Some Thoughts After the June 2nd Tuesday Night Game
THE WINNERS: I have attached the Hand Records and Recap from our first game in June 2015. This was a
Unit Game. We had 10 tables in play. 8 LMs and 32 NLMs….so it was 75% in favor or the NLMs. The NLMs
collected 22.12 master points in awards. The LMs earned 9.94 master point awards.
Strata A Winners:
1. Carol Panzer – John Kempf
2. Tom Flanders – Sam Shen
3. Susan Sullivan – Robert Otto
4. Duane & Jan Hinrichs
5. Jan & Bruce Swenson
93
89
87
84
83.5
2.92
2.19
1.64
1.23
.92
Strata B Winners:
1-2. Bonnie Kremer – Martha Peterson
1-2. Mark Gromko – Ed Crowley
3. Omer Sanan – John Selmer
4. John Dane – Kathy Schweer
5. Diane Sondergard – Gary Edwards
81
81
77.5
74.5
71.5
1.09
1.09
.70
.52
.39
Strata C Winners:
1. Cathy Schrepfer – Nancy Rehling
2. Jeffrey Rees – Reynolds Heath
3. Mark & Beth Smith
4-5. Paul & Nancy Klein
4-5. Don & Allethina Harker
69.5
69
63.5
61
61
.93
.70
.52
.34
.34
Section Winner: 4th NS: Bobbie Ney – Mark Gifford
75.5
.51
Three 60+ per cent games. 64.58% by John & Carol; 61.61% by Tom &; and 60.42 by Susan & Bob.
Carol & John won Strata A;
Bonne Kremer & Matha Peterson tied Mark Gromko & Ed Crowley for the Strata B win
Cathy Schrepfer & Nancy Rehling won Strata C.
Thirty-two players won a few “berries”….what I call the master point awards. Average was 72 match points
and if you amassed 61 match points….42% you earned some award. Congratulations.
THE RECAP REVIEW: Cathy Schrepfer played in her first duplicate game last night. She played with Nancy
Rehling….and I think she had a good experience. She and Nancy Won the C Strata. Cathy is not a stranger to
the game of bridge. She has played “party bridge” for years. I did not get a chance to play at Cathy’s table
since we were both sitting North-South.
When Cathy called me, she expressed some reservation about playing “duplicate” bridge and I tried to
explain that “the duplicate” was a method of scoring. Everyone plays the same hands. Each hand was played
9 times on Tuesday. Your raw score determined how match points you earned. You got one match point for
each pair your raw score beat and a half match point for each pair’s score your raw score tied. If all 9 pairs
did exactly the same and earned the same raw score….you would have 8 ties with the other pairs….so you
earn 4 match points (8 times a half match point).
The recap and the hand records are huge advantages that Cathy gets to see after last night’s game. She has
never had these “tools” after a party bridge session. You can look at a hand and review what you did on the
hand. The recap will show Cathy what others did on a particular hand. Here’s what you do….go over the
recap and every hand were you earned less than 4 match points…..you did worse than half of the field. You
can look to see what the issue was on that hand. Did you screw something up….bidding, play of the hand or
defense…..or did the opponents do something good (and you had no control on that).
To help you in this effort….I have circled all the scores that generated less than 4 match points. If you begin
with those hands…..see if you can see where the problem was:
I am going to use Susan’s and my circled scores as an example. On hand 1 we got 1 match point for playing in
3NT and this failed by one to lose 50. After two passes, Susan opened the south hand 1NT (the correct
opening bid). I bid 2NT to show 8-9 points and invite a game. Susan decided to accept the invitation and bid
3NT. Once you decide to go to game, Susan should have introduced her 5-card heart suit on the way to 3NT.
A 3H bid says I am accepting your invitation to 3NT….but on the way to 3NT….let me show you I have this
good 5-card heart suit….and we would have ended up in 4H. If I had been playing with my regular Tuesday
Night partner, Bill Kochneff, I would have made my invitational bid by bidding 2S. I am pretty sure Bill would
have shown his 5-card suit and we would have played 4H. Four Hearts makes four….to score plus 420. A 420
score would have resulted in 5.5 match points…..so we could go from 1 match point to 5.5 match points. Our
low score on this hand was a failure to not bid 3H on the way to 3NT. 5 more match points on this hand
would have given Susan and me 92 match points. This hand was played against Tom & Sam…so they lose 5
match points…..they drop to 84 match points. John & Carol’s match points will increase by a half….so they
go to 93.5. This hand is a bidding problem.
On this hand Sam Shen opened the East hand 2D. This 2D bid violates my Rules for
opening a Weak Two Bid. Sam is too strong…he has an opening hand if his partner
turns up with a diamond fit. Sam has a Losing Trick Count of 7 and I do not preempt
on hands with 7 LTC or less….but, so be it. Susan correctly bids 2NT to show she has a
strong 1NT opening hand with diamond stopped…and that is the final contract.
Tom Flanders lead his singleton diamond and Same plays the ten of diamonds and
Susan wins her King.
PLAY OF THE HAND: If Sam (RHO) had 6 diamonds for his 2D opening bid, then West
(LHO) has no more diamonds to play to Sam. Susan need to get out the Ace of
Spades, so she should have led top spades until Sam takes his ace. Now, Sam can
never get on lead again….and Susan has set up 3 spades to go with her diamond
trick. If Sam leads clubs, he sets up a second club winner in dummy’s Queen. A club
continuation puts Susan in dummy to lead a heart and up comes the Queen. Susan
wins and now lead a heart toward dummy’s jack…to set up 2 heart tricks. Susan is
going to get to at least 8 tricks to score plus 120. I am going to bet that Susan did not
make a plan or understand about who at the table was a dangerous opponent.
If Susan had played the hand correctly, we would have scored plus 120 to score 7.5
match points….instead of 1.5 match points for -100. This will had 6 match points to
our total to give us 98 match points. Tom and Sam will fall to 78. John & Carol will
stay at 93.5…..so now Susan & I win the event by 4.5 match point. This low score is
the result of poor Play of the hand.
This is how you go through the recap sheet and determine what caused you to get
below average scores. Once you know the problem….the partnership can discuss
it. At the table, I told Susan she could have shown her five hearts as she moved
toward 3NT on Hand 1.
Look at every hand that I have circled for you….and do your own analysis.
After East passed this hand, Susan also passed. If I had been playing with a partner
who understand my RULES FOR OPENING WEAK TWO BIDS. South should open 2H.
The non-vulnerable opening 2H bid promises the majority of the 4-10 HCP points fall
in the heart suit….and the hand’s LTC must be more that 7. On this hand South has a
LTC of 8.
West may bid 3D and if North bids 4H, I am going to bet the game will make. After
cashing one diamond….if West doesn’t shift to a club…NS is only going to lose 1
heart, 1 Spade and 1Diamond. The losing club is going to go away on dummy’s
spade suit. You need to lead a club or shift to a club at trick two to beat 4H. On
Tuesday Night, Bobbie Ney and Mark Gifford reached and made 4H for the top NS
result. I am wondering how many Souths opened 2H.
I will give you more thoughts on this set of hands later.
Bob