As I had done on nearly every Saturday for quite a few years, I played bridge with Peter Katz at the Hartford Bridge Club on April 6, 2024. I thought that we both played pretty well, especially against the best players, but we did not get a very good score. Part of that was due to a few hands that were bid very strangely by the opponents. The one that stood out for me was hand #9.
Peter and I were sitting East-West against Xenia Coulter and Nancy Calderbank. Xenia opened 2♠. I can understand why she did. She surely wants to bid, and the hand does not meet the rule of 20. Hers might be the only conceivable hand that I would bid with only ten points and only one five-card suit. I would not bid 2♠. I can think of many hands that would deliver ten tricks that I would pass opposite that bid, which could be made with only five points.
Peter, playing East, could not find a bid. Nancy for some reason decided to bid 3♠. I can see passing, and I can see bidding 4♠ to force the opponents to enter the bid at the five-level. I would never have bid 3♠.
In fact, I probably would have bid 5♠, the bid that the LAW of total tricks prescribes in this situation, assuming that North’s bid showed six spades. This bid would force one the opponents either to double a not-vulnerable contract or bid a slam with no idea of the partner’s holding.
If Nancy had passed, I would certainly have bid 3♥, and we would probably have found the slam. As it was, I did not have the temerity to enter the auction at the four-level. I passed, as did Xenia. Peter took a long time before he, too, passed. If Nancy had bid 4♠ or 5♠, I am sure that he would have doubled or bid notrump to show two places to play. In any of those cases my response would have been in hearts.
We ended up winning a lousy fifty match points on a hand that we were cold for a grand slam in either clubs or hearts.
So, only the combination of a peculiar opening bid and an inexplicable response left us tongue-tied. I guess that it was my fault. An old bridge aphorism states that one never preempts a preempt. In this case, however, the fact that both opponents showed spade length and some weakness maybe should have prompted me to think that I could count on Peter for four tricks. It was that kind of day.
When I arrived home from bridge I told Sue about the hand. She was surprised that it was legal to open Xenia’s hand at the two-level. I don’t know what she would have done instead. A pass certainly would be sinful with a hand that had the AKQJ of spades and a fifth one.
With this and other hands still on my mind I descended to the basement to spend some time watching MHZ Choice while using my rowing machine. I immediately noticed that there was a little bit of water on the floor in that corner of the basement. It wasn’t enough to be overly concerned about, but I resolved to tell Sue about it.
I watched the fifth episode of season 2 of The Bridge, a fictional police drama about a detective in Sweden who works with a detective in Denmark1, on MHZ Choice on my laptop. The reception was less than optimal. Because of repetitive delays for buffering it took forty-five minutes to watch the first half hour. Then I quit and went upstairs.
When I told Sue about the water in the basement, she asked if we had any leftover kitty litter. She suggested that we use it to absorb the water. I said that I was pretty sure that we did. I went back downstairs to check. The litter box and the box of litter were in the new part of the basement. When I opened the door between the two parts of the basement, I was surprised to see about an inch of water covering the entire floor of the new part.
It was time for supper. I resolved that early on Sunday morning I would repeat the laborious process that I did for the aftermath of Hurricane Ida in September of 2021. That effort is documented here with a good deal of detail and photos.
I got out of bed at about 2:00 a.m., found the extension cord and my wet-shoes, and filled ten barrels of the Sears equivalent of the Shop-Vac. The amount of water that I removed made almost no visible impact. I then went back to sleep.
On Sunday I opened the hatchway door on the northern side of the new basement at about noon. Fortunately the weather was clear and seasonably mild. I also filled another eighteen barrels. This was far less than my plan, but being two and half years older is very meaningful when one is in his mid-seventies. I was exhausted after four barrels, and both my lower back and the sides of my legs were aching.
I went back down and was pleasantly surprised to see that the level of the water was lower than I had left it on Sunday evening. After I had filled seven more barrels, there were still two small puddles, but I hoped that by Tuesday morning the dehumidifier and natural evaporation would seriously reduce or eliminate them.
My plan did not work. I filled two barrels on Tuesday morning. That cleared a path to the door, but it filled back in before I could leave. I did a barrel and a half on Tuesday afternoon. Some progress was made, but the two remaining areas, near the north wall and about twenty feet south of there were obviously going to fill back in with water.
On Wednesday I sucked up one full barrel and another perhaps one-third full. Because the hatch door was closed, I could not gauge my progress near the door. Most of the remaining water is along the north wall. It took another three days before I was able to suck up enough water for it to dry out completely.
I suspected that the water came from the depression beneath the deck outside of Sue’s bedroom. When the water table was exceptionally high water must have seeped in through the north wall and flowed downhill after that.
I swore more often this time than in 2021. I did not want to contemplate the possibility that flooding had become a repetitive occurrence. The weather in Connecticut seemed to have become much more tropical than in the previous decades. I did not miss the snow, but I have become too old to deal with the flooding. Also, the fact that I was continually obstructed by the mountains of useless junk in the basement turned my attitude bitter. I longed for an apartment and a landlord.
1. The two countries are connected by the Øresund Bridge that is almost five miles long.
One of the very first tournaments that I ever attended was in the Fiesta Regional in Waterbury, CT, in the summer of 2007. I was planning to play with Dick Benedict (introduced here) in the Bracketed Swiss on Labor Day. On one of the weekend days I drove to the Holiday Inn that hosted the tournament by myself in hope of picking up a partner for both sessions of pairs. The person at the Partnership Desk was Carol Schaper (introduced here), whom I knew from the Simsbury Bridge Club (SBC).
Carol matched me up with John Morrin to play in the 299er game in the morning. Dick dropped by the 299er room and said that he was glad that John and I had met. We played pretty well, but we failed to win any points because of a defensive lapse. One of us held the ace in a side suit and the other held the king. We both avoided the suit, and the opponents made a contract that they should not have.
I have played against John many times at the Hartford Bridge Club (HBC), at which he still was playing regularly in 2023, but that long-ago game in Waterbury was the only time that we have played as partners.
In the afternoon session in Waterbury I played with Mort Friedman in an event that I had no business playing, the Open Pairs. He was 26 years older than I was and as gregarious as I was introverted. He had come to the tournament from the Albany area. He knew all of our opponents, and he introduced me to them as a “new player”.
Mort thought at the end of the round that we might have placed, but he was overly optimistic. I probably made some simple errors that he did not pick up on.
At the time Mort published a bridge column called “Bridging the Gap”. He emailed it to me for several years, and I occasionally asked him questions about it. He always responded.
Mort died in 2011. His obituary can be found here.
I evidently received my first (fractional) gold points at the Waterbury tournament. Dick, Virginia Labbadia, Donald Fosberg (of whom I have no memory whatever) and I finished third in the bottom bracket of the Round Robin on Labor Day.
The Ukrainian National Home.
I was scheduled to play with Dick Benedict at an afternoon session of the sectional tournament at the Ukrainian National Home on Wethersfield Ave. in Hartford. Our signals got crossed, and, with just a few minutes before game time I discovered that he was not going to come. Lou Brown, who was president of the HBC at the time, also needed a partner. So, although he had much more experience than I did, we formed a one-time partnership.
I remember two things about the session. At one point we played against Mary Witt and Linda Starr. At the time they were both redheads. I question whether that was allowed by the ACBL. A few hands later Lou, as declarer, failed to follow suit even though I had warned him with the question “No hearts?.” He was very embarrassed by his mistake, which prevented us from placing in the event.
I have two other vivid memories of Dr. Brown. He occasionally played at the SBC with his wife Trudi. Quite often he was verbally abusive to her. I took Trudi aside and offered to talk to him about his behavior, which was clearly against the ACBL’s Zero Tolerance policy. She told me not to because, “For me it is like water off of a duck.”
I was present when Trudi got the gold points that she needed to become a Life Master. Lou and Trudi were paired with Merrill Stein and Gary Cohen. I don’t remember who our teammates were, but my partner was Michael Dworetsky. Merrill had bid 7NT on a hand. Michael was on lead on the first trick. For some reason he chose to lead “fourth best” from a spade suit headed by the king. It was a terrible choice that allowed Gary to take all thirteen tricks and win the match. If he had selected any other suit, he would have eventually won that king, and we would have won the event.
Lou and Trudi moved to Delray Beach, FL. They are both still active in the ACBL.
I am pretty sure that in the first event that I ever won I was playing with Dan Finn. Dan was an actuary who lived in the Baltimore area but spent a lot of time working in Connecticut. He played with Tom Gerchman at the HBC on Thursday evenings. He also played with John Morrin at the limited game (that I called 0-Finn) at the HBC on Wednesday evenings.
