bridge terms - then check the diagram. Our respective hands were: K98xxxx, Qx, Ax, Jt facing AQJT, A, KQ9xx, Axx - I look at a pair of hands like this and I think: Seven spade tricks, four diamond tricks (assuming a 4-2 split - five tricks if the suit splits 3-3 - only three tricks if the suit splits 5-1) - then I add the heart trick (gotta count the ace) and then a second heart trick, in the form of a ruff in the AQJT hand, likely the dummy - that’s an eighth spade trick if you prefer to count that way - just don’t count it both as an eighth spade and a second heart - oh yeah, ace of clubs, too - so basically this is a fourteen or fifteen trick deal - ***** This pair of hands can be handled very easily, the point count is even adequate if both players use basic evaluation techniques. The opener can reason: This 20-count re-evaluates to 22 or 23 (all those aces, good five card suit, great trumps) - and the responders ten count re-evaluates to 15 on account of the three extra spades (one for the fifth, two for the sixth, two for the seventh) - so the straight-forward point-count approach gets you to 37 or 38 points - with all the aces, the long suit, and the singleton, that’s why there are fifteen likely tricks. Chalk Talk: After we bid, with the opponents silent, One Diamond - One Spade, Three Hearts by opener is what is known as an “Idle Sequence”. This is because the “natural” meaning for the bid - a good hand with primary diamonds and secondary hearts - has no utility. (This is not really true - you could play the bid to show a hand like x, AKJxx, AQJTxxx, void). With a normal excellent hand like Kx, AJ9x, AKTxxx, K, we simply bid 1D - 1S - 2H - this is known as a “‘reverse”, and is generally played as promising extra strength - the thinking being: Responder will have to go to the 3 level to return to opener’s primary suit (diamonds), so Opener needs substantial extra strength (17+) to justify his reverse bid. Many expert partnerships use this 3H bid as a “mini-splinter” - a hand like KJxx, x, AJxxx, AJx - others use it as a “Non-specific game splinter” - either AQxx, x, AKxxx, KJx or AQxx, KJx, AKxxx, x - then on the third round they use a relay ask/answer method to pin-point the singleton. I prefer a different meaning: I treat this 3H bid (and 3S, after 1D - 1H), as showing: “The biggest possible game raise; nearly a 2 Club bid in support” - hands like KQxx, Axx, AKxxxx, void, or AJxx, Ax, AKJxx, Ax - or the actual hand from my regional with Walter, AQJT, A, KQxxx, Axx) ***** So here’s a good auction for Standard Bidders using this gadget: 1D - 1S - 3H - 4NT - Answer showing three keys - 7 Spades. Here’s another good sequence, the one Walter and I relied upon: 1D - 2S (invitational jump-shift, shows 9-11 HCP and at least six spades) - RKC - Answer showing two - Seven Spades. Despite the apparent ease of reaching the grand slam (we do, after all, have a likely 15 tricks off the top), reaching 7 was worth over 90% of the matchpoints - even reaching six gets you an above average score. I’ll suggest to Walter and perhaps to WCN that we add an Optional Key Card bid to that sequence, specifically: 1D - 2S - 4C - then responder answers: 4S: Bad hand for slam 4D: Fair hand for slam - what do you think? 4H: Good hand for slam, I’m answering with the first step, showing that number of key-cards ***** Thought for the Day: 90% of life is just showing up. The other half is what you wear when you get there. Life: Be in it!
