Thursday Open Game 26 September 2024

Wow we had 10 full tables today! It was very nice to see Bev Conway and Kathy Larnard here today for the first time.  They even ended up winning our Unit Championship game NS. Another women's team Susan and Nancy won EW. Other C strat players Jim & Ed and Mary & Andi also did very well coming in first in the B strat. 

 25 September 2024, Fun game! Exactly 3 months until the Christmas Holiday. It was cool and overcast! We played 5.5 tables 8 rounds and 21 boards with 1 sit out and missing 3 hands.  The top 5-6 pairs kept bumping each other off the top (Hey this is not bumper cars!  It's bridge) You all did well. Sid brought the paper cups and Susanne brought the grapes!

The top pair for today was Susanne and Paul, followed closely by Jan and Jane then Jill and Janet, Bill and Jack. Sid and Bobbie almost caught up!  Hopefully you all had a good time!

Another ACBL rule that you are not familiar with is that all of you should play in tempo. That means no hesitation when someone puts a card down. Just play. It also means don't play too quickly (which I have a tendency to do).  Play in tempo!  Another ACBL regulation for our mini lesson!  The intent is not to let the declarer have any idea (or to perhaps fool them) where the high card in a finesse!

Hope you all had a good day and see you next week!

Suzanne 

 Tuesday 24 September 2024

We had 4.5 tables at the pupil game after our lessons on Balancing Seat Bidding (Advanced Beginner) and Stayman and Transfers (Beginners).  John S and Claire D tied for first with Jane G and Sue S. with 60.42 %!  Martha R and Bill Z tied for third with Christopher and Melissa at 56.25%!  Great game, people!

We also had a newcomer to bridge who played as my partner.  Welcome Kate Couillard!  Hope to see you back next week.

Next week we will talk about reverses in the Beginners lesson and 3rd or 4th seat opening in the Adv Beginners lesson.  See you nest week!  ---Carl

 Thursday Open Game 9 September 2024

It was nice to see Carole Poirier and Darrell Ford here today after being away for a while.  Bob & Carole were the magical partnership today for first place. I am impressed that a married pair came in second - Jim is really starting to learn this game!  Two C strat teams also placed - Darrell/Brent and Linda/Nancy.

Wednesday 18 September 2024  The most lovely of late summer days, one of our old friends, Cindy Trayers, who used to partner with Jane showed up to take up duplicate again. Jill and Janet also showed up after taking the summer off!   We had 6 and a half tables and played 2 boards a round for 9 or 10 rounds of a Howell movement  until it got to 3:15 and I sent everyone home to enjoy the last summery day!  Our winners were Jill and Janet followed closely by Susanne and Paul and Bill and Jack and Sherry and Margie and Jane and Jan for the top 5 slots.  You all did very well! Each team missed 6 hands, but most of you played 20 boards.

For some reason the blogger won't let me upload the file on my Windows computer.  It says the file is "phishing".  but my Chrome book, also identified "phishing" but I could override the block.

See you next week, and hope you enjoyed the sunshine!

Suzanne 

Will go home and try and figure out why.

Suzanne 

 Tuesday September, 17 2024

We had a lesson on Unusual 2NT in adv beginners lesson and on Jacoby 2NT in beginners.  Next week we will have a lesson on responses to 1NT openers without s flat hand in beginners. We will have a lesson on bidding in the 3rd, 4th and balancing seat in Adv. Beginners.

There were 4.5 tables in the pupil game. The winners today were Bill Z. and Martha R. with 65.6%!  Congrats!  Second place went to the Cullys and third went to Mary Lynn and Claire.  See you all next week! --Carl

 Thursday Open Game 12 September 2024

It was great for us to meet Nancy Pierce's sister Joan Lewis and her husband Robert Hopkins today.  We had a very nice 7-1/2 table Howell Movement for our International Fundraiser game. I understand that this is David's 4th first place finish including our games and those at the Monday Great Bay club.  He is definitely starting to learn this game!

