Bridge Thoughts - Lowest Possible!

 

Hopeless!

Yan Shen Drabek

Yesterday, after a series of mediocre hands, I finally picked up this beauty:

We were white against red. Three passes to me, I opened with 1♥ (some might open 2♣). Partner responded with 1NT. I rebid 2♠ (a reverse showing a big hand), and he raised me to 4♥. With stars in my eyes, I was hoping partner held two keycards. I bid 4NT. After hearing 5♣ indicating one keycard, I bid 5♥ ending the auction.

The 6 of heart was led. Partner laid down:

I told myself I could afford to lose the two aces and make the contract comfortably. There was even a possibility of discarding the singleton diamond on the fourth club to make 6.

I played the 2♥ from the board, and RHO contributed the 4♥. For some odd reason, I clicked the 5♥ from my hand, losing the trick! What?

LHO must have been stunned that his lowly 6♥ had won the trick. A long pause. He finally led another heart. I won in hand and played the King of clubs, hoping that after they won the Ace, they wouldn’t return a diamond. Unfortunately, they did lead a diamond back, and I went down one, a 0% on the board for no reason.

I wished for a hole in the ground to hide in.

At postmortem time, my partner, who is also my mentor, said to me, “Clicking the wrong card? It is a symptom that has plagued you. Sometimes when you play a contract, you can see that you can lose a trick, you start squirming, and squirming, you are thinking and thinking. You try to think everything imaginable, trying not to lose that trick. You then finally lose that trick. This, and clicking on a low heart, when the Ace would be preferable. It is the desire to play the cheapest card possible in every single opportunity whether they are equal or not. It is the same kind of syndrome.” He didn’t use harsh words. But I will say it for him: Hopeless!

I tried to recall what I was thinking. The problem was, I couldn’t remember what I was thinking. In fact, I was not thinking at all! Because, the cards played on the table did not register in my mind. So my hand just mechanically clicked the lowerst card possible. Like my mentor said.

P.S. I am writing these little articles to encourage new comers. Things happen. Mistakes happen to everyone. Don't give up. Tomorrow is another day! :-) Click here to read my previous articles.

Bridge Thoughts - A Humble Beginning

 

A Humble Beginning

Yan Shen Drabek

On October 7, 2014, I played my very first game at the Northampton Bridge Club. (click here to see how you did during that time if you were playing back then)

I remember feeling nervous as I walked into the large room in Hadley, surrounded by many serious faces. There were 12 tables at play on that day, and we played 36 boards! Allison and I finished with a score of 43.52%. New players today may not fully comprehend what it was like to play 36 boards - with 7 minutes per board, that is more than 4 hours of continued grueling frustration (or elated triumph, to the furtunate few)!

My second game at the club took place on October 14, and it was a Swiss Team game. Allison and I were teamed up with Mike and Fran Becker. I earned my very first master point from the club at this game—only 0.09 MPs, but it was a milestone!

For a long while, Allison Ryan who dragged me into this game, was my only partner and I would fill in for her when she needed a partner.

Then winter arrived, Allison traveled to warmer places. Paul Bacon, one of my early teachers, suggested that I play with Steve Peck. Steve graciously accepted, and became the first person, other than Allison, to partner with me, the newbie. I am forever grateful for his courage and support! During the winter, I had the opportunity to play with a few others, the new experiences opened my eyes. One of these early partnerships has persisted to this day! You guessed it: Barry LaFlam! We were connected in Paul Bacon's class and have been playing together ever since.

Bridge is a journey—a journey to discover yourself, to find friendship, and to test your logical thinking, endurance, trust, and forgiveness.

A few pointers at the table

This is a friendly reminder of a few ground rules at the table:

• When playing on BBO, please post a convention card. If you don’t have one, you should play Standard American.
• When playing on BBO, make all alerts and announcements during the auction in the Alert box. Never to the table!
• When playing on BBO, to call the director, click the blue box that has the 3 lines in it.
• When a declarer makes a claim, state the line of play, especially if trumps are still out.
• If you think opponent's claim is bad, either a) call the Director BEFORE rejecting the claim; or b) reject the claim and play the hand out.
• If you play an artificial 1 bid, such as short club or precision, please pre-alert that each round. You still need to alert the bids if they come up in the auction. e.g. 1C (could be as short as 1).
• If you transfer, say the suit. e.g. 1NT 2H (announce: spades). If you play 2S transfers to clubs and can be changed to diamonds, announce: either clubs or diamonds

Our First Game On Amherst College Campus

 

College Games

Yan Drabek

On March 25, 2023 the Northampton Bridge Club offered its first club game on campus. We had total of 8.5 tables at play with 13 players from the Amherst College Bridge Club, 18 from the Northampton Bridge club and three special guests from Shrewsbury, Victor Xiao and his sons Eric and Jeff, the two youngest North American bridge champions. I have no doubt in my mind that some of the players present here today will become world champions one day, and their pictures will be on the ACBL magazine cover!