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #328/29/2024 Springfield, April 15 Thoughts on Gatlinburg March came in like a lion here on the great plain this year, and went out like a feisty lamb. The recent rains have made the local lawns lush. The birds have been chirping since early in the AM, and the weather is spring-perfect - it gives me solid satisfaction to zip across West Edwards to have a coffee and get some uplift, listen to the laughter and bask in the good fellowship of the congregants at the Discovery House where the Friends of Bill meet daily at 7 AM. I knocked out three of these "thirty-something columns" yesterday, starting early in the AM. A few of the other North American bridge pros may have been off at a tournament playing a Swiss Teams yesterday - no doubt there was a sectional somewhere - but I believe (too slack to check) that last week was the "off-week" (Bridge Pro Laundry Week?) in the five week stretch that began just after the Spring NABC. I will continue to call these NABC tournaments "Nationals", you probably do too. ***** Gatlinburg deserves a column of its own, or several - for many years it was the biggest (in terms of table count) regional on the annual calendar in North America. Joan Didion could have written an amazing article for Vanity Fair or Esquire about the whole bridge scene if she took a single visit to Gatlinburg to observe and study our quaint tribal customs first-hand. A writer on bridge for a general audience devoted a whole chapter to the Gatlinburg regional - he embedded himself among the caddies, which gave him an interesting point-of-view. Tournament Chairs in particular, and many members of our tribe in general, have had thousands of shop-talk conversations on the subject of "Why is Gatlinburg so successful?” There are clearly some intangibles at play, to explain why Gatlinburg draws so well, but here are some points from the consensus: 1) Easy to get to - the venue is within a few hundred highway miles for many thousands of bridge players 2) Tons of Cheap Rooms - This is a big plus for our rank-and-file - many of our members are on fixed incomes and the cost of attending Gatlinburg remains a fraction of the cost of attending a similar tournament in, say, Chicago. 3) Tons of Places to Eat Near the Venue - hot dogs and soda available at the convention center, and quite a few casual bars and restaurants nearby. 4) Tons of events, convenient starting times, a new KO every day: In this manner, Gatilnburg was able to leverage their own success. Once the annual attendance became reasonably substantial, decades ago, Gatlinburg always offered both pair events and team events daily. Not just at the standard (1 and 7?) starting times, but also in the mornings, and late nights, and even a "Dinner-bell KO" which was held "horizontally" across four afternoons, roughly 5 PM to 6:30. Contrast this to a small regional, like the one I attended in eastern Washington State a few years ago - there in Pasco, with well under a hundred tables in play each day, the organizers could only offer either a pair game or team game each day - not enough attendance to offer both. This capacity to "leverage their own success" is what lifted the Gatlinburg Regional from a medium size tournament in a small place into "The biggest regional in the country" (nowadays, Penticton and Palm Desert also compete for that title). Key to the Enormous Table Couunt in Gatlinburg: Bracketed KO’s. Bracketed KO's were, and probably still are, a big factor in the tournament’s success. Many readers will already know how bracketed KO's are conducted, for those who don’t: Hypothesize an entry of 200 teams that sign up for a KO - they are "bracketed" in groups of 16 - so, say you were the fiftieth "best team" (based on your teams' aggregate masterpoint collection) - that would put you in the "Fourth Bracket" - your masterpoint award would be based on all the teams below you in the event - essentially, as though you were playing in the top bracket of a 150 team event. The master point awards have changed over the years - a factor called "Strength of field" was introduced in the 90’s. Regardless, the Bracketed KO's in Gatlinburg were legendary. A reasonable player from anywhere nearby (or anywhere in the world, for that matter) could attend the Gatlinburg regional, often for a modest cost, and expect to come away with more masterpoints, on average, than they could expect from three or even five regionals in more competitive environments like Philadelphia or LA. And that's how Gatlinburg became such a huge regional. Try it sometime! ***** Initially I titled this column "Coral Springs Ballroom". I changed it to "Thoughts on Gatlinburg" when I realized that Gatlinburg starts today - my new bridge agency, WBS, has a pro there, even. But I anticipate that I'll always think of those tournaments together: South Florida, San Diego, Gatlinburg - for many years they were consecutive on the annual schedule every April, and a handful of pros and other bridge enthusiasts would embark on the long drive north and west to Tennessee. 