Next week's lesson will be on leads and frozen suits.

 Wednesday 11 September 2023  - What a gorgeous fall day!  We were fortunate to get 5 full tables, and played a 9 round Howell movement with 3 hands a round where everybody played everybody else! The competition was very tight and all of you seemed to be in each rank at one time or the other.  The final ranking is in First place is Marion and Cynthia, followed nip and tuck by Sid and Bobby, then the Mahoneys tide with Bill and Jack.The Top 6 teams were less than 6% points different! Once again we had a tie today!  Sorry I messed up the scores.  On round 8 I fixed a score (EW sat NS for one hand) and it screwed up the bridgemates through the end of the day.

Today we had four single show up!  Please do come by when you want to play even without a partner. I think they did very well for picking up with someone other than their usual partner. We welcome all comers.  Don't be afraid to come without a partner.

Thank you all for coming.

Suzanne

PS  Please do not throw the mechanical pencils out when they run out of lead. We can easily add lead to the pencils. We had over 50 pencils at beginning of summer. We are running low and I found one in the trash this afternoon, Sept 11.

 Tuesday 10 September 2024

We had a lesson on Michaels cue bid in the advanced beginners lesson and a lesson on bidding and responding to an open of one of a major in the beginners lesson.  We had 4.5 tables in the Pupil Game and a new member, Cristina Gaynor (Welcome Cristina!!) who played with her friend Harriet Petrulio and finished second!  She has played some bridge in Europe, but is learning the Standard American system that we teach.  First place went to John Safford and Betty Lewis with a whopping 73.96%!! Congrats John and Betty!

Next week we will address Unusual NT in adv beginners lesson and Jacoby 2NT in the beginners lesson.  See you next week!  --Carl

 Thursday Open Game 5 September 2024

Today we had a special game with upgraded points for our 6 Table Howell.  Please note that 4 C strat players all ended in the top 3 positions - David/Peter, Brent and Andi.   You guys are really learning this game.

I fixed boards 1, 7 and 19 which were not correct. These changed the final results.

 4 September 2024 - We had a lovely 5 table 9 round  27 hand Howell movement where everyone played everyone else!  VP Harris was down the road at the Brewery so people were inconvienced getting here and we played until 4pm so we missed the traffic at the end, but saw about 20 Yellow Yankee buses and NH State troopers outside.

We had a new player, Wolfgang Harder from Exeter, who played with Jim Nay another New comer from last week.  They did very well coming in  second after first place finishers Audrey and Carolyn.  Followed by Muriel and Paul, then Dave and Jane.    Congratulations to you all!  You did very well!

See most of you next Wednesday!  Have a good week!

Suzanne

3 September 2024 - a Lovely pleasant late summer day we had 4 full tables for our game after the lesson on No Trump openings and replies with "flat" hands (no long or short suit).

On this first Tuesday in September we had 3 hands that made small slams.  Two of them were bid once or twice.  There was a 6 Heart Hand, a 6 NT Hand and  6 Diamond Hand(#9)   The Hands were #8 making 6 spades E-W.   Hand #17 making all sorts of 6 EW, and Hand #20.  Perhaps Carl can discuss how to bid them in this blog.

Our winners today were Sue and Martha with an astounding 70%(revised to 69%), who bid one of the slams.  Followed closely by Guil and Bob and Jean and Elizabeth.  There was a lot of friendly rivalry and you all did very well.

Thank you for allowing me to run the game while your esteemed teacher was away.  Next week Advanced lessons will resume at 10 AM.  

REMEMBER  NO ONE IS allowed to play without attending one of the lessons.  This is a requirement of ACBL, Not Carl or Suzanne.  In order to give ACBL Master points in this session you need to be in a lesson for that day.

Your assistant teacher,

Suzanne.

Updated 4th of September

I had to revise the final scores on 3 hands so the new scores are Here: