The Bridge Burglar’s latest adventure

In Praise of Pre-empts

July 1, 2018 By

Personally I hate moving – I’ve done way too much of it during my life and don’t plan on ever moving again – but it must be said that a change of venue is good for some things. Take the Jacksonville bridge tournament, traditionally held just before or around the 4th of July holiday and the smallest of Florida’s 9 or 10 Regionals. Situated at a nondescript Marriott hotel right off an I-95 freeway exit, table count was heading down every year. So this year (2018) they moved it, less than a half-hour south along I-95 to he World Village of Golf Renaissance hotel in the Golf Hall of Fame complex, and renamed it the St. Augustine Regional, even though that charming old Spanish colonial city is just as far from the playing site as Jacksonville. But the change of scenery was a huge success and … [Read More...]

No-Trump Country

June 26, 2018 By

As is our custom during our travels, my partner Christine and I mixed bridge and sightseeing at the New England Monster Mountain Regional bridge tournament in Nashua, NH, in late June, but this time we encountered some glitches in both our bridge and in the touristy things we like to do. For starters, the famous replica of the Mayflower ship wasn’t at its usual mooring place next to Plymouth Rock in neighboring Massachusetts with its crew of historical interpreters who transport you into the past. It was hauled away to the Mystic Shipyard in Connecticut for repairs more than two years ago and may be there for at least another year before it is supposed to return all spiffed up in 2020 for the 400th anniversary of the landing of the pilgrims. “This is taking too long – they could have … [Read More...]

Down for the Count

June 4, 2018 By

In keeping with our tradition of trying to play bridge in foreign venues during our overseas travels, my partner Christine and I dropped in on the Eurobridge Club in Madrid, Spain on Monday evening (5-28-2018), and had a decent showing, coming in third overall — second among the East-West pairs — with a 61.3% game in a tough field. Since the top two pairs received small monetary prizes, we finished just out of the money, literally, but we were happy with our game anyway. Eurobridge apparently isn’t the biggest club in Madrid, but it is known as the toughest one. Its membership — and the Monday night attendees — includes several so-called “World Masters” who have represented Spain in World Bridge Olympiads and will be competing in the World Championships in Orlando in September. These … [Read More...]

Good Garbage

April 1, 2018 By

To find the best contract after a One No-Trump opening bid, most duplicate bridge players play transfers with five-card Heart or Spade holdings to keep the big hand hidden from the opponents. They also use the 2 Clubs Stayman convention bid to ask for a four-card major and possibly find a 4-4 fit in either Hearts or Spades. But fewer people play the so-called “Garbage Stayman” convention, in which the responder to the One No-Trump opener also bids 2 Clubs, but then plans to pass whatever rebid the opener makes. The garbage Stayman bidder has few points (hence the name “garbage”) but it just so happens that he or she can support either Spades or Hearts. And just in case the No-Trump opener bids 2 Diamonds denying a four-card major, he can also pass that bid. If the No-Trump opener has … [Read More...]

Director, please!

February 6, 2018 By

In a month or so I’ll get a letter in the mail from the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) telling me if I’ve passed the test to become a club director. I took it this past Monday (1/29/2018) just before the start of the Lone Star Regional bridge tournament in Houston, TX, and I guess I can say with some degree of confidence that I do expect to have passed. Of the 30 people in my class, I was the first to finish the 113 questions, taking just over half the three hours allotted for the open-book test. And although I’m sure I didn’t get every question correct, I only needed about 60-odd right answers to pass. Although it was pretty intense, it was a good experience participating in two full days of study classes for the test and then taking the three-hour exam. Our class included a … [Read More...]

2-Day Monkey Business

December 9, 2017 By

Our home club, the Vero Beach Bridge Center, this past weekend experimented with a two-day Sectional tournament, instead of the usual three-day format. According to the club’s managers, they made just as much money off a two-day Sectional on Saturday and Sunday only as they used to earn off a three-day event. How can that be? Well, for a three-day Sectional starting on Friday, the club would have had to cancel a 0-20 MasterPoint student game, a 0-299 limited Non-Life Master game, as well as a lesson, and all those events are well attended in winter, so the club would have lost a lot of revenue there. But in the end, whether to hold a two- or a three-day Sectional wasn’t a question of money – the finances were pretty much a wash. The deciding factor was that the Vero club wanted to be … [Read More...]

What a Gem!

November 24, 2017 By

She did it! My partner Christine made Ruby Life Master in the rankings of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL), going over the 1,500 MasterPoints mark. She did it at the first Sunday (11/5/2017) game of the winter season at our home club, the Vero Beach Bridge Center. In Vero, where we have 1,100 members and we’re by table count the 8th largest bridge club in the country, it’s difficult to get people to come out on a Sunday, and we had only four tables for the game. Going in, Christine needed 1.04 points to reach 1,500 points, and normally such a small game doesn’t offer enough points, but it was a special membership game with extra points so we gave it a try. Not only did we reach the goal – at first we thought we’d blown it away, coming in first with a 58% game, beating three A … [Read More...]

Planet of the Bots

September 6, 2017 By

Anyone playing bridge in South Florida beware: The St. Cat’s club in West Palm Beach has a couple of new players named B.B. O’Saint and B.B. O’Catherine who always come in first. They’re not very sociable; they never say anything, never smile or growl, and they don’t even partake of the quite decent lunch that Julie Jawor, the director, puts out every day. That’s because BBOSaint and BBOCatherine aren’t human. They’re robots that fill in whenever there’s an odd number of pairs, so nobody will have to suffer through a sitout, which everyone hates. When my partner Christine and I dropped in at the St. Cat’s club last Friday (9-1-2017), the “bots”were needed because there was a half table. Since they’re robots and presumably don’t make mistakes – more on that later – they did come in … [Read More...]

Bridge and Bacalhau

August 27, 2017 By

My partner Christine and I like to check out historical and cultural oddities as we travel around the country (and a bit of the world) to attend either bridge tournaments or sporting events. When we were in Boise, Idaho, for a Davis Cup tennis match a few years ago, we discovered that Boise was home to the largest Basque community in the U.S. – and of course we had dinner at Gernika, the Basque spelling of Guernica, the town from the Spanish Civil War made immortal by Pablo Picasso’s painting. The Basques flocked to Idaho around the turn of the last century because they were excellent shepherds and could withstand the loneliness of weeks on end living on the desolate Western ranges. This past weekend (8/18-8/19/2017) while attending a Sectional duplicate bridge tournament in Palm … [Read More...]

Remember the Alamo

August 6, 2017 By

T.J. Singer, one of the regular tournament directors in South Florida employed by the American Contract Bridge League, had told us that he was going to the 4th of July Regional in San Antonio, TX, under a new ACBL “directors exchange” program to let them see how things are done in different parts of the country – and perhaps improve their own procedures if they see something they like. T.J. was the only person we knew when my partner Christine and I arrived in San Antonio. He liked the exchange, although he wasn’t quite sure yet what specific changes he would recommend to chief Florida tournament director Harry Falk. He said in some ways at Texas tournaments there is more paperwork for directors, and in other ways, there is less, and things are a little more loosey-goosey. From a … [Read More...]