please add Bob and Harold for Wed. Dec 4

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Please remove Diane and Lynne, Pat and Marcia from this Fri 12/6. Sorry - appt conflict?

Ilona has signed up correctly.

Pls add Stacy/Ilona for Fri., Dec 13. ?Thx. ?This is my 2nd request only b/c i am learning how 2 use the new method of signing up. ?My apologies, but hopefully going forward i get it right. ?

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Pls add Stacy/Ilona for Fri., Dec 13. ?Thx.

In order to be kind to those among us who prefer not to receive a flood of individual emails, players can sign up at the groups.io site on the hamdenbridge page. If you have joined the group, you should be able to get to the page easily enough. Click the appropriate tab for a New Topic. Above the text box there will be three rectangles. The top one says From, the second says Subject, and the third says -- Add Tags -- . After entering your subject, click on the arrow at the right of the Add Tags rectangle. That will present the menu of available tags - Analysis, Partner, Reservations, Results, Signup and Stats. Click the appropriate tag and it will be attached to your message.

Irene and Norma, for instance, could have added the hashtag for Signup after their two recent posts. Or Gloria, who is looking for a partner for Friday, could have made such a post with the hashtag for Partner.

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Please add Shelley and David for Friday, Dec.6th.

For the second Friday running, Board 20 provided a good grand slam that was never reached:

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……………碍10987632

……………蚕

……………闯73

……………蚕

蚕闯5………………………….惫辞颈诲

闯864…………………………碍109752

蚕109……………………….碍642

854…………………………..闯73

……………础4

……………础3

……………础85

……………础碍10962

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The room both did rather better than the previous week and got lucky as well. Six of the nine pairs reached 6S, where the 3-0 trump split, a 22% chance, prevented the overtrick.

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Were the hand sent to a bidding competition, 7NT would likely be the clear winner, with 7S close behind. North’s club queen is the secret ingredient pushing 7NT over the top. I could see 7NT’s being reached, but only in an auction on which North takes command. This is a fun illustration of the principle that asking sequences tend to do better if the hand with the third-round controls and the distribution does the asking, while the hand that’s mostly aces and kings does the answering. If, for instance, South were the dealer, the hand would be worth an opening 2C (I’d recommend following with 2NT, apologizing if partner puts down? xxx? xxx? xxx? xxxx.) That would make reaching 7NT plausible. After South’s 2NT rebid, North would expect sufficient support to make spades clearly trumps. North would show spades and ask for key cards; South’s 1-or-4 response would clearly indicate the four. North would not have to ask for the trump queen with ten expected trumps between the two hands and could ask for specific kings instead. Either the club or heart king with South would let North count thirteen tricks unless South’s ace-king were doubleton.

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With West dealing and North likely to begin with a pre-empt, South has an easy enough time asking, but has no plausible chance of being able to find the club queen, which would be required even to consider bidding 7NT.

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The board began with the first-time partnership of Gloria-June sitting N-S. June raised Gloria’s 3S opening bid directly to 6S. The pair survived East’s thinking that there had been some sort of failure to Alert a strong 3S. The sight of dummy put down calmed any potential dispute, and the lucky 3-0 trump split kept everyone in approximately good temper. The strange thing was that the auction was repeated verbatim at the next table, with Jevin N-S against Saranne.

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This was a great surprise to me. Astute readers will recall the infamous hand which will haunt Kevin in perpetuity, when their auction went 3H-5NT; 7H-P and Kevin held six top tricks in the side suits, making 7NT a claimer. This hand, from South’s point of view, cannot make such a conversion. But the shocking thing was that Jeff admitted he completely forgot about the possibility of using the Grand Slam Force.

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His reasoning for the immediate 6S was sound enough – asking for key cards would likely not find the necessary ingredients for the grand slam, and that the small slam ought to provide a sufficiently good score anyway. Their actual score of 5.5/8 matchpoints for bidding the small slam while three pairs stopped in game was about in line with Jevin’s overall percentage. The long-term risk-reward

based on what the other tables bid favoured bidding the grand slam by a modest amount, a ratio of about 62.4 to 55. That, however, might not be tempting enough in an individual game to make it worth the risk, especially in the second round of the game that had begun with a good first round.

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While the South hand is not good enough to be able to convert 7S to 7NT on its own, it can expect that 7S will be a worthwhile spot opposite the minimum? KQJxxxx? xx? xx? xx. If the opening lead is an expected trump, then declarer can trump two clubs, bringing in the suit on a 4-1 or 3-2 split (96%). If North’s club holding is a singleton, the chance of 3-3 or 4-2 clubs drops only to about 84% even if East finds a red-suit lead. Against a red-suit lead on the 7=2=2=2 pattern, there is still a better than 70% chance of making, given the good club spots. The suit can be brought home with one ruff after drawing trumps if the suit splits 3-2 or East holds a singleton quack, as South’s ten-nine spots will set up a ruffing finesse against West.

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Although South does not hold a void, the Grand Slam Force here has the advantage that, in the case of North’s actual trump holding, it’s easily found in the advanced version of the convention. After a 3S opening bid followed by 5NT, North can show the ace or king plus extra length with 6C. Knowing that the partnership holds ten spades with ace and king is good enough for South.

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Please add?

Please add George and Hank for 12/6 and 12/13

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