Thursday 25 April 2024

We had seven full tables in today's Stardust game and there was 25% GOLD awarded along with the well-earned Black MPs. Congratulations to Nancy and Sandy for getting first place and 1.52 Black and 0.51 GOLD Masterpoints.  Linda and John got second place and 1.07 Black and 0.36 GOLD.  I am glad we had four other pairs with GOLD.

It was a beautiful day in New Hampshire and thank you all for spending it with me.  Skip should be back next week for another fun day!  I look forward to hearing all about his trip to Portugal.

 Wednesday 24 April 2024 - Fun Game

Today we played a 5 and a half table Howell movement, where each pair played all the other pairs. We all played 24 boards.  It was a tight race with Sayer and Sulger inching out  the pair in Second Place,  Hennebury and Dickenson.  You all did a super job, with Jim Even attempting a 6 Diamond slam@ Kudos to Jim!  Everybody had a fun time and did a terrific job on this overcast late April day.

Your assistant director,

Suzanne

 Tuesday 23 April 2024

We had 6 tables for our pupil game after our special review of pre-emptive bids and responses. Congratulations to Sue and Martha for first place with 61.97% and Jean and Mary Lynn were right on their heels with a very good second place finish of 61.61%!

We are looking into having a separate day of just lessons and no competitive play and a sign-up sheet was circulated.  Right now it looks like our first session will be on a Saturday in May, either the 11 or the 25 at Centennial hall.  If you didn't get your name on the list, please email me at cvwikstrom@gmail.com if you are interested.

We will get back to the scheduled lessons next week.  See you then!!

 Thursday Open Game 18 April 2024

It was nice to see a few new faces here today. Congratulations once again to Donna/Peter who continue to perform great even though they are in the C strat.  Susan & Barbara came in first in the B strat and Suzanne & Simone took the honors in the C strat.

Carl will be the director next week while I am away.  He will be giving a lesson on Mexican 2D which is probably new to most of you. I plan to give a lesson on lebensohl followed by basic defense lessons. We will continue to have ACBL charity games during April which award more points;

 Wednesday 17 April 2024  Bridge FUN day & it was Sunny out

Today we had a full 6 table Howell movement where all but 3 couples got to play each other. The First place goes to Dave and Zelda!  Well done!  Next Penny and Rick, then Hildy and Margie and Mary Lynn and Claire We had a complaint that there were too many slam and 2 Club hands?  So we need to learn cue bidding?  You all did very well despite me hurrying you along.  I don't know if its better to hurry all of you along or tell someone to go home and then have a long sit out. 

Please when you sit down LOOK to see that you are in the correct direction.  We had a couple of hands that were NO PLAYS because the wrong people played them and it was not fair to their opponents or frankly the others in the group.

I hope you had a good time!  See you next week!

Your assistant director,

Suzanne

 Tuesday 16 April 2024

We had a bit lower attendance than usual today with 5 full tables in our pupil game and 1 student that was at the lesson only.  Due to all of the questions about pre-emptive bids, we will review weak 2's and 3's and responding to them next week.  

Our big winners today were Mary Lynn and Claire with 73.15 %!!  Second place went to Wynne and Betty with a very good 66.18%.  We will see you next week!

 Thursday Open Game 11 April 2023Gol

We had a nice 6-1/2 table game with some very strange hands.  We celebrated Carl's Gold Life Master rank with a cake since he just earned 2500 mps.

Paul & Maureen took the honors, followed closely by Nancy & Mary Ellen and Roger & Connie.  I was also very happy to see Yuni & Barbara earn 1.05 mps!

 Wednesday 10 April 2024  Fun Game

Today we had a 5 and a half table Howell movement  playing 8 rounds of 3 boards. that went fairly well.  Make sure when you put in the numbers you match N to S and E to W.  On table had N playing with E and S playing with W, other than that the day went fairly smoothly.  We had a couple of old friends drop by Christine Hoyler and Emily Creighton.  It was nice to see you again and we hope you will come back!

First, second and third places kept chasing each other today! Rick and Penny made the final cut, followed by Bobbie and Sic, and Mary Lynn and Claire from Tuesday's lessons, and Hildy and Carol.

You all did  very well!  Hope you had fun on this overcast coldish day.

For those who asked at the bottom of the schematic of the hands it shows what can be made. The par is what NS can make  Negative means its a EW game.

Your Assistant Director.