Thank you all for coming!

Thank you Philippe for directing, and thank you Judy Larsen and Sheila Ryan for bringing delicious home baked goodies! Thank you Tom Ye for coordinating this event with us, and thank you Michael Xu for starting the student club on campus!

Future Games

Our second college game will be played on April 23, Sunday at 4 pm at the same venue, the Amherst College Powerhouse on 10 East Drive.

Future games are planned for every second Sunday at 4 pm, starting September 10 2023. We plan to offer this game on campus year round except June, July and August. So for the rest of 2023, the dates are:

September 10 at 4pm

October 8 at 4pm

November 12 at 4pm

December 10 at 4pm

Please mark your calendars!

I hope you had fun today and will join us again!

Seven pairs from our game made it to top 20 on CommonGame among 16 clubs. Check this out:

https://tcgcloud.bridgefinesse.com/MornResults/20230325Rank.html

Well done!

Meet the Future Stars of Our Beloved Game!

On March 4, despite the snow storm, the Amherst College First Collegiate Tournament took place. Seeing the new energy for the game is truly encouraging and exhilarating. The organizer, Michael Xu, has written a report which can be read here: https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/amherst-college-first-collegiate-tournament/. 

The Northampton Bridge Club, whose players are from all over the valley, welcomed the future stars of our game, and extended our invitation to everyone to play our Tuesday and Thursday 7pm games on BBO. Several students expressed interests to play with us online, and several requested to have in-person games offered at times more suitable for them to attend (our current Wednesday 1pm game will not work for them). We will discuss this in our next board meeting. Comment and suggestions? Send them to treeomatic at gmail dot com.

Players from Amherst College and Brown University. There were five tables at play. Some had already left when this picture was taken.

Is it bad etiquette to discuss a bridge hand after it has been played? - by Yan Drabek

In 1996 Champion USA bridge player Zia Mahmood co-authored with David Burn a bridge book called Ask Zia (subtitled “Your Top 50 Bridge Questions Answered”). Question 2 in that book was ‘Is it bad etiquette to discuss a bridge hand after it has been played’. As part of the answer, Zia said: “If you watch the great American pair Jeff Meckstroth and Eric Rodwell at the table, you will not hear them utter a word to each other during the entire period of play. They don’t say ‘Thank You’ when the dummy is displayed, they don’t say ‘Sorry’ on the rare occasions when they make a mistake, they don’t even say ‘Well played’ on the less rare occasions when they do something well. Meckstroth believes that this policy can give them a competitive edge. He says if your opponents hear you apologizing to one another, it gives them strength and reinforces their sense of well-being after they have obtained a good result. Or if your opponents hear you congratulating one another, it will increase their determination to do well on the next deal, just to knock the smiles off your faces. By saying nothing, you can build an aura of omnipotence and invulnerability around you which can only work to your advantage”.

ACBL has a law written for Etiquette as following:

As a matter of courtesy a player should refrain from: 

1. paying insufficient attention to the game. 

2. making gratuitous comments during the auction and play. 

3. detaching a card before it is his turn to play. 

4. prolonging play unnecessarily (as in playing on although he knows that all the tricks are surely his) for the purpose of disconcerting an opponent. 

5. summoning and addressing the Director in a manner discourteous to him or to other contestants.

You can view the entire document by clicking here: LAW 74 - CONDUCT AND ETIQUETTE

Are the Common Game Hands Truly Random?

Short Answer: Yes they are truly random. This is a common misperception since many players are often used to relatively "flat" hands produced in typical shuffle and deal games. We use the industry standard utility Bridge Composer which does not provide any options for attenuating or manipulating hand distributions. In addition, we are using the open source utlity "Big Deal" (an option inside Bridge Composer) to generate the actual hands. These hands are added to our library and NEVER touched thereafter.

Long Answer: Click Here.