840 miles, 1352 KM - https://www.travelmath.com/drive-distance/from/Fort+Lauderdale,+FL/to/Gatlinburg,+TN Either a short or long drive, depending on your point of view. This year in Gatlinburg, starting tomorrow, WBS Senior Executive Paulo Brum will be playing with new client Alex K. I hope to report later this week in a forthcoming blog entry on their success there. Here's a deal from Coral Springs, Board 22:  Consider the deal from my point of view: I held xx, xx, T9x, AQTxxx. Vulnerable against not, Partner Opened One Diamond, and my RHO passed. Using basic Wilsonovich, I would respond with a jump to 3C - this bid shows 7-9 HCP, and six card club length - the 1NT response here shows 8-10. A One Heart response shows four card length, though sometimes it’s the best option with only three. With our example hand, 3C is a stick-out, on a "least of evils" basis. Walter, my partner on this hand, plays only portions of the method - I asked him later what he thought of a 3C response. He was distinctly un-enamored with that bid, so I stipulated “What if the range ran as low as 6-9?” He didn't care what the range was, he hated the idea of bidding 3C. So I shelved that thought and responded 1NT, the bid Walter would want me to make. It looked for a moment like I might play there, but LHO, Sandra Rimstedt, the lovely and talented Swedish immigrant to these United States, overcalled Two Spades. This was a bold and winning action, with Sandra eventually landing as declarer in 3S after this auction: (P) 1D - (P) -1NT - (2S) - P - (P) - 3C - (P) - P - (3S) - P - (P) - P. Partner led a small club and this dummy was tabled: KJxx, KTx, Kxx, Kxx I won the club queen at Trick One. Sandra followed low, and I considered the defense. This was one of the few hands of the hundred (104) that I played with Walter over the two days which required much thought. Recently I had a reader request that I try to walk the reader through my thinking, let me try that here: 1: After winning the club queen at trick one, with declarer following small, I have to first think about the layout of the club suit - is there any chance that partner led a singleton? Answer: Since Sandra's Two Spade bid leaves partner with at most 2 spades, then the only way that partner could have a singleton club is if their pattern was 2=4=6=1 or similar, with six diamonds and four hearts. With that pattern partner would bid 3D over 2S, not Pass, so I quickly concluded: Effectively zero chance that partner has a singleton club. More likely that all the molecules in the room will go out for a smoke at the same time, creating a vacuum and causing the ballroom to cave in upon itself. Presumed Club Distribution: Partner has three clubs, declarer has a singleton. 2: What should I play now? Could it be right to play the ten of diamonds? Answer: Yes, it could clearly be right to play the Ten of diamonds, With dummy holding King-third, we need merely assign partner the hypothetical holding of Ace-jack-fourth - or, better still, Ace-queen fourth - give them a heart holding like Queen-jack fourth - and now we have a diagram that requires a diamond shift from our side at Trick Two, in order to develop the second diamond trick before declarer drives out partner's ace of hearts and establishes a heart winner for a discard of dummy's third diamond. Answer: It might be right to play the ten of diamonds, if partner has Qx, Axxx, AQxx, Jxx, to stop the overtrick when this is the layout - we might even defeat the contract with this play, if partner makes a trick with his queen of spades. 3: Can it be wrong to play the Ten of Diamonds? Initially, it appears that it can’t cost - but could there be another play that is even better. Answer: Yes. We may need to play a heart now. If partner has both major suit aces, we might have to play a heart, to establish a third round heart ruff while partner still has the ace of trump. Is it a good idea to shift to a heart into that tenuous holding in dummy? It might help declarer, if they have a two-way heart guess (Queen-nine fourth opposite dummy's king-ten third, say). Is it worth the risk to shift to a heart? If partner has both major suit aces and the defense has a slow or fast diamond trick (on this deal we had a slow one), then we need to play our heart here, to get our ruff. Which lay-out is more likely? There is one, highly specific lay-out where the ten of diamonds is