Dan and I played as partners with Tom Gerchman and his (only?) friend, Terry Fair, an actuary from the Philadelphia area, as teammates. The tournament was a sectional in District 3, probably in northern New Jersey.
We were playing in a B-C Swiss. Everything seemed to go our way. In the final round we played the only other team that was in contention. Our opponents made enough mistakes that I was certain that we had won. When Tom asked us whether we thought that we had done well enough, I asked him, “How many times did you revoke?”
He acted as if he did not understand the question. Dan intervened: “He wants to know how many times you revoked.” Gerchman muttered, “Uh, none.”
I said, “Then I think that we are OK.” I was right. We won the event.
On the way home I wanted to stop and get some real food. We were a long way from Enfield, and it was late. Gerch insisted on stopping at Dunkin Donuts.
Occasionally filling out a card at the Partnership Desk at a tournament brought a very pleasant surprise. Such was the case at the Masters Regional in Mansfield, MA, in 2013 when Ausra Geaski showed up without a partner. I was acquainted with her in three ways: 1) she was president of the district; 2) she arranged for me to become the district’s webmaster; 3) she was Bunny Kliman’s partner at the HBC and regionals and had a lot more points than I did. I don’t think that she was thrilled with the prospect, but she agreed to play with me in the open pairs.
I remember one hand from the round. We missed a slam in a notrump contract because one of us had a six-card diamond suit. It occurred to me that we should have used 2NT as a transfer to diamonds rather than signing off in 3NT. When partner accepted the diamond suit we could have found the slam.
The other thing that I remember was that Carole Weinstein was one of our opponents. She talked with Ausra about helping with the hospitality at the 2014 Fall NABC that was going to be held in Providence.
Ausra still played regularly at the HBC in 2023. She also played at a few sectionals, but she was hobbled by bad knees that she got replaced in October.
This is Paula. I could not find a photo of Marcia.
I came to know Marcia West, who lived in Charlestown, RI, from her association with Paul Pearson. She had taken a bridge class that Paul taught somewhere in Rhode Island. I don’t remember when I played with Marcia, but it must have been at a sectional in Johnston, RI. She did not often venture far from home for tournaments.
I don’t think that we did very well on that occasion, but Steve Smith and I teamed up with Marcia and Paula Najarian in an epic Round Robin at the first regional tournament ever held at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick, RI. I have recounted my heroic dummy play here.
I have been friends with Marcia and Paula for many years. Marcia was a nurse in real life; Paula taught math in high school. They both are still playing pretty regularly in 2023. Marcia played with my wife Sue at a sectional in Johnston, RI.
I am sure that I played with Vince D’Souza at a Unit 126 (Connecticut) sectional, but I cannot remember when or where. We were undoubtedly matched up by whoever was manning the partnership desk. I am even more certain that we did not do very well, but don’t ask me why.
Perhaps Vince remembers. In 2023 he contacted me about the lessons for beginners being offered by the HBC to beginning players. He wanted to purchase them for one of his sons or grandsons. He seemed to remember me better than I remembered him.
The LinkedIn page that is posted here is probably Vince’s. I was somewhat surprised to see that Vince was still a member of the ACBL in 2023. He played in the fall sectional in Orange, CT, but he did not earn any masterpoints.
I was assigned to play with Joe DaCosta at a regional tournament. I am not sure which one or when it occurred. I remember that he was expecting his partner to show up, but for some reason he suspected that he/she might not show up, and so he lined me up as a substitute. I had no choice; no one else was available..
We agreed to play his convention card, which included the Flannery convention, in which the 2♦ bid is used for hands with 11-15 high-card points, four spades and five or more hearts. Such hands are difficult to describe in most systems.
I played this convention every week with Peter Katz, and I had played it a few times with others. Joe asked me if I was familiar with it and knew the responses. I assured him that I did.
At the very first table Joe opened 2♦. I quickly responded 2♥, which indicated a hand with three hearts that had no chance of taking ten tricks even if opener had a maximum. I had an honor card or two, but I could have had absolutely nothing. To my surprise Joe bid 3♥. I quickly passed, and he went down by one trick.
Joe’s explanation was that he was afraid that I might have had more strength than I showed. I resolved then and there never to play with him again. I did not need a partner who did not trust me when I said that I knew something.
There are no DaCostas in my database and only one Da Costa, Laura from Clovis, CA. So, our game must have been before I started maintaining my database of ACBL members in 2014.
Sue and Judy.
As was our custom, my wife Sue and I drove up to the hotel in the morning of one of the days of the regional tournament in Nashua, NH. She had made arrangements to play with Judy Cavagnaro, one of her partners from Connecticut, but, as usual, she was late. We arrived just a minute or two before play started, and the car was nearly out of gas. My original plan was to see if anyone at the Partnership Desk was looking for a partner, but I abandoned that idea, dropped Sue off at the door to the hotel, filled up the car’s tank with regular, and went to McDonald’s to buy my traditional sausage biscuit with egg.
I later discovered that one other person was looking for a partner for the Open Pairs. His name was Doug Clark, and he was from the Albany area. We met and went over his convention card together. I was astounded to discover that in the “Opening Preempts” section no boxes were checked, and he had written in “Not used”. I honestly felt like I was going into battle with a broken sword.
Somehow we won some points in that session, but I resolved never to play with him again. He was still an ACBL member in 2023, but he has not won any points all year. At some point he moved to Ponte Vedra Beach, FL.
At the same tournament I had arranged to play in the Round Robin with Tony Norris on Sunday. Our teammates were my old friends, Bob and Shirley Derrah from Springield MA.
Shirley, Bob, Tony, and me.
Tony’s convention card had one peculiar item on it. I remember that I messed it up at one point in one match, but we were on the same page in the rest of our matches.
Our foursome were one of the lowest seeded teams in bracket #1, but in the end we came out tied for first place with a team from Maine. We were all very happy with the result. Someone took our photo. It wasn’t Sue. She had driven home earlier. The Derrahs brought me back to Enfield.
I played with Tony again in Nashua in an Open Pairs game. We won only a half of a masterpoint. The last tournament that he played in was a sectional in Williston, VT, in September of 2018. He was still a member of the ACBL in 2023, but he had not won any masterpoints all year. This was surprising to me because Tony liked to play online.
I met Andre Wiejacki (vee eh YAH skee but compressed into three syllables) at the qualifying tournament for Flight C of the North American Pairs in Sturbridge, MA. I was playing with Steve Smith; Andre was playing with Ron Briggs. They finished second, and we finished third. The winning pair was disqualified, and so all four of us got to to to the finals at the Spring NABC in Reno.
I have often said that everyone in bridge has an interesting backstory. Andre’s is one of the most impressive. He was born in Poland when it was still a satellite of the Soviet Union. He somehow escaped to France where he changed his first name to Andre and learned about computers. At some point after that he immigrated to the U.S.
I played a few times at tournaments with Andre. He was good at playing the cards, but his bidding could be erratic. I liked playing with him, and he definitely liked playing with me. The last time that I heard from him he had moved to the NYC area because the job prospects were better.
In 2023 Andre was still an ACBL member, and he has moved back to Chelsea, MA. He had not played at any tournaments since Covid-19 struck, and he has earned only a handful of masterpoints in 2023.
Andre is still “open to work”. If you are looking for a “scrum master”, his LinkedIn page is here.
I remember that an opponent in one of the matches that Andre exhibited was Sarah Widhu of Nashua NH. After one of Andre’s strange bids, I explained to him how we could have reached the right contract.
We lost the match, and the margin was totally attributable to this one hand. I was impressed that Sarah noticed that everything rode on that one hand.
I only played with Sarah once, and we did not do too well. I suspect that if we had played together more, we would have started to click.
Sarah was one of the most active members of the bridge community in New Hampshire during the period that I became involved with the district. I am pretty sure that she was on the B’s Needs committee, and she was definitely the tournament manager for the Nashua tournament at least once. I designed a successful email campaign for her.
Sarah still played regularly in 2023. She might have still been running the club in Nashua as well, but she did not participate in the administration of the district or its functions.
Ron Agel.
Bridge was definitely only the second-favorite card game of Ron Agel. He was first and foremost a poker player. I played with him for two sessions of an Open Pairs game at a regional tournament in Massachusetts I think that it was at some point in 2014.
At the time Ron only had about half as many masterpoints as I did, but he acquitted himself pretty well. We did not win anything, but I remember one hand that we played against an expert pair, Bill Braucher and Rick Binder, who were playing a strong club system. I had made a lead-directing bid of one of their artificial bids. Ron was not familiar with the concept, and took it as takeout. We ended up in a horrible contract that the opponents quickly doubled. Oh, well, a zero is a zero.
My recollection is that Ron had a home on the cape and another one in Florida. He was still a member of the ACBL in 2023. He had about thirteen points for the year, but he had not attended a regional tournament in New England since 2018.