Suzanne

 Tuesday 9 April 2024 Pupil Game

We had a great time today with a 6 table, 18 board Mitchell movement.  It was decided by the director that we will be playing a Howell movement when we have less than 7 tables in the future so that no one plays the same opponents twice.   Suzanne and Ann won NS and Betty and Wynne won EW.  Next week will will talk about MINOR transfers.  Have a good week!

 Thursday Open Game 4 April 2024

Bridge is cancelled for today due to intermittent internet.  Stay safe.

 Wednesday 3 April 2024  Fun Bridge

Today while we were waiting for the enormous storm  that was forecast, we had a 5 table game using a Howell movement.  We welcome Chris Baker and Sharon Kaiser, two people who found our club! Thank you for coming!  It was a bit long since we all played all 27 hands.

The People who came in first were  Barb and Hildy, with  58% closely followed by Bobbie and Jim, Pat and Sherry and rounding up in 4th place were Marion and Cynthia!  Places 3 through 7 were very mobile, switching around all the time!

You are All WINNERS.

Thank you for coming to play on a miserable drizzly day!

Your assistant Director.   

Suzanne

 Tuesday 02 April 2024

We had our first official ACBL Pupil Game today.  Jane and Susan won NS and Betty and Suzanne won EW.  I am not sure when these fractional points will show up on your official ACBL record as pupil games are handled by email rather than uploaded online.  Please get you guest membership numbers befiore April 5, so that they will be in the database when I download it from the district

Next week our lesson will be about transferring with a good hand and Stayman responses to NT.  See you then !!

 Thursday Open Game 28 March 2024

We had a fine 5-1/2 table Howell movement today.  Everybody should note that two of our C strat teams came in first and second place.  Pat & Louise were in first place right up to the last round!

 Wednesday Fun Bridge 27 March 2024

Started out overcast finished bright and sunny!

We had a 4.5 table Howell movement with 8 rounds where each pair played 21 boards.   The winners were Jack Sulger and William Shipwreck (?)! with a 67% average.  Followed by Bobbi and Jim with 58%, Rick and Penny with 51% and as Penny said the 4th in the Olympics (Carol and Margie with 50%.  Very nicely done!  You all played very well and we all had a good time. 

Next week we will have a new visitor to our Fun Bridge game.  Chris Baker who played bridge in his teens and wants to take up the game. He has been taking lessons in Exeter and has a different playing style (2/1 and using Losing Trick Count rather than Standard American.)  I look forward to running the game again in April!

Your Assistant Director, Suzanne 

 

 Tuesday 26 March 2024

We had a great fun day today with Suzanne and I filling in to avoid a sit out.  Next time, we will not play and just go ahead and have a sit out so that we can concentrate more on giving advice.  Next week we will move to No Trump openings and responses for our lesson.  Please review you materials before Tuesday next week.

In our post lesson game, Jack Sulger and Walter Neff were our winners NS and the winners EW were Bob and Ann Cully with 70%!!

Sunday March 24 2024

 Tuesday Lesson is Back!  First some news from the NABC: I passed my Best Practices Certification assessment and Skip Page and I garnered 60 Gold Master points by finishing second in two team events and third in a pairs event.  

Unfortunately, I got sick with a terrible cough last Tuesday, which continued to worsen until I stopped playing bridge and rested in my hotel room until getting on the plane home today,  The good news is that I went to Urgent Care straight away and they tested for Covid and flu and both were negative (never had either, just a viral bronchial infection).  The even better news is that the Nurse Practitioner told me that I am no longer contagious so I can teach and play bridge!  She said I don't need to wear a mask, but I still will as I don't want to cough directly into anyone's face, even if I'm not contagious.

So I look forward to seeing all of you on Tuesday!  It turns out that I don't have to change my style a bit as I was alreay following the "Best Practices" approach.  See you Tuesday! --Carl

THURSDAY   21 MARCH 2024   NO BRIDGE TODAY  because of illness.  PLEASE CALL YOUR PARTNERS AND FRIENDS So that they don't have a long drive to show up to find the game cancelled. 

Have a free fun day.  With great apologies Your Assistant Director  Suzanne

 18-19 March 2024  The LESSON for March 19 is CANCELED  along with the supervised play due to sickness.

Please accept my apologies.  Please call anyone you know that might be planning to go to bridge on Tuesday and might not check the website.

Suzanne Sayer,  Substitute teacher and assistant Director.