the right play - and even then, all it does is stop the overtrick. There are myriad layouts where partner has both major suit aces and we also get a diamond trick, so the heart switch will sometimes stop an overtrick, and also will often defeat the contract. So I flipped back the eight of hearts - probably my biggest tank of the tournament, that one. ***** Before they moved the tournament to Coral Springs, there were many Aprils where the regional was hosted at the old Bahia Mar Resort, right opposite the beach on Highway AIA in Fort Lauderdale. The regional must have been held there for 20 years or more, until around 2015. I attended a handful of times, and was invariably pleased that I had - the bridge was fine, the money was fine, the weather was fine, the food was fine - and I always got at least one, usually several chances to remark that I thought of that area, South Florida, Dade / Broward County - as an extension of NYC, what I liked to call "The Sixth Borough". In case someone quizzes you, these are the other five: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan (Manhasbeen). Next Up, Blog #33: Wisdom from Compton, Up Against the Wall:
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #308/27/2024 Springfield, Illinois - April 14 The weather this week continues to cover a wide range - I notice, because I go everywhere by bike. Yesterday, Thursday, offered up a cold dawn, a chilly morning, a pleasant afternoon, a brief but severe rainstorm with high gusty winds, and then a glorious early evening featuring a sunset of majestic purple hues. I’d like to talk about Goethe, but I keep getting diverted by thoughts of this famous incident from 1985 where Bobby Knight, basketball coach for Indiana, got worked up and threw a chair: Like Bobby Knight, the same could be said of Glubok: "I can get a little intense sometimes." ***** I've learned a ton from this endeavor in the month since I began writing this blog.. For one thing, I never knew what a polymath was before. For those of you who can't or don't want to click on the link: The Definition of Polymath: An individual with a broad range of knowledge on a broad range of subjects - a Renaissance type. Yesterday I surprised myself when I managed both to attend the potluck dinner at the Discovery House across the street, and also to contribute a couple of pounds of coleslaw (doctors and nutritionists both recommend coleslaw) and one of cucumber salad from the Country Market on Second Street. I’m not a big “group activity guy” - at least I haven’t been, in the past. Potlucks are fun, though - you can’t go wrong in attending, really. I want to heartily recommend the institution to all and sundry, now that I've attended one.. Things Potlucks Have Going For Them: 1) Everybody has a good time 2) There is an absence of pretense 3) The range of food is so wide that you are sure to find something you like 4) The crowd is very likely to be a mix of people, some you already know and others too 5) Group activities in general are very worthwhile - we all need these more than ever, post-2020 - the need or desire for group activity is one of the reasons I'm glad to have resumed playing F2F bridge. Executive Summary: Group activities that feature food: Really good! ***** Speaking of eating with other people, I sojourned downtown yesterday to Sixth Street Cafe. There, I ate a late breakfast and had a marvelous experience discussing Catcher in the Rye with a young local who had just begun reading the book when I met him in that same spot a few weeks previous, and by yesterday had recently finished it. We spoke of the reclusive J. D. Salinger, and I recounted some macabre details of his short story, A Beautiful Day for Bananafish. Reading Catcher, my young friend was struck by just how angry Holden was - "Why was he so angry?" he wanted to know. I explained that he was angry at his mother for dying, and we both recalled that he was angry at his brother, the writer, for "selling out and going to Hollywood, with all the other phonies". Then he was angry at his roommate for having gross habits, and angry at a former teacher on Sutton Place for trying to get intimate with him. We talked about fancy prep schools like the one Holden attended, Pencey Prep - the Pencey campus, even though entirely fictional, likely resembled the one where I did my undergraduate studies: Amherst College, in western Massachusetts. Here's how Amherst is branding themselves today: https://www.amherst.edu/about When it comes to re-invention, we could all learn a lot from these guys. ***** Goethe, that pioneering polymath, is said to have said: "Beginnings have a magic within them. Begin something!" Last month I began this blog, and my bridge agency. My thoughts turn once more to bridge legend Alvin Roth: Roth, what have I wrought? Let's have a bridge hand. My recent trip to Florida offers many candidates, here's one from my two days there playing with Wall Street Walter.  