I have played against Alan Godes many times, including two occasions since the reopening. He and his wife, Charlotte Bailey, have long resided in Needham, MA, but for years they have traveled around the country to play in bridge tournaments.
I don’t really remember the event in which Alan and I played together. He was pleasant enough, but I did not enjoy the occasion. I have often had opportunities to play with him again, but I have been reluctant to take advantage of them. I proudly accept the title of geezer, but Alan was in Junior High when I was born, and his game has not changed much in the decade or so that I have known him.
Both Alan and Charlotte were in attendance at the last D25 tournament of 2023, the regional in Marlborough, MA. Alan played with Adi Chehna, and Charlotte played with a pro, Adam Grossack. They finished third in bracket 1 of the Thursday-Friday KO.
I only played with Bill Gay once, but I have fairly clear memories of the occasion. It occurred at the regional tournament in Nashua, NH, where I was often in need of a partner. Bill and I were matched up by the Partnership Desk and we had agreed upon a convention card. We went over to the table at which the directors were selling entries for the Open Pairs game. In front of us were Marcia West and Paula Najarian. The four of us decided to play in a bracketed team game instead.
Our foursome did not win the event, but we had one surprising victory. Bill and I were playing against Christina Parker, and her sister who was visiting from (I seem to remember) St. Louis. Their teammates were Stewart Rubenstein (Christina’s husband and regular partner) and someone whom I don’t remember. We were big underdogs in the match, but somehow we pulled off a victory. Bill asked me, “Do you know how good that team is?” I told him that I did. I had played against Stewart and Christina often with little success.
Bill has not been to a district tournament since 2018, but he was still a member of the ACBL in 2023, and he earned more than eighty masterpoints through the end of October.
Michelle Blanchard, who is from the Worcester area, is still quite active in tournament bridge in 2023. Eric Vogel and I teamed up with her and Carol Seager in the Gala Regional in the autumn of 2023. That experience, which was not altogether pleasant, has been described here.
I am pretty sure that Michelle and I played as teammates in a sectional tournament in Watertown, MA. We seemed to play pretty well together. I never have done well in any events in Watertown, and so I am sure that we did not come close to winning. If the opportunity presented itself, I would be happy to play opposite her again.
I played with Linda Ahrens in a pairs event held in Hyannis, MA. I remember very little about our actual game together, but I have a fairly vivid recollection of some of the ancillary details.
In the first place I remember that Linda played the Mexican 2♦ convention to handle the hand with balanced distribution and 18-19 high-card points. Most people open balanced hand with 15-17 points with 1NT and those with 20-21 points with 2NT. So, this is used for the ones in between. I have never played it elsewhere before or since.
At the time Linda and her husband Joe Brouillard had a home in Rhode Island and another on the Cape near Hyannis. Before the tournament I drove to Warwick, RI, to play at a club there with Linda. We did not win, but we also did not encounter any major disagreements.
I had the distinction of saying that my partner was the only person who walked from her house to the game in Hyannis. I also was the only person who was brought a home-made sandwich by his partner’s husband during the lunch break. In other ways, unfortunately, my game with Linda was not too memorable.
I took this photo of Linda and Dan. after their victory.
In February of 2017 I was working at the Partnership Desk at the regional tournament in Cromwell, CT. Linda Ahrens had filled out a card indicating that she was looking for a partner for the Mid-Flight Pairs. event.
On the morning of the event Dan Jablonski, a very good player, came to the desk and said that he needed a partner. I matched Dan up with Linda, and they ended up winning the event!
Linda was on the committee that I chaired that awarded the Larry Weiss award to Bob Bertoni in 2018. The details are in Bob’s section of this entry (here).
Paul Lord was from Montreal, but for several years he came down to New England because of his job, which I think involved insurancee. I played as his partner more than once and communicated with him now and then. I have not seen him in quite a few years. However, he was still a member of the ACBL in 2023, had amassed over 3,000 masterpoints, and appeared to be playing regularly.
The last time that I saw Paul he was grumbling about a partner whom he had picked up at a tournament’s Partnership Desk: “He doesn’t know how to defend a hand.”
Diane Storey was a teammate of mine in a knockout. Our team was eliminated in the first round of the Knockout Regional in Cromwell. I have a vague recollection that my partner had been Gary Cohen (introduced here). Diane was probably playing with a guy named Marvin who worked in NYC.
Players who lost in the KO usually played in the Single-session Swiss1, an event that offered only red points. Our partners from the KO wanted to skip the Swiss and go home early. Diane and I were greedy about the chance of winning some points and paired up. The Partnership Desk assigned us to play with a very nice experienced player and a guy with much less experience. I don’t remember either name. My recollection is that we won only one match. The experienced player apologized for his partner’s shenanigans.
I never played as Diane’s partner after that, but I played against her and Marvin often at sectionals. I remember a very bizarre hand from one of those events. I was playing with Peter Katz at a tournament in Hamden, CT. We were playing the Flannery convention, in which 2♦ is used to show a hand with 11-15 high-card points, four spades, and five or more hearts. I have posted a write-up of this hand here. It is the hand that starts after the horizontal line. Diane was LHO. Marvin was RHO.
In 2023 Diane was still a member of the ACBL, but she had not earned any masterpoints all year. Her address on the roster was Vero Beach, FL.
I am pretty sure that we played against the Palmer team in the semifinals. I know all of the people on Don Caplin’s team, and I don’t remember playing them.
Playing with Estelle Margolin from Rego Park, NY, was a real treat for me. She had a lot more points than I did when the Partnership Desk informed my teammates from the HBC, Sally Kirtley and Jeanne Striefler, that she was the only person who was available to play with us in a compact knockout event in Cromwell in 2015.
I was delighted to discover that I had long ago written up and posted details of this event here. It is a pretty long article; just search for “Estelle”.
Estelle was still playing in 2023. She had amassed over 5,600 masterpoints and was a Diamond Life Master.
I must have played as the partner of Esther Watstein at a sectional tournament, but I do not remember the occasion. I do remember playing against her a few times.
I have had many contacts with Esther on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Bridge Association (CBA). She served two terms as president. I was just a representative or an at-large member. Esther is still active as a member of the CBA’s Communications Committee. She also still plays regularly at sectional events, but since the Pandemic I don’t think that she has played outside of the state.
Greg Winkler was from Australia. He lived in Centerville, MA, which is very close to Hyannis, the site of the Senior Regional. The partnership person for the event was one of my regular partners, Ginny Iannini. Greg needed just a few points to make Life Master. I remember him as a very good card player who needed to learn more about bidding. He agreed with this assessment.
I think that I must have played with him more than once. I remember playing in a team event in which our teammates were Charlie Curley and Gene Flynn. I don’t remember how we did.
My other recollection is that after playing in afternoon session in Mansfield, MA, Greg wanted to play in the evening side game. Evidently he just needed a fraction of a point to attain Life Master status. I had to pass; Because I was very tired, I would have made a poor partner anyway. He played with Marcia West and got the points that he needed.
The next year at the tournament in Hyannis I was scheduled to play with Greg a third time. He had been on a vacation, but he promised me that he would be able to play that day. When he had not arrived, I tried to call him, but I got no answer. Ginny was able to find a partner for me, as is explained in the next section.
After this I had no further contact with Greg.
Greg was extremely sociable. He called all the women “love” and al the guys “mate”. I remember that at one tournament someone fell or suffered some other kind of accident. Greg rushed to his/her aid. I did not; I figured that I would likely be in the way of people who knew what they were doing..
I was surprised to discover that in 2023 Greg had almost as many masterpoints as I did, and he earned a lot more throughout the year. Since he has not been at tournaments, he must have been playing online. Although he has almost the same number of points as I had at the time, he was only a Silver Life Master in late 2023. He probably failed to meet the number of gold points required for subsequent ranks.
On the morning that Greg Winkler stood me up in Hyannis (described above) Lynda Flanger of Mayfield, NY, was looking for a partner in the A/X Swiss. She must have already had teammates. I was the only person available.
We had a pretty enjoyable round playing together, but at that point I would have been a lot more comfortable playing in the Open Swiss that was being held at the same time in the Cape Cod Sectional that was going on at the same time in the same hotel.
Lynda died in September of 2022. Her obituary has been posted here. She was still an active member of the ACBL at the time of her death. Despite what the obituary said, she was actually a Sapphire Life Master with over 4,600 masterpoints.
I don’t remember exactly where I met Charlie Curley. I played against him several times when his regular partner was Mike Colburn an actuary who lived in Simsbury, CT.2 They were the top qualifying team for the North American Pairs (NAP) in both 2010 and 2011. They also were the other pair in the epic five-person team that I successfully captained in the sectional in Auburn, MA, that was described here.