 Thursday, March 14, 2024

We had a very smooth 4.5 table game with a minimum of director calls.  The biggest glitch was a failure of the director to put the proper number of boards per round on the clock, which was corrected buy the 3rd board, thanks to the heads-up by Paul Marquis!

 Congrats to Paul and Maureen for winning and to Roger-Connie and Barbara and Sue for tying for 2nd.

Skip and I will be in Louisville next week at the National Spring Tournament.  Suzanne will run the game and there will not be a lesson.  See you in two weeks!  ---Carl

 

 

 Wednesday 13 March 2024  A beautiful sunny day!

We had a fine 6 and a half table Howell movement where we played 27 boards - 9 rounds of 3, with a long sitout.   One pair left before the end of the game causing another pair to miss their boards.  This is not allowed.  If you need to leave early tell the director and we will attempt to accomodate you. 

People had a great time.  We had a new person to Wednesday bridge - Jack Sulger who played with Bobbi. With a Howell movement we only have one team that came in first since we move and play as many pair as we have time to.

Hildy and Margie came in first with 62% closely followed by Janet and Jill with 62%, and beginners luck(Smile) Bobbi and Jack came in 3rd.

You all did very well.

Your assistant director, Suzanne

 Tuesday 12 March 2024

We played 15 boards today with 7 full tables.  All seemed to have a good time.  In the future, I will try to stop the game between 2:30 and 3:00 so that all can do their Tuesday Afternoon errands and be able to tell their rides a reliable time to pick them up.

Winners today were Martha Rives and Jack Sulger NS and Melissa Vokey and Christopher Kalisch EW!

Congratulations!  Next week I will be in Louisville learning how to teach you.  Suzanne will give a lesson using the Dave Pepple notes.  See you in two weeks!

 Thursday Open Game 7 March 2024

We had a very nice 6 table Howell movement today.  Congratulations to Roslyn/Suzanne for a very fine game. Barbara/Sue also did very well.  Carl will be running this game next Thursday while I am away so there will be no lesson. The following week Carl and I will be at the ACBL Nationals in Louisville so Suzanne will be running all 3 games. There will be no lesson that week either.

Wednesday Fun Game 6 March 2024

A drizzly looking gray day.  We had a fine 6 table Howell movement with 7 rounds and each partnership played 27 hands.  We did not get out until about 4.  took a poll at the beginning and Y'all (I grew up in South?) decided y'all wanted to play 27 hands.

 Jim and Claire came in first with a 65% wonderful, followed closely by Cynthia and Marion, Jane and Bill, Pat and Sherry and Mary Lynn and Dave.

I hope you all had fun.

Your assistant Director.

Suzanne

 Tuesday 5 March 2024

When I compare my files to the actual boards, they don't seem to match the boards we played! So these comments may not be about the boards you played today.

Here are some comments on the first 6 boards and Board 22.  --Carl

 

 

 Tuesday 5 March 2024

Everyone seemed to like using boards instead of a lecture or a powerpoint presentation.   I did too!  I plan to do them that way whenever possible from now on. 

Next week's lesson will focus on the second bid from opener.  See you then!

NS winners in the fun game today were Herb and Ellen Kingsbury and EW winners were Wynne Griffin and Betty Lewis.  Congratulations!  

After looking at the actual boards, some of them do not match the files.  May have been a mix-up with some of the cards, so if the boards don't look like what you played, sorry about that.  As I will be making up my own boards and files in the future, it shouldn't happen again.

Quick reminder.  I will not be giving a lesson on 3/19, but Suzanne Sayer will!

I heard today that many are concerned that I want to change the Wednesday "fun" game into a sanctioned game. This is not true. Together we have evolved our club into a fun experience that meets many different needs. Carl is looking forward to running the Tuesday game with beginner lessons permanently, Suzanne is happy to run the Wednesday game and I will run the Thursday game with intermediate lessons.  This is our club so let's continue to make it a respectful place we can all enjoy.

Skip Page

Club Manager

 Thursday Open Game 29 February 2024

We had a big turn out for a very nice 8 table Howell movement today. I am happy to see so many of the faces I have not seen in a while.  Congratulations to Darrell/Brent for the big win today!

Sorry for the resubmissions. There was an error on board 14 and 15 which I corrected.  

 Wednesday Fun Game 28 February 2024  

We had a 6 Table Mitchell with 4 boards a round for 5 rounds. I heard a lot of laughing and the play was fun!  We finished early and were out by 2:30 PM.

Thank you all for coming.  The overall game was won by Jim Hornbeck with his partner D.