Consider the deal from Walter's perspective: AT8x, AQxx, J, AKJ9 -The bidding proceeds One Diamond on your left, pass by partner (Your side vulnerable, they're not), one spade on your right - naturally you double. After (1D) - P - (1S) - ?, a take-out double with this hand is totally auto - you have the requisite four-four in the unbid suits, and an ace-and-a-half more than a minimum - Your RHO passes, denying as many as three spades in the modern game (so tending to show precisely two) - your partner calls 2 Clubs, your RHO competes with Two Diamonds - You have four clubs and a stiff diamond, so you have more than you need to offer a competitive raise to 3C, so you do. Opener competes to 3 Diamonds, and this is passed back to you. The bidding to date: (1D) - P - (1S) - Double (You) - (Pass) - Two Clubs (Partner) - (2D) - 3C - (3D) - P - P - ? ***** I'm going to assert here that you have to bid either Four Clubs or double - Walter elected to pass - in my partnership with Walter, in competitive auctions, our side has often suffered from this sort of error (under-competing). In case you’re curious, here are the home pages for the institutions of higher education which Walter attended, Cornell and Colubmia: Cornell University https://www.cornell.edu/ Columbia University https://www.columbia.edu/ ***** My years at Amherst (1978-82) marked a transitional period in American higher education, especially in what was then sometimes known as instruction in the liberal arts, or alternatively as simply, "The Humanities". While most academies, and the majority of larger state institutions of higher learning, concentrated on instruction in the "hard sciences" (engineering and the like), places like Amherst and a handful of others were known as being "Strong in the Humanities" - they took great institutional pride in their departments of English and Sociology, sometimes known as "The Social Sciences". By the time I attended, less pride was taken - it was the early 1980’s, and we were at the beginning of a sullen era, the tail end of a hopeful one. The country, and my college, were transitioning from Aquarian to Reptilian, one might argue, but perhaps that’s applying too fine a point. By the time I arrived, I already had aspirations as a writer. When I returned for my junior yeyar, after a leave of absence, I switched majors from History to English. This led to my having a new Academic Adviser, one G. Armour Craig. I didn’t appreciate G. Armour at the time - scion to the slaughterhouse family, he had matriculated at Amherst in the 30’s - he loved the place, and spent his working years there, then in his seventies, when I was assigned as his charge, he remained on the faculty, even taught a course or two. Campus legend held that for most of his career there he waived his salary and simply collected $1 a year. He loved literature, and learning. but he was from an era way previous to my own. I mean, this guy was older than Kaplan (b. 1925), maybe as old or older than Roth (b. 1914) - our generation gap wasn't a crevice, it was a chasm. I do recall my one encounter with him, where he discussed with me my academic progress. He was genuinely interested in my education and my progress, and supportive of my desire to write. He was old school but not a stuffed shirt, and I feel I was remiss not to make way more use of all he had to offer to me in terms of sage counsel. I felt at the time that I had no time on my hands - I could point out here that during that period I was managing to win the NY GNT's every year (1981-84) and I think it’s fair to say that I was far from diligent about my studies. So it doesn't surprise me now to recall that I didn't make use of the office appointments with him which I was entitled to - I was probably relieved to be able to postpone and dodge them altogether, with this one exception. It was a sunny spring afternoon. "So, what do you think of Goethe?" G. Armour asked of me as we sat in his large, shared office in Johnson Chapel. Clearly he lived the literary life, which I had some interest in - but at the time I had way more interest in City Life, and in the card-players life, and bridge. "I'm not sure I'm familiar with him," I must have acknowledged - I recall vaguely that I might have been assigned one of his books, in one of my courses, but I also recall that I hadn't even cracked the cover open - possibly I never even bought the thing, much less read it. "Good God, man!” G. Armour exclaimed to me, appalled. “You mean to tell me that you've
never read Goethe?"