I invited Charlie to play on our team in the Mini-Spingold event in Washington, DC, that I described here. At that tournament I somehow lost my red and blue Barça hat. When Charlie and his wife took a vacation to Barcelona, he bought a replacement for me and gave it to me at a subsequent tournament. I was suitably touched.
Charlie won a few D25 tournaments. When I wrote him to request a photo of him with or without his partner, he advised me to just use a photo of Cary Grant. By the way, he also insisted on being called Handsome Charlie Curley.
I only played with Charlie once. It was at a sectional in Auburn, MA. Charlie told me that he had read many of Marty Bergen’s books and pamphlets and suggested that we should just go by his approach. That was OK with me, although it was the only time that I have ever played “Serious 3NT”.
Our round was scuttled by one unfortunate hand. I opened 1♣. Charlie responded 2♥. I interpreted this as a jump-shift, which we were playing as weak (except for Bergen raises). Charlie thought that he was making a standard 2/1 response. Evidently the Bergen books that he had read did not cover this situation.
Charlie owned his own business. During much of our association he was going through the agony of trying to sell it. I commiserated with him. At that point I had already given up on selling TSI (described here). I am pretty sure that in the end, however, Charlie was able to close his deal.
Charlie was still active in the ACBL in 2023. He was closing in on Gold Life Master. However, he has not attended any D25 tournaments since 2018.
I met Tucker Merritt at the HBC, where he was a regular in the Tuesday evening game when I started playing there in 2008. I never played with him at the HBC, but for some reason Tom Gerchman set me up to play with Tucker in a team game in a sectional somewhere in District 3 while he played with Dan Finn or Terry Fair—I don’t remember which.
As usual, we had to meet very early in the morning at the office in Avon where Tom worked. I had to park my car in the open-air garage that was beneath the building. While we were driving to the tournament on the parkway named after one of Tucker’s ancestors I had to memorize Tucker’s convention card, which included a few things that I had never played. I seem to recollect that we played transfer overcalls for 1NT openers.
I think that we held our own in the event, which was a Swiss, perhaps limited to a certain number of points. I am not sure whether we did well enough to place in the overalls. I don’t remember any specifics of this adventure.
I never had a chance to play with Tucker again. He died in 2019. His obituary can be found here.
The partnership coordinator for one of the sectionals in Watertown set me up to play with LuciaEnica (loo CHEE ah) in the Open Pairs game on a Saturday. I corresponded with her by email to establish a convention card with which we both felt comfortable. She convinced me to play a practice game on Bridge Base Online. I was not at all familiar with the interface, and I found the entire experience unnerving. To me it was not bridge. I resolved never to do it again.3
We did not do too well in the event either. My only recollection of it was when I led the ace of a side suit and then the queen. Lucia did not understand that this sequence guaranteed that I also had the king, and she trumped it. She claimed that I was wrong about this, but I could not understand how she could think that I was so silly as to lead the ace from an AQ holding.
Lucia and I never played together as a pair, but we did team up at an equally unsatisfactory attempt to qualify for the Grand National Teams (GNT). My partner was Paul Burnham (introduced here). Hers was Lou DiOrio.
Lucia, who was a psychiatric nurse, was still very active in bridge in 2023, but she had moved to Washington, DC.
I played one session at a regional tournament with a novice player from Rhode Island named Bea Martini. It was probably at the pro-am game that was held in Warwick one year. I remember only that she was rather new to the game.
Bea was still a member of the ACBL in 2023. She amassed a few masterpoints in 2023, but she had not attended any D25 events since 2019. She also did not attend the NABC in Providence in the summer of 2022 even though she lived in East Providence.
I have known Mike Winterfield longer than any of my other partners. He was my first boss at my first job at the Hartford Life in 1972, as described here.
I have seen Mike at the HBC many times and played against him more than a few times. I am pretty sure that my wife Sue played as his partner a few times as well.
When he first started attending games at the club he often played with his wife Jane. She had health problems, an they had relationship problems. They eventually divorced, and she moved away. She died in 2016. I could not find an obituary.
My game with Mike was on a Saturday evening in a pro-am event in the regional tournament in Cromwell, CT, in February of 2016.
We did quite well in the event, finishing in sixth place (out of forty-eight pairs) with a 56.88 percent game, which was good enough for 1.99 masterpoints. I had a good time playing with him and thought that he had quite a bit of potential.
In 2023 Mike mostly played with Barbara Edelstein, who has been his partner for more than five years.
James (really Sun-Ming) Lee has played fairly regularly at the HBC for many years and was still playing pretty often in 2023 when I wrote this. In all of that time he has never really had a regular partner. Since the reopening he has played mostly with Y.C. Hsu.
I only played with him once. It was at the regional tournament in Cromwell. We both needed a partner, and so we paired up. I think that we played in a Mid-Flight pairs game. We did about average.
James has always had a reckless style of play. He loves to play in notrump contracts. He also has shown a propensity for underleading aces on defense.
His most recognizable feature was his posture at the table. He commonly rested his scorecard on his lap and crossed his legs at the knee. When he made any kind of a movement the scorecard would fall on the floor. After several years he had more or less perfected this so that it only happened once or twice per session.
I thoroughly enjoyed teaming up with Brenda Harvey at many tournaments, mostly regionals. My fondest memory is the evening when she, her partner Robert Klopp, and I and my partner, Dick Benedict, celebrated at a restaurant in or near Nashua, NH, the day that she made Life Master.
I also enjoyed the one time that I played with her at a sectional in Hamden, but I don’t remember any details of the occasion.
Brenda moved to St. Augustine, FL. In 2023 she was still a member of the ACBL and played quite a bit.
I knew Pat Nye before I played with her in a game at the Cape. I think that we may have been teammates.
Before the round I disclosed to Pat that I regularly made OBAR BIDS (an acronym for “opponents bid and raise: balance in the direct seat”). I told her that if the opponents bid and raise a major suit, I would bid almost any five-card suit to prevent them from playing in an eight-card fit at the two level. However, when I did it, she raised my bid, and I went down. After the hand, she said, “Well, you warned me.”
In 2023 Pat was still a member of the ACBL, but she had not played in any tournaments since the reopening. On the other hand, the only tournaments that she attended before Covid-19 were on the Cape, and D25 has not sponsored any of those in the last two years.
I played against Tink Tysor, a former IBMer from New Hampshire. I knew how he played, and I thought that our styles would be quite compatible.
We finally played together in an Open Pairs game a year or so before the Pandemic. The result was a disaster, If we were not last, we were certainly close to that.
Tink was still a very active player in 2023.
Sally Kirtley.
I knew Sally Kirtley quite well from both the SBC and the HBC. She often played in both clubs with Jerry Hirsch (introduced here) as a partner. When her mother was still alive she also played with her. When Helen Pawlowski retired as Tournament Manager for D25, Sally replaced her.
Sally also has served as a director for both the HBC and the SBC since Covid-19 caused the mass shutdown. I have worked fairly closely with her at the SBC, and we were also (at least in theory) both members of the D25 Tournament Scheduling Committee.
George Bickford.
I think that Sally and I played together once or twice before the reopening. We definitely have played twice at regional tournaments in 2022 and 2023. We did not do well in the Open Pairs. Part of the problem was that, as Tournament Manager, she was distracted by administrative aspects of the tournament.
Sally was an attorney, and she was still practicing in the same law firm as her husband, George Bickford, who has shown up for bridge in at least one emergency.
Paul Pearson, more than anyone else, helped me get started with bridge in the twenty-first century. That story has been posted here. I often communicated with him via email when I encountered difficulties, especially in the area of competitive bidding. Paul understood the Law of Total Tricks (LAW) quite well, and he directed me to sources that explained its complexity. This knowledge stood me in very good stead against players at the lower levels.
Paul and me in Warwick.
After that I played against him and his primary partner, Laurie Robbins, many times, but I don’t think that I ever played with Paul at either the SBC or the HBC. Our first pairing was in a Swiss event at a sectional tournament in Hamden. Our teammates were two people from the HBC, Joan Brault (introduced here) and Michele (mee KAY lay or Mike) Raviele. I think that we had a pretty good result, but Paul did not like the way that Mike bid one hand.
Our greatest success, however, was at the Ocean State Regional in Warwick, RI, in 2015. We played in the ABC Pairs and finished fifth out of thirty-eight pairs and won both the B and C flights. The reason that the results sheet at right says that it was “Based on 67 Tables” was because there were an additional 38 tables in the Gold Rush.
We hoped to defend our crowns in the same event in 2016, but I had a commitment to play in a two-day knockout that started on the previous day. Paul died of cancer in December of 2016. Shortly thereafter Paul’s wife Sue contacted me about donating Paul’s bridge books. I kept a few and gave the rest of them to the HBC.
Paul had been a programmer longer than I had. In his day they coded in assembler. He also had a great interest in orienteering. Paul died in 2016. His obituary can be found here.
I played one two-session game with Geoff Phipps, a Platinum Life Master, in Honolulu after Ann Hudson had said that she did not want to play with me any more. It was only a little short of a miracle that he was available. He probably would not have agreed to play with me if I was not already familiar with a large set of conventions that Geoff and Randy Johnson used.
My game with Geoff has been described in some detail here. What I did not know at the time was that a photographer was taking photos of the playing area and that one of those photos would be used on the cover of a book by Bill Treble. I was front and center, but Geoff was not included.
Geoff lived most of his life in New Hampshire, but he moved to Bluffton, SC, at some point. Nevertheless he returned for the 2023 edition of the Granite State Getaway in Nashua.
Sabrina approved this photo of herself and Darryl Legassie.
Bridge in New England has a diverse population. There are two exceptions, however. The first is that old people are disproportionately represented. The second is the shocking lack of representation of Black people. Sabrina Miles was unquestionably the most successful Black bridge player in New England during my association with the game.
I played with her for only one two-session game at a district tournament in (I think) Warwick. We had planned to spend a half hour going over our card before the game, but she got involved in a conversation with someone. I remember that we had a very bad score in the first session. Although I had thought that the second was just as bad, we actually did much better.
Sabrina won several regional events. She did not like the photo that I had used of her and asked me to take another. I agreed, and from that point forward I used that photo. She was the only person who made such a request.
Sabrina lived in Mansfield, MA. She served as the partnership person at tournaments held there several times. She set me up for very pleasant games with the next two entries.
Sabrina was still an active participant in D25 events in 2023.
I enjoyed the preparation session with Ru Terajewicz as much as I did the round. The things that she insisted that we go over before the first session were very well chosen. I already knew how (at least in New England) the best players bid with a six-card major in the fourth seat. Ru, who was (and still is in 2023) an accomplished teacher explained how to handle a seven-card suit in that situation.
That didn’t come up during the round. We both played well enough to score well, but it was not our day.
Although Ru moved to Ponte Vedra, FL, she has remained very active in bridge in 2023. However, we have not seen her in New England.
Me and Darryl.
The other fine player that Sabrina set me up with in Mansfield was Darryl Legassie, who had been Sabrina’s steady partner for several years. Darryl and I also played in the Open Pairs, but we seemed to click better than Ru and I had.
When the last card was played we finished sixth out of seventy-three pairs and first in Flight B. This was a really great result for two guys who had never really met before.
Darryl’s email address started with lorddarryl and in the “Prefix” field on his record on the ACBL I did not check his entry in Burke’s Peerage, but Darryl assured me that I need not use his chosen title when addressing him.
Darryl was still an active player in 2023, but he had not appeared in any regional tournaments in D25.
The only Grand Life Master with whom I have played was Mark Aquino. He was also elected Regional Director of Region 2 during the Pandemic. That meant that he was the only person representing D24 (NYC and Long Island) and D25 on the ACBL board.
Mark (right) won his first NABC championship with Shome Mukherjee.
Prior to that I worked with him closely when he was the head of the B’s Needs Committee, President of the New England Bridge Conference (NEBC), and then District Director. Mark was a consummate politician who knew how to work a room. This was quite rare in a bridge player. He also won the Individual tournament in Newton twice.
I have twice played with Mark. The first time was when he invited me to play in the evening side game at a regional tournament. I remember two hands. On one of them I made a lead-directing bid on a hand that the opponents had been bidding. Mark correctly deduced what I had and bid 3NT. The problem was that if the opponent on his left did not lead hearts, the suit that they had been bidding, he only had eight tricks. On the opening lead he chose a different suit. Mark, however, threw him in a little later, and he succumbed to the temptation and led hearts.
I do not remember the outcome of the other hand, but in that case Mark doubled for a lead. I complied, but he mildly chastised me for not leading the top of my KQJ sequence in a different suit.
Our score for the session was a little over 60 percent, which was good enough for second place.
My memorable round with Mark in Honolulu has been described here.
Bob Bertoni.
Bob Bertoni was known as the Grand Poobah of New England Bridge. He served as VP and then President of the NEBC. At the same time he was President of the Eastern Massachusetts Bridge Association (EMBA). He then ran for District Director against the incumbent, Mark Aquino, and won. He held that position and was running for Regional Director when he died in 2021. His obituary has been posted here.
Tuna Snider.
I may have met Bob in 1977 when I was coaching debate at the University of Michigan. Don Huprich, Stewart Mandel, and I made an epic journey to New England (described here) to participate in the tournament at Boston College and two other colleges. At the time Bob was attending BC on a debate scholarship. Bob’s coach, Tuna Snider, threw a party for some of the people at the tournament. We were invited, and we attended. We met some of the BC debaters; we might have met Bob, who was almost certainly in attendance.
Bob asked me to play with him three times. The first occasion was in the Open Pairs at a District 3 regional tournament in Danbury, CT. Bob was there to negotiate with the D3 officials concerning how much they would pay to District 25 to be able to use the Crowne Plaza hotel there for this tournament. He resolved the issue.
We finished above average in the bridge game. We might have won a point or two.
Our second game was when Bob was campaigning for District Director. He came down to Orange for a sectional and attend the U126 board meeting. We played in the Sunday Swiss together. I have forgotten who our teammates were. We played OK, but I think that our teammates let us down.
The last time that I played with Bob was at an EMBA sectional. Somehow he found himself without a partner. So, he asked me to drive to Watertown to play with him. I was more than happy to do so. We finished near the middle.
In 2018 I had the honor of chairing the committee to elect the winner of the Larry Weiss award. A detailed explanation of the criteria of the award has been posted here. Bob was the winner. In 2022 I talked the Executive Committee into retiring the award and presenting a new trophy called the Weiss-Bertoni award. As the most recent winner of the Larry Weiss award, I also chaired that committee. The details are posted here.
Bob was closely involved in the early years of my career as webmaster, database manager, and email manager for D25. That period is explored here.
I really miss Bob Bertoni. District 25 really needed his leadership after the reopening.
1. I took the name of this widely disparaged event as my nom de plume for the “View from B-low” columns that I wrote about my exploits in District 25 tournaments and elsewhere. They were posted on NEBridge.org. I have created an index for the ones that were still available in 2023 here.
2. Mike joined the HBC in 2010. He may have played at the club a few times, but I never saw him. He dropped his membership the next year. He never came to a game at the SBC. In 2023 he was still an active member of the ACBL, but he had not won any masterpoints in years. In fact, he would still be eligible for Flight C of the NAP. I seriously doubt that anyone has ever competed in the NABC finals of that event three times.
3. For the most part I have kept to this plan through 2023. I played online with Ken Leopold and Eric Vogel a few times in preparation for the online qualifying for the GNT. I played with my wife Sue a couple of times during the Pandemic. Other than that I only have signed on anonymously to BBO to play a few hands against the robots before games at the HBC.
Paul Pearson led me back tp the world’s greatest card game. Continue reading →
Between 1970—-when I left college—and 2003 the game of bridge was not really part of my life. However, every so often I thought about it and wondered how the game might have evolved. At the same time I was frustrated with my lack of friends locally. In fact, I really only had one, Tom Corcoran, and he was quite busy with his job and family. I wanted the opportunity to be around people with whom I could have intelligent conversations. The people at TSI sort of qualified, but I was the boss; it was difficult to become true friends with the employees.
Enrico Fermi High School.
I had already been taking classes in Italian at Enfield High School. These classes were sponsored by the town’s Continuing Education department. I enjoyed that experience, which is described here.
Twice a year the Enfield school systems mailed to its residents a flyer that described the offerings for the upcoming term. In the one for the classes beginning in January of 2004 I noticed that two bridge classes were being offered—one for beginners and one for those who had already taken the beginning class. Of course, I had not taken the beginning class yet, but I signed up for the latter one anyway. Unlike the Italian classes, this one was at Enfield’s newer and more convenient high school, Enrico Fermi1, less than a mile from my house and right on my usual jogging route.
I found this old photo of Paul giving the class at Fermi. I don’t recognize the seated lady.
At the first class I met the instructor, Paul Pearson, who at the time was, I seem to remember, a Bronze Life Master. There were six or eight others in the class—all couples. None was as serious as I was at getting back into the game. Paul was surprised to learn that I had played a little duplicate bridge2 thirty or so years earlier. I think that I may have played in one team match in the dorm at Michigan, too. The other students in Paul’s class wanted to be able to play with their friends or relatives once or twice a year. One couple even remarked that they did not need to learn how to keep score because their friends always kept score.
