September 14th, 2006
I’m currently working on a new system, something a little different from the mainstream. A good idea when trying new changes to a system is to generate some practice hands that fit your new system.
My personal favorite generator on the web is at http://playBridge.com/. Their advanced generator is perfectly suited to creating a set of hands which meet arbitrary criteria. There are also options to create “bidding sheets”, where only one player’s hands appear on the page, letting you practice with a partner.
If you have the need to practice bidding, check it out.
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September 12th, 2006
There are many games which have similar card play to bridge. Bridge is a member of the Whist family of games, or trick taking games. Other well known examples are Hearts and Spades.
Every suit has an order or rank to the cards. Ace is the highest card, followed by the King, Queen, Jack, then 10 down to 2.
Each player plays a single card in clockwise order, known as a trick. The person “on lead” gets to choose any card in his hand; every player after that must play a card of the same suit if they can (”following suit”), otherwise they may play any card they wish (”discarding”). The winner of the trick is the player who played the highest card of the suit led. They get to be “on lead” for the following trick.
In some cases, the bidding will name a trump suit. The trump suit assumes a special roll in the play of the hand. If a player does not have to follow suit to the lead, they may discard a member of the trump suit or “trump” the trick. If any player does this, the highest trump played to the trick wins. All players must still play the original suit led if they can.
Scoring is based on a combination of bidding and play. During the bidding, the declaring side states how many tricks they think they will win. (For example, the bid 3 hearts says “I can take 3+6 tricks with hearts as my trump suit.) If they acheive this goal (or better), they “make” their contract and earn points. If they fail in their stated goal, the non-declaring or “defending” side get points.
One unique difference in the card play in bridge against other trick taking games: after the initial opening lead by the left hand opponent of the declarer, the next hand gets placed face up on the table for all to see. The declarer gets to control both his own hand and this one, allowing that team to use their combined assets to greater effect. Of course, the defenders get to see this hand as well, and try their best to stop declarer.
In the next installment of this series, we’ll explore a sample hand through the whole lifecycle, from bidding to play.
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September 11th, 2006
Today is the 5 year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Everyone in the US was impacted to some degree by these tragic events, and the media is naturally buzzing with stories reflecting on the events of that Tuesday morning 5 years ago. I wanted to take the time and share my personal story of the day.
The day started simply enough. It was the first week of the NFL, and the Giants had played the Monday night game the night before. I had gotten together with Blair Seidler, a good friend, bridge partner and co-worker to watch the game together. I stayed the night at his place, and we were commuting to work together by train. We worked one of the major investment bank in different parts of IT. Our office was in Jersey City, NJ directly across the Hudson river from downtown Manhattan - about 200 yds. across the Hudson river from the WTC.
Blair and I were chatting about bridge as we were getting close to the end of the train line in Hoboken, a neighboring city to Jersey City also along the Hudson. We both noticed quite a bit of buzz on the train; we saw many people getting phone calls and trying to look out the window, but we didn’t know what was going on. The first clue we had as to what all the excitement was about was when we both received a page from one of our co-workers that a plane had hit the WTC and was on fire. I know at the time, I wasn’t really prepared for the magnitude of the event. I had mentally assumed that this was a small aircraft that had gotten off course.
Shortly after this, we arrived at the Hoboken Train station. We both followed the masses towards the harbor, to see what was going on. The site of the tower on fire was literally unbelievable; my mind couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. I must have been standing there watching numbly for a good 5-10 minutes when I witnessed an even more incredible sight: the second plane.
As I stood there dumbfounded, I still remember a gentleman standing next to me saying “That’s a declaration of war.” I couldn’t help but wonder who….why…
The next few hours were total chaos. They announced over the loud speakers that ferrys and trains into the city were suspended, that lower Manhattan was being evacuated. Trains were pulling up to take the masses out of the area and back to safety. Blair decided he wanted to try to make it into the office (in NJ) to try to help with the chaos. We ran into Lee Ohliger, another bridge playing friend of ours at the train station, and I travelled back with him.
The train ride home was surreal, to say the least. The train was crowded, but everyone was subdued. Someone had a radio with ear phones, listening to the news reports and sharing with the rest of the train. Plane hitting the pentagon, plane crashing in Pennsylvania, the towers collapsing…
Cell phones weren’t working very well. Everyone on the train was using them as communal property. Sometimes one carrier or another might work briefly, so that phone was passed around so people could call their loved ones. I managed to get a call in to my Dad. He told me later that the message was completely garbled and he couldn’t understand it with the exception of one single phrase: “I’m all right…”
We finally arrived at our destination. I sent out some emails and made some phone calls to friends and family to let them know I was okay. I even received an email from an old girlfriend who I hadn’t talked to in 7 years, checking on me to see if I was okay. After all of this was done, Lee and I didn’t really know what to do with ourselves. Lee made what seems like a crazy suggestion now, going to the local bridge club to play a game. It may be difficult for those not passionate about the game to understand, but it was exactly what I needed to try to get a hold of myself. We went and played, although I couldn’t tell you one thing about what happened that session. Every round, we’d go to the TV and watch the news. By the time the game was over, I checked in with Blair. He was home by then, never making it to the office. Lee dropped me off at his place, and we both contacted others at work to see what could be done, what needed to be done, to try to save the company.
9/11 means many things to many people, but for me it will always be the strangest situation I’ve ever played bridge.
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September 8th, 2006
A local Atalanta player, Patty Tucker, created a series of bridge camps this summer to teach Atlanta area kids the game. It’s be an incredible success, including getting over 30 kids to come out and play at the regional event here last week over Labor Day weekend.
There was an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about her efforts, which can be found here. She started “Atlanta Junior Bridge, Inc.”, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting bridge to Georgia’s youth.
For more information about the organization, please visit their website at altantajuniorbridge.com
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September 3rd, 2006
In my previous post, I described this highly unusual hand:
After 3 passes to me, I chose to open 1C (natural) rather than 2C (strong).
On a different deal yesterday, I had another strong highly distributional hand:
This one I chose to open 2C. I’m sure that there are players who would advocate 2C on both hands, and some who wouldn’t bid 2C on either one. Why did I “mix and match”?
In terms of playing strength, both hands are incredibly strong. The key difference between the hands lies in suit quality.
In the first hand I have 2 nearly equal suits, but neither one is self sufficient. Looking at my own hand, I don’t know which black suit should be trumps. I need to solicit an opinion from partner. Further, I thought that if I constructed an unusual auction (1c-2s-3s-4s) I might be able to describe the hand at a low enough level to not get overboard if partner doesn’t fit my hand.
On the second deal, my spades are strong enough that I can play them opposite any hand, so even if I never get a chance to mention my heart suit, that’s okay. In fact, there are many times when it is advantageous to play in spades even if partner fits hearts. There can be 2 reasons for that; the first is that a distributional hand has to take a lot of ruffs, so the shorter suit may be subject to being tapped out and losing control. The second is a little more obscure, but sometimes you can avoid a key guess by playing in the stronger suit.
Partner’s hand on the second deal was:
If you play in 6H, you need to guess the QH to make. In 6S, however, after drawing trumps you can lead a club towards the long suit on the board. If the AC is onside (with clubs splitting), you can discard all of your hearts before having to think about the Q. If the AC is offside, you can still try to guess the QH.
Even if partner’s hand was slightly different with a better heart fit, the same considerations apply:
I’ve given partner an extra heart and a stronger club suit, but still not topped by the Ace. Even with the stronger heart holdings, 6S is a safer contract.
Planning auctions on very distributional hands is important. These hands don’t happen very often, but being able to handle them gracefully can help your results immensely.
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September 2nd, 2006
Playing in the Atlanta regional today, my partner held this hand (IMPS, all vulnerable, 2nd seat.):
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August 29th, 2006
Trailing 210-188 in the finals with 5 boards to play, Jacobs managed a 27 IMP rally in those 5 boards to beat Ekeblad by the final total of 218-213.
Congratulations to George Jacobs, Ralph Katz, Steve Garner, Howard Weinstein, Michael Rosenberg and Zia Mahmood. Good luck next year in the Bermuda Bowl.
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August 27th, 2006
The winners of the semi-final round were Ekeblad and Jacobs. These teams are currently half way through the finals, where Jacob leads by 26, 113 to 87.
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August 24th, 2006
The round of “8″ completed tonight. Final scores:
- Jacobs defeated Weed (npc), 240-169.
- Meltzer defeated Robinson, 193-191.
Like the previous round, the final match was decided on the final board. Robinson was ahead after the next-to-last deal.
The 2 teams with byes are joining into the semi-final matches. The new match ups are Meltzer vs Ekeblad, Jacobs vs. Nickell.
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August 23rd, 2006
The round of “16″ is now complete. The results are:
- Jacobs defeated Fout, 252-208
- Robinson defeated Brod, w/d after 5/6 190-97
- Meltzer defeated Welland, 171-149
- Weed (npc) defeated Schwartz, 167-158.
The last match was decided on the final board.
The round of 8 matches will be:
- Jacobs vs Weed (npc)
- Robinson vs Meltzer
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