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #318/19/2024 Springfield, April 14, 2024 On Being Tethered Thirty blogs deep into this project launched in Louisville. I guess that's a little less than the rate of one per day. That I've been producing these. Usually I'll complete one of these columns the same day I start it. Generally I'll start in the morning. This is the hottest day of the year so far, 84 degrees by the site on the internet that one gets this information from in this year of our Lord 2024. When we titled this blog "Diary of a Bridge Pro" - well, I guess we all understood - that that meant, "Diary of this Bridge Pro". And this bridge pro suddenly finds himself living a wildly interesting life. ***** I determined, on reaching Blog #30, that I could open things up a little bit, metaphorically speaking, and explore areas far from hand evaluation or really anything to do with bridge at all - although,of course, ultimately, and through the magic of distant causal connections, there is of course always a connection to bridge. One of the reasons I launched these ventures (the WBS Agency and these DBP blogs) was to become better "tethered". The subject of being tethered merits a full column, not this one. Maybe something later in the thirties, I'm thinking that "the thirties" is a good place to introduce more of these abstract principles, less about bridge and more about life. But first let's do some more bridge. We return to the recent regional I played in Florida - so much fun to zip in there and play two days of pair games! Last column we discussed the legendary polymath Goethe, and the greatness latent in beginnings. Today we raise the notion that we all benefit by being better "tethered" - connected to others, or at least connected to a pet, a card game, a bridge club, a religious congregation, a theater group, a Tuesday Night Darts Group - the human being is a social animal, and I expect that I'm speaking the obvious when I say we all need to interact with other human beings to remain healthy. I mean, duh. ***** Let's go to Louisville instead, here's a hand Ellie and I had to bid together in the national pair game, Board 23:  Axxx, QJTx, xx, Axx - opposite Kx, Ax, KQJ9xx, Kxx -
Naturally I opened the great 11 count with four-four in the majors, not vulnerable. Worth noting the importance of the 14-16 (as opposed to 15-17) range, at least NV. Ellie responded One Diamond, and I kept things simple for him by rebidding One No Trump (I think a One Heart rebid is fine). There are a hundred ways to bid these hands to a normal contract like 3NT, or 4NT. You have to make a solid effort to find a way to a terrible contract, like 6 Diamonds. For Ellie and me that solid effort was no strain whatsoever, and we breezed into the train-wreck Six Diamond contract with an auction which had essentially nothing to recommend it: 1C - 1D - 1NT - 4C (?) - 4S - 6D I had the temerity, on the day, to suggest that Ellie might have wanted to employ classic point count technique, i.e.: 1) Use the Milton Work / Chuck Goren 4-3-2-1 Ace-King-Quee-Jack count to establish the Core HPC 2) Add points for length (five for the fifth card in a suit, two more points for each additional card) 3) Downgrade or don't downgrade your holdings in your shorter suit, depending on your mood 4) Add the revised total to Partner's stated range. Counting extra for length, you want to have a minimum of 31/32 combined points to even investigate slam, and since you are already inflating your count by adding length, you must then be rigorously disciplined. In this case Ellis had 16 in raw high card points, and another three for length. You might want to take off a point for the short honors in the other three suits, but you don't have to. Add your 19 to partner's 11 to 13 (14) range, and determine: 30 to 32 points is not enough for slam. So, you raise One No Trump to Three. Pro Tip: If you want to improve your performance at either matchpoints or IMP's, stop playing in ridiculous slams. Just eliminate those contracts from your scorecard, even if it means missing some good slams as well. ***** The topic of tethering is timely, for this year's Bridge Hall of Fame Inductees have just been announced, and they include these three, in the Open Category: Steve Garner, Janice Seamon-Molson, and Justin Lall. Earlier today I posted the requisite congratulations on Bridge Winners, my comments about tethering are especially apt in this context. I had never heard the term before, I don't think, but certainly I was familiar with the case of Justin Lall. Justin and I had what felt sike a somewhat cosmic connection - correlations in our birth dates, the fact we were born almost exactly 27 years apart. Certainly it wasn't "from nowhere" when in his twenty-seventh year, seeing him at a bridge club in New York, I urged him not to "Join the 27 Club". For those unfamiliar with that club, it is composed of all the rock stars who died tragically at the age of 27. It's