 Tuesday 27 February 2024

Here are my best guesses one the way the bidding SHOULD have gone.  If you have any questions or comments email me: cvwikstrom@gmail.com  ---Carl   

Just noticed that some of my formatting got lost in the posting on the website, so it may be difficult to know which bids are by which player.  I will try to fix that for next time.  

Also, some of you may not realize that the "Double Dummy" result is what the computer says  you can make if you can see where all the cards are.  Double Dummy is listed underneath the layout of the board.  For example, on Board 1, NS can make 3 Hearts. 4 Diamonds, 1 No Trump, EW can make 2 clubs or 1 Spade.  The best result (Par) for NS is shown to be 3 Hearts.

 Tuesday 27 February 2024

Had a great time withe my first lesson today!  I look forward to more lessons in the future.

Great to meet you all!  - Carl Wikstrom

 Hello EveryBody,

We are looking forward to see you and hope you will come to the Tuesday North Hampton Lesson, which will we taught by my colleague Carl.  We need as many people as can attend so that we can discuss which day of the week we will continue the basic lessons, and which day we will have an open free play game and which day we might want to have a ACBl  xxx  game (I am forgetting my words ) so xxx means sanctioned game.  Sorry I don't remember the word immediately.  I noticed a number of us can't always come up with the exact word, but we know what we are talking about anyway.

So PLEASE come to the lesson at the normal time (11 AM) on Tuesday and we will continue with responding to an Opening 1 bid. and then have some supervised play.

Dave is well.  he has taught at Centennial Hall for over 25 years with narry a missed game.  

See you Tuesday! and you can meet my colleague and friend Carl!

Suzanne

 Thursday Open Game 22 February 2022

We had a very fine 5 table Howell movement today even though there was a lot of noise with the construction.  Congratulations to Carl/Joyce with a very fine 60.3% game.  Gordon/Mary were first in the B strat and John/Nancy were first in the C strat.

You all have heard about the confusion we are experiencing with Dave's retirement. The good news is that Carl stepped up to run the Tuesday game and lesson next week and Suzanne will be running the Wednesday game so we will continue to offer a wide range of bridge games. We have stopped using the time clock at least for now.  I am away with my family this weekend visiting my parents in SC so I will not be back until late Tuesday evening. Have fun!

Carl Wikstrom will be teaching and directing next Tuesday's session.

Suzanne Sayer will be directing next Wednesday's fun game.

All the boards are already prepared and waiting for you.

Please be patient as we go through this sudden transition. Of course we will have some changes. We are going to stop using the time clock for now. We will use an easy Mitchell movement on Tuesday's game and our standard Howell movements for our Wednesday game (using table mats which tell you which table and direction to move to each round).  We will also be using standard scoring sheets since this reduces costs and saves a ton of time.  We will be using just one set of boards, In all movements the boards just move down one table each round. The price will be changing to $7 for every session. This will allow us to pay and incentivize the directors for their valuable time and knowledge.

Once again, I ask for your patience as we go through this change. We all love this game and working together we will find a way to make this work, so it is not too hard for any one person.

 Thursday Open Game 15 January 2024

 

Correction!  Because your director forgot to make a certain keystroke before uploading the results yesterday, the last three boards of Round 13 were not originally included.  When those boards are included, We have a new WINNER.  CONGRATULATIONS to Roger and Connie!!!  They won both the overall AND the B strat with a very nice 60%, now edging out Larry and Pam's 59.58%  Darrell and Brent still win the C strat.  Next time I run a game, your director will try to get all of the reporting tasks in order and completed.  See You NEXT TIME as a player!  -Carl

 

 

 Thursday Open Game 15 January 2024

Thanks to all who participated in the Thursday Open Game.  As a new director, I was glad that everything went smoothly, and the director calls were few and very polite.  I do appreciate the "Please" in "Director, please."  Congratulations to Pam and Larry for winning overall, Roger and Connie for B strat winners, and Darrell and Brent for the C strat victory.  I look forward to returning next week as a player! See you next week!

 Thursday 8 February we had a 4 Table Howell movement with 4 boards for each of 7 Rounds.  Unfortunately, we had to switch Roslyn and Dave with Roger and Connie to allow Connie to be stationary.   It took ACBL Hero  Brad to deconvolve the mess!  But he did it.  We did not use the 2 plays of boards 29 to 33, and replaced one of them with Average or average Plus.  the other one was not put into the bridgemate so we could not add the blanks?  really you can change a mistake but you can't add something correct??