Paul used a pamphlet-sized book that explained how to bid using five-card major suits (hearts and spades). When I was learning to play the game people began the process of bidding by selecting their “best” suit, a somewhat amorphous way of combining length (number of cards in the suit), strength (Ace=4; King=3; Queen=2; Jack-1), and shortness (singletons, doubletons, and voids). In the modern approach bidding a major suit guaranteed—with almost no exceptions—at least five of the suit that was named in the opening bid. A-K-Q-J was no good; 6-5-4-3-2 was fine. The strength of the hand was measured separately. Minor suits and notrump had different rules.
In the sixties this rock-crusher might have been opened 2♦. The standard approach in 2021 recommends 2♣.
When I had learned to play bridge back in the sixties two-level bids were reserved for very strong hands. By 2000 most players in North America used all of these bids (except 2♣) to describe hands that were too weak to open at the one-level, but featured six cards in the bid suit.
By the time that I graduated from college in 1970 I had learned a different system, the Big Club promulgated by Howard Schenken. In this system all strong hands were opened with the lowest possible bid, 1♣. I considered this approach vastly superior to what everyone else was playing, and I felt certain that by the twenty-first century everyone would be using something similar. I was wrong. The only major changes to the basic requirements for standard bidding were the two that Paul taught us—five-card majors and weak two bids.
I later came to understand that most of the other holes in the standard bidding system that I had recognized when I was in college had been addressed by specific conventions. Whereas in the sixties most players thrived with only a couple of conventions, in the twenty-first century there were dozens of widely used conventions to choose from and several hundred exotic ones.
Enfield’s luxurious senior center.
I cannot remember too many details of what Paul actually taught us in class. He recognized that it was unrealistic to expect any of us to be competent at the game after only a few hours of lessons. My most vivid memory of the classes occurred once when Paul was not even present in the room. For some reason we had gathered at the Enfield Senior Center that week to play a few hands. My partner was Paul’s wife, Sue, who was also a Life Master. I don’t remember the opponents. Four of us played at card table in a small elegant room that had a functioning fireplace.
Paul had set up a few hands for the class to play that evening. On one of them I was the declarer. I remember exclaiming to anyone who would listen, “There’s an Endplay3 here, and it looks like it will work!” Sure enough, I deliberately allowed one of the opponents to capture a trick and thereby won two in return.
If North opened 1♣, East could use 2NT to show diamonds and hearts.
Paul encouraged us to read the Courant‘s daily bridge column. I recall that one of the answers to a bidding question that I encountered there was a 2NT bid that I did not understand at all. I asked about it in class. Paul explained that it was a convention known as the Unusual Notrump that allowed the player to show two five-card suits with just one bid. I was delighted to learn that there was such a marvelous invention. I remember telling Paul that I did not think that I could stop myself from using it.
I recalled that I had practiced back in the sixties using a contraption called Autobridge, which was endorsed and marketed by Charles Goren himself. I still had it when I took the class. However, it did not age well. The play of the hands was still instructive, but even someone who knew as little as I did could tell that the recommended bidding was not optimal.
Paul knew about Autobridge. He had used it himself back in the sixties. He said that there were now computerized systems that allowed the user to specify which set of conventions were being used—both by the player and his computerized partner and by the robotics opponents.
BB 29 is now available!
Several of these computer games were available for purchase. The one that Paul recommended, Bridge Baron, included literally thousands of hands that had been played at actual tournaments. You could compare your performance with that of the rest of the field. What a great idea!
I promptly purchased a copy of Bridge Baron 15 and installed it on my laptop. I used it to improve both my bidding and my play. I played every hand from every tournament—some of them multiple times. I also practiced the use of many new conventions in a special set of programs in BB 15 designed for that purpose. The best part was that I could use it in in the otherwise wasted hours that I spent in airports and on airplanes.
After classes I usually stayed around to talk with Paul for a few minutes. After our very last session I informed him that I felt that I needed to play some hands on a regular basis. He asked me if I just “wanted to pitch cards”? If so, there was a weekly game at the Senior Center. I said that I really wanted to play in a serious duplicate game even though I knew that I would be overmatched at first.
Eno Hall in Simsbury.
Paul said that the best games were at the Hartford Bridge Club, but that might not be a feasible option until I had a regular partner. He recommended the weekly Wednesday evening game in Simsbury, CT, which was about a thirty minute drive from Enfield. He said that the club’s director, Paula Beauchamp, guaranteed a partner for everyone who attended. If an odd number of people showed up, she would participate as partner of one of the attendees. Paul provided me with contact information for her.
He also informed me that most of the best players in the Hartford area were either actuaries or computer programmers. I told him that I had worked as an actuary for two years, and I had been a software developer for more than twenty. He told me that he had been a programmer, too, but he had learned to program using Assembler, which, as I understood it, was only one step above programming with a soldering iron.
I eagerly got in touch with Paula via email. I told her that I would like to play in her game at the SBC, but I needed a partner. I also noted that I was at that time taking Italian classes on Wednesday evenings. That spurred her curiosity. My last class would be in early May, a few weeks away. She sent me directions to Eno Hall and advice about where to park. A description of my experience that first night is posted here.
For several years I wrote to Paul whenever I encountered a puzzling bridge situation. That often happened when I began playing in the much tougher Tuesday evening games at the HBC and even more often when I began attending tournaments. Paul always answered my emails, and he always gave me good advice. He also warned me about some players at the HBC whose advice should definitely not be heeded.
Paul told me about a few approaches to bidding that I did not know from my earlier encounters with the game. He introduced me to the difficult (but absolutely critical) concept of the LAW of total tricks4. I later dug up the details on my own. I also learned that the Rule of 20 had more or less supplanted simple point counts for evaluating hands for the purpose of opening the bidding.
Over the years I played a few times with Paul Pearson both at the SBC and at tournaments. I remember that we played together in a Swiss at a Connecticut Sectional. Our teammates were Michele Raviele and Joan Brault.
The last time that I played with Paul was—by far—the best. We played together in the Open Pairs game at the Fiesta Regional in Warwick, RI, on Friday, September 4, 2015. The event had three strats, labeled A, B, and C. We were a C team, which meant that our total masterpoints placed us roughly in the bottom third of the participants. Fifty-eight teams participated. We finished fifth overall and ahead of all of the players in both the B strat and the C strat. The pairs that finished ahead of us had at least ten times as many masterpoints as we did.
We earned 13.39 masterpoints for one day’s work! I remember only two of the hands. They were against very good players who had doubled our contract. I had to declare both of them, and I made the bid both times. I can’t say that I made any brilliant or heroic plays, but I did not choke either.
My wife Sue took this photo of Paul and me after our epic game.
Paul invited me to play with him in the equivalent pairs game in 2016, but I had already committed to play in a team event on the same day. Paul died later that year. His obituary is here. My wife Sue and I attended his funeral at the Congregational Church at the corner of South Road and Route 5 in Enfield.
While I was still taking Paul’s classes or shortly thereafter I went to Barnes and Noble looking for books to help me try to catch up. The selection wasn’t great, which surprised me. The first three books that I bought were 100 Winning Duplicate Tips by Ron Klinger, an expert from Australia and two books by William S. Root—one on bidding conventions and the other on declarer play. I bought many more books over the years. The ones that I liked the best are listed here.
A few years after Paul died I received a telephone call from Sue Pearson. She told me that she wanted to donate Paul’s collection of bridge books. She said that someone at the HBC claimed that they did not have any room for more books. I assured her that I would find a good home for them.
I drove over to Sue’s house and picked up a duffel bag full of books. Ones that interested me that I had not read I put in my own library. A few I gave to my wife. The books that I already had in my own collection I brought to the HBC and placed on the shelves without asking permission. There was plenty of room for them.
1. In 2010 Enfield decided to consolidate its two high schools into one. This may have saved the town money. However, what never made sense to me was why the surviving school was Enfield High. Fermi was much newer, much nicer, and much more centrally located.It also had plenty of land available for expansion. Enfield High, on the other hand, was right next to the river, rather dumpy, and very close to the worst part of town. The explanation may be contained in a report of toxic chemicals found on the land surrounding the building, as is detailed here.
2. There are many varieties of bridge. The form that swept the world in the twentieth century and caused many people to flunk out of college was rubber bridge. The North-South pair plays against the East-West pair. The cards are shuffled, dealt, and played. The same deck is used for many hands. Usually, two decks are used so that one can be shuffled (“made” in bridge lingo) while the other is dealt. The details are described here. Duplicate bridge attempts to remove as much of the chance elements. The North-South team’s results are compared with other North-South teams playing the same cards. More details can be read here.