a surprising long list, and includes not only Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, but Jim Morrison as well. And that's just a few of the J's! I felt I "had standing" to make the comment to "J-Lall" for we both were aware of our strong bond, and we both recalled that I had visited him in Bellevue after his stunning suicide attempt - one afternoon, around 2011, Justin had taken the 4 Train south from Honors Bridge Club south to the City Hall stop. From there he strolled to the Brooklyn Bridge, walked partway across the East River, and jumped into the icy waters below. By an odd miracle of fate (and perhaps because he was a superb athlete, and may have shifted the angle of his feet during his descent), Justin survived the plunge into the river. A police boat hurried to his aid. When I visited him at Bellevue, he was still in an upper-body cast, but otherwise in relatively good spirits, under the circumstances. At the time he wasn't very well tethered, that's part of why he jumped. Ten years later, living in Texas, having left New York, those closest to him had him get a pet - a small dog, I lelieve. They hoped that would help him stay "tethered", I'm told. Probably it did, for awhile, The dog outlived Justin, which is a great loss for all of us. He was an amazing and gifted player, one of the real elite. He was extremely well-liked, and his ethics were of the absolute highest caliber. A star poker player, a champion of the underdog, he was the big brother you would want if you were getting picked on at the playground. He died young, somewhere in his thirties. He was a big drinker, I believe his liver gave out. The thought among some of those close to him was simply that he couldn't stay tethered indefinitely, the dog could only do so much for him. So today we applaud the ACBL for inducting Justin, and we honor his memory, and I quote Joe Grue's comments on this subject, when I was with him shortly after Justin expired. :"Some people say you shouldn't talk smack of the dead," Joe said, "But I disagree. I think it's better to talk smack about someone deceased rather than to say nothing at all - at least that way they're remembered." Key Takeaway / Thought for the Day: Do all you can to stay tethered. Talk to your friends, visit your duplicate club, daven shakris, attend midnight mass. Go to a fetish party, join a theater group, visit your local bridge club, play ukelele at an open mic at your local tavern. Whatever floats your boat. If you want longevity, and a better quality of life as you go along: Do stuff! Stay tethered! And congratulations to 2024 Open Inductees Justin Lall, Janice Seamon-Molson, and Steve Carner, soon to be the newest members of the American Contract Bridge League Hall of Fame. - BG / DW
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Diary of a Bridge Pro #298/19/2024 Springfield, Illinois - April 12 Warning: Long blog ahead! Yesterday, the weather here in this midwestern city was all over the map - chilly in the morning when I zipped across Edwards Street to visit with the Friends of Bill - normal in the afternoon when I visited the poker game - like the recovery meetings (and like bridge tournaments too), these poker games help keep me “tethered”. Then the climate was turbulent in the late afternoon when I rode to Stevenson Parkway on the west side, windy and rainy. Finally, sunny and glorious with mild temperatures in the late afternoon and early evening. Back at the Frost Library on-campus in Massachusetts, I learned the venerable aphorism, as apt here as it was there: “If you don’t like New England (Midwestern) weather - wait an hour.” ***** Now I want to present some bridge hands or bidding/lead problems from tournaments I've played recently. Writing this blog, I paused minutes ago to renew the old ACBL membership. Three more years. I have a phobia (perhaps it can abate one day) about electronic transactions - I'm always pleased and relieved when one clears. Like the old-school CEO’s who needed the help of their Executive Secretary to open their email, Some of us feel we are challenged in that area, dontcha know. ***** Board #3 from my second session with Wall Street Walter serves to illuminate several themes:  Let's start with Walter's opening bid problem, he was South on the hand above: QTx, x, AKJx,
