The Aces on Bridge: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 | Bobby Wolff

by Bobby Wolff on October 5th, 2010North
? A J 6 4
? A 9 7
? J 9 5
? 6 5 2West
? Q 10 9
? J 5 2
? K Q 7
? J 9 7 3East
? K 8 3 2
? 10 4
? A 6 4 3 2
? 10 8South
? 7 5
? K Q 8 6 3
? 10 8
? A K Q 4

Opening Lead: ? 10

“Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.”

– George Eliot

When responder to a major-suit opening bid has a 10-count with three trumps, he has three ways to describe his hand. If he has extra shape (say a side-suit singleton or extra length in a side-suit), he might jump directly to three of partner’s suit. More typical, though, is to downgrade the hand into a constructive raise to two of partner’s suit, or to upgrade the hand via the forcing no-trump to a balanced limit-raise.

This was what today’s North did. South, with concentrated values in his two suits and decent high cards, had an easy acceptance of the invitation.

In four hearts, declarer must not pin all his hopes on a 3-3 split in clubs, since he can make provision against a 4-2 split as well. West leads the spade 10, which South allows to hold the trick. After winning the spade continuation, what next?

After taking the heart ace and king, declarer should next lead out the three top clubs. If the clubs split 3-3, he can draw the last trump and claim. If the clubs split 4-2 and the third round is ruffed, dummy will have a trump to ruff the fourth club. Nothing has been lost, since the contract would always have gone down one.

However, if the clubs split 4-2 and the defender who is long in clubs also has the last heart, the contract can be made by ruffing the fourth club before pulling the last trump.

South Holds:

ANSWER: Your partner’s use of the fourth suit is conventional. It is artificial and game-forcing and asks you to describe your hand further. With no real support for your partner and no diamond stop, the cheapest call of two hearts is the least lie. It does not promise six hearts, merely a rebiddable five-card suit, or better.For details of Bobby Wolff’s autobiography, The Lone Wolff, contact theLoneWolff@bridgeblogging.com. If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, please leave a comment at this blog. Reproduced with permission of United Feature Syndicate, Inc., Copyright 2010. If you are interested in reprinting The Aces on Bridge column, contact reprints@unitedmedia.com.

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Philly Twitters and BBO Vugraph starts today (Tuesday) | Linda Lee

by Linda Lee on October 5th, 2010

There were various requests of twitter to know about the Vugraph schedule.  I was surprised to see it starts TODAY 2PM EST with Round 2 and Round 3 of the Rosenblum tea,s..  Check here for the schedule of BBO broadcasts.  Woohoo.

I thought it would be interested to check out some current twitters about the bridge World Championships.  These are mostly non-bridge players.  Some don’t represent the kind of thinking we would like…

BaconEggnChase: Geriatric groupies galore! Better put my mommom on lockdown…      RT@PhillyInquirer: World Bridge Series Championship comes to Philadelphia

Then perhaps some sour grapes AliciaTerrance: World Bridge Series Championship comes to Philadelphia: The choice came down to Las Vegas and Philadelphia. “Truth…

The Philly tourist industry is happy though

4PhillyJobs: World Bridge Series Championship comes to Philadelphia More than 4,000 bridge players from the United State

and they wonder how you can make money are bridge…

mailtohayden: World Bridge Series Championship comes to Philadelphia: Some will be paid to play by sponsors, but in large-scale …

and don’t miss BRIDGE TOUR (JADE BARRETT)  twittering from the World Championships.  You can also see his twitters on the facebook page:  Here is some of the news:

In a couple of twitters they gave us the news about Laurie Kraynak

Sadly, Laurie required surgery this morning, preventing John and her from competing further in the World Mixed Pairs. They were leading the event after two sessions when Laurie took ill.

We visited tonight after Anne and Jade had a 3/4 overall (tied with Karen and Ellis, of course) in the pair game and a 2nd overall in the BAM at the regional. Laurie is looking well and is expected to remain at Jefferson Hospital for 2 weeks of rehab.

Another bridge Tweeter is TREBOEF.  He is picking up a lot of bridge tweets from other sources on his ABOUT PHILLY section and was just itching to see vugraph.

Some folks en route…

ashekhter: So, it’s 5 pm and I am on my way to Philly. Our team has registered for Main event in World Bridge Series which starts tomorrow 10:30am.

Jenny’s tournament is over it appears..  If you want an almost minute by minute story of her tournament …

Four more years until the next bridge World Championships. Next time I’ll play in more events

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