3. The Endplay derives its name from the fact that it usually occurs near the end of the hand. A better name is Throw-in Play. The Wikipedia write-up of the technique is here.
4. A man named Jean-René Vernes determined by researching a large number of hands that when both sides have approximately equal strength the total number of tricks available when each side plays in its longest suit is roughly equal to the number of trumps in those two suits. So, if one side’s longest suit contains eight hearts, and the opposing side’s longest suit has nine spades, the LAW predicts that there are seventeen tricks in the hand. If the first side can make nine tricks with hearts as trump, the other side can expect to take eight tricks with spades as trump.
Of course the law does not always work. Larry Cohen’s seminal work, To Bid or Not to Bid, lists three negative adjustments and three positive adjustments that encompass most exceptions.
A commonly used corollary to the LAW asserts that in a competitive auction each side should bid to the combined number of trumps held by both partners. So, if North-South suspect that they have eight spades, they should bid to at least 2♠ as quickly as possible. Many people thing that the corollary is the LAW. However, unlike the LAW, the corollary is an artifact of the way that duplicate bridge is scored. It is much more successful when the side using it is not vulnerable.
The first few days of our training were devoted mostly to administrative matters. We got our gear, found our platoon and our bunk, and had a few sessions with our drill sergeant to make sure that we knew how to stay out of serious trouble. There was a heavy emphasis on cleanliness. I have always been a slob, but I expected to need an attitude adjustment for a couple of years. The only part that really annoyed me was “policing the area” every morning. We all walked around the barracks and picked up trash, mostly cigarette butts discarded by the nicotine addicts who were enabled by the Army’s pricing at the PX: fifty-cents per pack.
Our chaplain resembled neither Fr. Mulcahy nor the Anabaptist chaplain in “Catch 22”.
The only formal teaching that I remember from those first few days was a lecture by the chaplain. He inveighed for close to an hour about cursing. He was, not too surprisingly, against it. He was especially appalled by expletives that involved mothers. He spoke tenderly about his own mother, and he asked all his listeners to bring to mind images of their mothers before they used any kind of rough language.
I have argued that the 1095 oration in Clermont by Pope Urban II that launched the First Crusade was the most successful ever in terms of results. This speech by the chaplain certainly would rank at the other end of the spectrum. In fact, it is very hard for me to imagine that there could possibly have been more cursing in our company in the next seven weeks than there actually was. Virtually every sentence out of anyone’s mouth was replete with imprecations. The word “fuckin'” was the most common, and it was an ongoing challenge to insert it in the most unlikely place in the sentence. Consider this masterpiece: “What bullshit have they got for us this after-fuckin’-noon?” “Mother” was added perhaps half of the time.
Everyone took aptitude tests during the first week. I remember five of them: math, English, listening to dots and dashes, mechanical aptitude, and language aptitude. I hated the mechanical aptitude test. They showed pictures of tools with no scale provided and asked what they could be used for. If the tool did not look familiar, you could not determine whether its length was two inches or ten feet.
My dad told me that he had scored so badly on a similar test in World War II that they accused him of cheating on the other tests. No one called me on my score, but it was definitely out of line with the others.
The English and math tests were scored like IQ tests—100 was average, 115 was one standard deviation higher, 130 was two standard deviations higher, etc. Together they are called the GT test. The top score was 160. I got 160 in English and 152 in math. I thought that I had answered all the math questions correctly, but I must have made a mistake or two.
The language aptitude test was limited to those with a certain minimum score on the English test. Around 20 percent of us qualified. The test presented a made-up language with a list of vocabulary and syntax rules. The language had no suffixes or prefixes, but it did have infixes that consisted of two or three letters somewhere in the middle of the word. They could change singular to plural, present to past, or anything that a prefix or suffix could denote in more familiar languages. I learned of infixes from the workbook for the linguistics class that I took at U-M earlier in the year. I enjoyed taking this test, but most guys spent a lot more time just looking dazed than answering any questions.
Afterwards, while we were waiting in place—which we often did—a sergeant called out an approximation of my name. He told me to report to a certain captain in the training building. The captain informed me that I had received the highest score on the language aptitude test that he had ever seen. He then asked if I would be interested in volunteering for the Army’s language school in Ft. Lewis, WA.
Ignoring the warning from my drill sergeant about the perils of volunteering, I told the captain that I would like to go to this school. I did not even question him about what languages they taught and what duties the people who learned them performed. I foolishly imagined myself as a translator attached to an embassy in an exotic location. Maybe I would prevent a war by avoiding the use of the inflammatory word “upstart”.
One of the first and most important things that our drill sergeant taught us was how to perform the role of fireguard. He showed us where the fire extinguisher was. He might have even shown how to use it. The most important thing was to wake everyone up if there was a fire.
My recollection is that lights went out at nine, and the day started at five. I might be off a little bit. During the lights-out period someone on each of the two floors of the barracks was required to be awake. There were four fireguard shifts every night lasting for two hours each. Because most guys were accustomed to staying up later than nine, the first shift was the most popular. I was accustomed to awakening early, and so when I had to stand watch I tried to get the last shift. The men on this shift bore the additional responsibility of waking everyone up, a task that I relished. My technique for getting everyone out of the sack was to walk up and down the center aisle banging two trash can lids together while singing “It’s another be good to mommy day” from the Captain Kangaroo show. You can listen to the official rendition here.
We began every day with physical training (PT). Mostly we did pushups and jogged. We also did the monkey bars and a few other exercises. I have always loved physical exertion, and this was one of my favorite aspects of Basic. I put on a little weight, but it was all muscle. At the end of training we had timed tests in all of the areas emphasized in PT. I did pretty well, especially in my weakest activity, the monkey bars. I had never been in better shape, and until I started running fairly seriously I did not reach that level again.
Everyone in our company was issued an M16, the rifle used in Vietnam. A high percentage of our training involved this rifle.
Here is how we learned that we should always refer to the M16 that we were allotted as a rifle or a weapon, never a gun: Each guy held the M16 in his right hand over his head. The left hand was on his crotch. Then we recited:
“This is my weapon” moves right hand up and down.
“This is my gun” moves left hand up and down.
“This is for fighting” moves right hand up and down.
“This is for fun” moves left hand up and down.
Before we learned how to fire the weapon, we were taught how to disassemble it and then put it back together. This is called “field stripping.” We were also taught how to clean it. This was very important. In those days M16’s had a bad reputation for jamming in the field. I don’t remember anyone in our company having trouble, but once we trained with another company that had a lot of jams. Every rifle that I saw jam was full of muck. Those guys must have never cleaned them.
This is definitely not the way that we were taught.
We got a fair amount of target practice. We were taught to keep the weapons “up and downrange”. It seems that most people now hold rifles with the barrel down. If it somehow fired in that position, the round would certainly ricochet off the ground in an unpredictable manner. If the rifle is held up, the bullet goes up. It will come down, but it will be traveling at terminal velocity, and the likelihood of hitting someone would be very low.
These rifles have no kick at all, and they are very accurate. I could consistently hit a human-sized silhouette at 300 meters, and I have terrible vision and coordination. I easily qualified when they scored us shooting at bullseye targets.
I have no recollection of anything going wrong with our rifles. Nobody shot himself in the foot. No one lost his weapon. However, there was one occasion in which I feared that my goose was cooked.
We were out in the pine woods for some reason, and we had a very long break. The ground was covered with pine needles. I had already finished the book that I was carrying. I decided to strip down my rifle and clean it. When I went to put it back together, I could not find the firing pin, which is metallic and looks like a nail and a spring that is part of the “fully automatic” feature that turns the M16 into a machine gun.
My kingdom for a firing pin!
Some guys helped me look for about fifteen minutes, but the thick cover of pine needles made finding the spring hopeless. Maybe my rifle was missing it when I got it; I would not have noticed. I could not understand why we could not find the firing pin, and the rifle would not fire without it.
The sergeant called us to “fall in” to formation for the march back. I was panic-stricken. My rifle would not work without the pin of course. I would be found out very soon, but at least we had no more shooting scheduled that day. I could not think of any way out of this that was not fraught with peril. I decided to wait until we got back to the barracks to decide what to do.
When I got undressed the firing pin fell out of my trousers. To this day I have no idea how it could possibly have gotten inside my pants (we had to blouse our trousers with cloth covered rubber bands) or how I could have failed to feel it. I was so relieved to find it that I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to work out the physics.
This episode says a lot about the mentality of trainees. How much could a firing pin cost? $5? Probably less; fifty years later one costs $8.99. Nevertheless, the idea of having to admit that I had lost such a thing was terrible to consider. I felt sure that I would have been browbeaten in private and probably humiliated in public.