Kxxxx: Fans of the "Prepared Rebid School" prefer to start with One Diamond - they figure they can then rebid Two Clubs, if partner responds with the feared One Heart. After 1C - 1H we might be in an awkward spot: Can’t bid One Spade (only 3), can’t bid 1NT (only one heart, we’re supposed to have two or three), can’t rebid the clubs (only five, and they aren’t very good), can’t reverse into diamonds (that takes 17 or at least 16 points, with 13 we’re way short of that). I am not a fan of the prepared rebid school. I like to dismiss these concerns by pointing out, “You know, if you open every hand with 7 No Trump, you’ll never have a rebid problem....” This generally goes over like a lead balloon, I’ve noticed. But let us look at this problem in greater depth - do we have re-bid problems on other auctions as well? How would we bid at our second turn if we open One Club and partner responds, say: One Diamond: Raise to Two Diamonds - or raise to Three Diamonds, if you’re feeling frisky. One Heart: I’m a fan of 1NT, Two Clubs is an option - reversing is out of the question - One Spade with three, well - you might get away with it. Whichever rebid you choose, select it before you open the bidding - then make that bid in tempo. Thought for the Day: Play honest! Other possible responses from partner, and your case-by-case re-bid: One Spade: Raise to Two Spades - only three trump, but 13 HCP and a side singleton - think of this as a happy raise to Two Spades. One No Trump: Partner denies as many as four hearts with this bid, and we only have one, so - I recommend you “take back” to Two Clubs. My hand, as you may have seen in the diagram, was AKx, KQT8x, QTxx, x - While Walter’s style suggests a One Diamond Opening, with his awkward 3=1=4=5 pattern, and this is a better penalty pass opposite One Club Opening than it is opposite One Diamond, it’s a pretty good one in either case. You can hardly blame my RHO for overcalling One Heart with JT, AJxxx, xx, AQ97. Had partner Opened the bidding with One Club, I would have an automatic penalty pass (poor fit for partner, big stack in the opponent's suit, excellent hand - after One Diamond, I considered it almost as clear-cut, since the opponents were vulnerable and we weren’t - whatever we collected was likely to be more than the value of our (NV) game. While any of the four suits might be a reasonable lead, I believe I started with a low diamond. I think Walter should push his singleton trump through at Trick Two - that’s usually the best defense on these hands. Regardless of the defense, we eventually tallied 800 points, for 93% of the matchpoints. I have no idea, but: How did the rest of the players with our cards fail to achieve this same score? ***** As I’d hoped from the outset, I find that writing a blog is an exercise in personal growth. If any of our readers are considering taking one on, I'd like to encourage you to do so. Note: Personal growth can be painful! ***** I'm working hard to develop my new agency (hard for me, not hard compared to someone who truly works hard), and progress continues. Paulo has pointed out to me that soon we will celebrate our one month anniversary, one month since we began in Louisville in March. We have a handful of nascent achievements to celebrate: This blog, the WBS website, multiple strong affiliations with top pros - all in all, a pretty good first month. Also, number this among our achievements: I began to circulate our bidding method (WBS) for responding to One No Trump openings: Since it's likely there are tons of students of bidding systems among our readership, let me recount that system here: Responses to One No Trump: 2C: Stayman 2D/2H: Transfers 2S: Range Ask / Clubs 2NT: Both Minors 3C: Diamonds 3D: Diamonds, To Play, 6-7 HCP 3H/3S: Singletons, both minors 3NT: To Play 4C: Ace-Asking 4D: Transfer to Hearts 4H:Transfer to Spades 4S: To play 4NT: Idle bid We'll look at the follow-up auctions in a future blog. This really represents a better mousetrap, I do believe. Paulo has been doing a great job working with a couple of new clients that have emerged. I phoned a young banker in New York yesterday. He had told me that he wants bridge lessons (mostly so he can use bridge to advance his banking career and extend his social circle). Ethan Wood wrote in with a great long letter, outlining how he'd like to help me build the organization. Lots of friends are coming around and offering to help - this is, naturally, hugely thrilling for me. Walter, my partner defending 1H doubled in Florida on today's deal, wrote back to say that he's good to play the first two days at the Fairfield regional in July. So I've got that booking to look forward to. Not too much more to say right now - let me close with some Pro Tips, inspired by Today's Deal: 1) Prefer the best bid, in your longest suit, at your first turn. Making an inferior bid to avoid a potential rebid problem is what I call "Wrong Thinking". 2) If the opponents overcall in your five card suit, pass, and consider playing for penalties. 3) When defending deals like today's, play your trump through declarer early - this will reduce the chance that partner will later suffer a “trump endplay”. Also, if you don't play it when you’re on lead at Trick Two, then partner in entitled to assume you don't have one. Closing Thought: I heard it said (well, written) elsewhere, not too long ago, that: Matchpoints is about making max tricks and collecting numbers. IMP's is about bidding your games and reaching good slams (and staying out of bad ones). Next Up: Blog #24 - More hands from South Florida |
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