Lots of people got litttle bitty points. Roslyn and Dave came in first, followed closely by Nick and Leo, Paul and Maureen and John and Nancy. all who got bitty points!  Well done!

Hope you had fun.  We had a new person Leo Gies play with Nick and they rounded out the people who earned MP.  Thank you all for coming to our game.  Next week Skip will continue with the intermediate lesson at 11.

your assistant director,  Suzanne

Please go to ACBL online to view the results.  I am not sure how to upload the files.

 Hello Bridge Players,

We had a pretty steady 4 table 4 hand a round duplicate bridge today finishing after 4 pm.  Our Plumbing was interrupted for about 30 minutes for the installation of a new Bathroom on the 3rd floor!  We had a new player - Leo Gies, and the return of Guil from SoCal.

Everyone did a good job and seemed to have a great time.  Unfortunately we got off to the wrong start, so 2 couples had to exchange places, and 2 couples played each other 2 times.  We had to add 4 new hands so that 2 other couples would not play those hands again.  Unfortunately,  The Bridgemate  software was not as accommodating as I expected it would be.  The 4 new hands were put in.  the 2 couples were switched, but the bridgemate was not happy with the 4 new hands.  A call will be placed to ACBL to see if we can fix the bridgemate to accept the change.  All the scores were tabulated but the bridgemate does not like some couples playing 8 hands and others just 2.  

If and when we can we will post the hands for the day

Thank you all for coming.  Next week Feb 15th we expect to continue the intermediate lessons.

Your assistant Director,

Suzanne 

Thursday Open Game 1 February 2024

You all did very well!  We celebrated Connie Fields birthday with Chocolate cake compliments of her partner Roger.  We enjoyed the company of a bridge player (Andi Axman) feom the Derry club. She and her partner, Mary got an itty  bitty point.  Winners of the day were Carl and Joyce.  Thank you for your patience in getting a new computer up and running for next week's Thursday game. There is no lesson next week.

Thank you for coming!  

Your assistant director, Suzanne  

 

 North Hampton Bridge Players!  We have an open game and Intermediate/Advanced lessons at 11 am sharp on this Thursday Feb 1, 2024.  Suzanne

 Thursday Open Game 25 January 2024

We were very happy to welcome Maureen Sheehan to our club today. It was also nice to see Paul Marquis, Sandra Larson, Larry Mann, Pam Robinson and Nancy Hornbeck who have not been frequent attendees. I think we all had a nice time and moved along promptly.

We played a 7 table Howell movement today. Carl/Joyce won the A strat, Paul/Maureen won the B strat and Darrell/Brent won the C strat. Today's lesson at 11 was on leads against suits.  The lesson next week will be on leads against NT contracts.

 Dave,

Skip has allowed 3 others into the blog.

 Thursday Open Game 18 January 2024

I was pleased to see Sandy Larson at our club today for the first time playing with Nancy Hornbeck.  We had a smoothly running 4-1/2 Table Howell movement with only 2 director calls.  We also finished on time using the round clock we had running.  Darrel/Brent finished first with a very fine 64.6% score.  Today they were in the B strat since they had over the 50 mp limit for the C strat.  Pat and Mary had a fine game today coming in first in the C strat.  This was their first time playing together.

 Thursday Open Game 11 January 2024

I was very happy to see the two new players from the Derry club - Gen Miller & Beverly Jo Snyder.  We had a 6-1/2 table Howell movement in this Stac game.  The results below will be changed once they are merged with the other tables in our district which also played these same hands.  Note that the stratification is dictated by the district for this game - C:0-500, B: 500-2000, A: 2000+.  Carl set up a timer today and we finished the game on time!  Thanks everyone.  

 Thursday Open Game 4 January 2024

Today we had a very nice 6 table Howell movement directed by Carl. Things went smoothly except for the 3 late plays which we decided to play, and did add extra work for the director.  Directors have a difficult time deciding how to run the game when some players are slower than the rest - we do not like to take boards away, but there are always some people who are anxious to see their results and get home.

Roslyn and Brent helped Roslyn make a grand exit with a big win before she heads down to Florida for the winter. Congratulations also to Roger/Connie for a first place B stratification win.  I am also happy to see Pat and Louise finish first in the C stratification and for Linda/Nancy to earn points before Linda heads south for the winter.

Thank you everyone for a fun day and a good start to the new year.