After I put the firing pin in, the rifle worked fine as long as it was not switched into “rock and roll” mode, which we were never allowed to use. So, I was still in the clear until we had to turn in our weapons in the last week during the dreaded “white towel” test.
A sergeant sat at a desk with a stack of white towels. We all got busy wiping away every last speck of dirt or oil from our rifles. Finally a bold trainee sidled up to the desk with his stripped weapon laid out on a towel. I was waiting for this, but a handful of guys preceded me in line behind him. When the first guy reached the desk, the sergeant asked him if his weapon was clean. He paused, grinned a little, and then said, “I think so, sergeant.” The sergeant took a piece of the rifle, rubbed it on a towel, and made a smudge. Rejected. The next few guys made equally non-assertive responses to the sergeant’s initial queries, and their weapons were all rejected.
When he asked me if mine was clean, I loudly affirmed, “Yes, sergeant.” He replied, “Well, then turn the motherfucker in.” I quickly complied, and I felt a surge of relief.
A light bulb shone over the head of the guy behind me. When the sergeant asked him if his rifle was clean, he replied “Yes, sergeant” even more loudly than I did. The sergeant responded, “Well I guess I’ll be the judge of that, won’t I?” He quickly found a dirty spot and rejected the rifle.
After a few hours of this nonsense‐all of these weapons were already very clean‐everyone’s weapon was accepted, and the whole company was joyfully disarmed.
We carried our weapons with us everywhere except on PT excursions. We were actually lucky. The M16 was much lighter than its predecessor, the M14, because in several areas light-weight plastic replaced steel or wood.
Don’t stand behind someone with a LAW.
The coolest part of training was the afternoon that they showed off some of the Army’s other weapons. We got to see a light anti-tank weapon (not a bazooka!). An armored vehicle was out in the field 60 or 70 yards away. An instructor put the tube-like LAW on his shoulder, zeroed in on the vehicle, and pulled the trigger. A rocket ignited in the tube and then slowly made its way to the vehicle. When it got to the target, it burrowed through the armor and then exploded.
The M60 machine gun was also impressive. It had so little kick that the presenter put the stock right in his crotch and fired off a burst. It goes without saying that we maggots were not allowed to get our hands on either of these.
The only face-to-face combat training was in the use of the bayonet. We learned that you use the pointy end to stab someone. You can use the stock end to bludgeon someone. We then showed that we had absorbed this lesson by attacking some straw figures. They did not let us use real bayonets.
I assume that this technique would come in handy if you were by yourself and your rifle was lost, broken, or out of bullets AND you had an opponent who was in exactly the same position. This happens pretty often in the movies. Who knows about real life? All that I know is that my buddies and I are ready for it.
The other half of the bayonet training involved pugil sticks, which are about four feet long and, unlike bayonets, they have padding on both ends. The trainers paired us up with someone about the same size. My opponent was the guy who played the country music station on his radio every morning. He was a little bigger, but I, the dorkiest-looking guy in the company, was more highly motivated. To everyone’s surprise I pummeled him.
By and large our outdoor training was similar to what was shown in the movie Stripes. There was one major exception. There was no obstacle course and, therefore, there was no tower in which our drill sergeant to climb and get blown up in.
Instead we went out after dark one night to a field that we had to crawl across with our rifles across our arms. Barbed wires were strung a couple of feet over our heads. At the far end trainers were firing (allegedly) live ammunition, including tracer rounds, a little higher than the barbed wire. To my knowledge, nobody in our company got hurt. I don’t remember whether everyone completed the task or not. I doubt it.
We also had a few other classes. I remember an outdoor class in which we were taught the rudiments of spotting different types of aircraft. What I learned from this class was that it was probably a good idea to save your ammunition for ground-based opponents.
There must have been others, but the only indoor class—aside from the insufferable chaplain’s lectures—that I remember was on map reading. I was astonished to discover that around half of the company was totally unfamiliar with the topic. For those of us who already knew how to read maps these classes were excruciating. I called them “nap reading”.
Several guys were indeed caught napping during indoor classes. Many had a difficult time adjusting to the routine of the routine of early lights-out and early wake-up calls. Also, the sergeants claimed that all trainees had a sleep button in their butts. Whenever they sat down they fell asleep.
Training was voluntary. The alternative every morning was to go on sick call. At the opening assembly, one of the sergeants would yell out “All sick, lame, and lazy report to …” A few guys tried this pretty often. I never asked them how it went.
I hated every minute of the experience, but Basic training had at least three beneficial effects on me. By the end I was in terrific shape. I learned that a moderate but consistent effort can produce a profound effect on your physical conditioning. I have never forgotten this.
Secondly, I got to know on fairly intimate terms some entirely different breeds of guys. To put it another way, the Army expanded my horizons. I don’t think it expanded them up, but any expansion helps.
Finally, I discovered that I was fairly gritty. I had a lot more endurance than most guys. I scored pretty high in the final physical training test. I more than held my own in most areas with guys that I would have thought were tougher than I was.
I was sitting West for this hand, which was the last one played on a Saturday afternoon.
My partner opened 2♠ with what is a typical collection for him in the first seat at favorable vulnerability. I doubt that many of the other South’s bid 3♥, but the player at our table did. I anticipated that she would have much better hearts, which made me think that my king would be working. On the other hand, my diamond suit looked like three losers. I tempered my ambitions and bid a humble 3♠ to extend the preempt. North surprised me by bidding 4♥. The auction then came around to me. We definitely had nine spades. South probably had at least six hearts. I figured the opponents for ten in all. That would give my partner a singleton, and even if he had two, my king would probably cover one. I decided on 4♠, which was the final contract.
In the first round I would have doubled with South’s hand. If she had done so, North probably would have played 4♥, and I would have let her. If my partner could find the magical club lead, we would earn 200 points on the hand. As it was, we lost 50. There were nineteen trumps (ten for them and nine for us) but only seventeen tricks (eight for them and nine for us). The LAW says that this is unlikely in the extreme.
I was not disappointed with my partner’s inability to find ten tricks. I was disappointed to see that we had four certain tricks on defense. So, I should have passed or doubled.
There are three negative adjustments to the LAW: Negative purity, negative fit, and negative shape. These factors result in some holdings being better for defense than for offense.
The most common problem is reportedly negative purity, which is usually identified with broken honor holdings, especially in the trump suit. It is certainly true that both sides have such holdings in their respective trump suits. However, they do not result in defensive advantages. North-South can win only one spade trick on defense, and East-West has no heart tricks if that suit is trump.
In fact, after the first lead the hand plays itself. If North is declaring in hearts, and East finds the killer lead of the 10, East-West gets one spade, one diamond, and three clubs. If East is declaring in spades, North-south gets one spade, one heart, two diamonds, and no clubs. Aside from the trump suit, these are exactly the same results on both offense and defense.
The actual problem for North-South is clearly the third factor, negative shape. The two hands have identical distributions, which means that their ten trumps are not worth as much as they appear. Notice what happens if North trades a low diamond to South for a low club. They gain a trick in both suits if they are declaring in hearts, but they do not gain anything on defense. Furthermore, if North trades a low club for a low diamond, the same effect occurs!
Larry Cohen addresses this problem in To Bid or Not to Bid:
Patterns to be especially wary of are 4-3-3-3 and 5-3-3-2. If your distribution is flat, it becomes statistically more likely that the other players also are flat. If everyone’s distribution is balanced, it often depresses the number of tricks. However, flat distribution does not negatively affect the trick count as often as minor-honor problems do.
East-West has a similar problem. West’s trumps would be more valuable if they could be used for ruffing, but West has fewer cards in no side suit. My only ruffing value was in partner’s shortest suit.
What can be learned from this hand? The main thing is to be very careful about using the LAW on a hand with flat distribution. In this case, however, It was the opponents’ distributions that upset my calculation more than my own. In retrospect I asked myself “How weird (in percentage terms) was the perfect mirror imaging of the opponents’ hands?”
Start with the heart suit. South overcalled at the three level. She cannot have a solid suit; the king is in my hand. When I saw North’s raise to four, it seemed quite likely that South must have six pieces. The most likely reason for choosing a suit over a double in this position is because of an inability to support one of the suits. To be conservative, let us say that the chance of each of them having five hearts is no more than 40%. This is extremely conservative. If nothing was known about either hand other than the fact that the opponents had ten hearts between them, the probability would be 31.18%.
What about the other suits? There is really no good indication available of how any might split, so let’s consider random distributions. The probability of one of the three-card suits splitting 3-3 (assuming hearts are 5-5) is 39.16%. The probability of the other three-card suit splitting 3-3 (assuming hearts are 5-5 and the other suit is 3-3) is 47.62%. Of course, if all three of these suits split evenly, the fourth must also. The probability of all four splitting evenly is therefore no more than 7.46% under very conservative assumptions.
