WE WILL HAVE BRIDGE ON NEW YEARS DAY!!

 PLEASE COME EARLY - 11:30,  

We will start bridge at 11:30 and break for Pizza at 12:15 or 12:30.  The pizza shop will not open until NOON>

I've ordered Mushroom, Vegetarian(or Plain) , Hawaiian, Pepperoni, and one white vegetable pizza(5 pizzas).  Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Iced Tea, Lemonade (I can't remember if I bought apple juice or not  Senior Moment, can't remember which pizzas I ordered either!) 

BRIDGE AND PIZZA  start at 11:30 and 12:15 respectively (might run a bit late getting started on Pizza)

As long as there is no rain storm or snow storm you will be driving home in daylight or dusk!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  HAPPY 2025!

YES WE WILL HAVE BRIDGE ON WEDNESDAY JANUARY 25

SUZANNE 

 Thursday Open Game 19 December 2024

What a fun holiday party we had today.  I am really happy to see 11 full tables!  25% of the points earned today will be gold points for this special game. