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Happy Birthday! 
Audrey Kelly celebrated yet another 39th birthday at the club this week! |
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Sitouts Banned! 
We have done away with sit-outs, for once and for all. When we have a half-table in the game, we enter the computer as a participant in the game, in order to make a full table.
When it would otherwise be your turn to sit out, instead you play against the computer. Your score vs. the computer counts in the game. The computer is always disqualified, so it doesn't take away your masterpoints - in fact, the awards actually increase because the game is larger. |
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Replay At Home  You can now replay the boards you've played at the club - in the comfort of your own home.
Replay the exact same hands with any of several commercial bridge programs such as GIB or Bridge Baron if you own one. If you have not purchased one, we have a free program for you to download. Click here for instructions. | |
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Free Bridge Lessons
Rich answers your questions every Tuesday prior to the game. |
Thursdays, we have a vugraph presentation. Rich reviews interesting deals of the past week. Each board in question is projected onto our large video screen for all to see as we discuss it. |
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Greetings!
I was browsing through my archives this week and came across this deal which was originally played nearly thirty years ago. It was reported by Alan Truscott in the New York Times on December 6, 1982. |
 From My Archives |
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Lead:  6
East's double of 6 was lead-directing, calling for a club lead. How should you plan the play?
Scroll down to read Alan's column. |
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The Daily Deal |
 Each day we "seed" one lesson deal somewhere into our otherwise randomly dealt set of boards. The board number is different each day. You never know which board it is.
The daily deal is a free mini-lesson. You can take home a handout of the daily deal every day. We hope you find it educational as well as entertaining. To see past Daily Deals, click here. |
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We hold another "Wednesday Game" this week. Play at the club Wednesday and get hand analyses and several free lessons about the boards you just played, following the game. |
Lightner Double Is Standard But It Doesn't Always Work by Alan Truscott |
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About a half century ago the late Theodore Lightner proposed a new convention to his partner, Ely Culbertson. A double of a slam, he suggested, should call for an unusual lead. The first time it came up some disaster ensued, and Culbertson angrily refused to have anything more to do with it.
Other players were willing to give the Lightner double a more thorough test, and it became part of the standard bidding repertory. It often gives a vital clue to the opening leader, but there are some occasional failures. One of them occurred on the diagramed deal, although the double did get the defense off to a good start.
Six spades was a reasonable contract for North-South, and was reached with a string of cue-bids beginning with four diamonds. The play would not have been easy after a neutral lead, but when East doubled West found the club lead.
The double tends to ask for dummy's first suit, in this case clubs. West had to ask himself why East had not doubled the cue-bid of six clubs. He concluded correctly that East feared that six clubs might be a playable contract.
South was Rich Waugh, who learned the game in Westbury, L.I., and is now an active organizer and teacher in Craig, Colo. He knew he had run into a bad club split, but had to guess whether West had led a singleton or whether East was void. He guessed right by playing low from dummy, and East ruffed and led the diamond jack.
One plan was to ruff three hearts in the closed hand, but this would have failed for lack of entries. Instead, South planned to ruff twice in his hand and hope for a squeeze. He won the diamond lead with his queen, cashed the heart ace and ruffed a heart. He then led a trump to the jack and ruffed another heart with the king.
When he then led to the queen of spades and cashed the ace he reached this position:
On the last trump East had to surrender. In the rather unlikely event that West had begun with the diamond protection he would have been squeezed in the minor suits. South was due to fail only if East held the diamonds and West the heart king. |
The Full Deal |
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You can follow the play with the Bridge Movie on our website. |
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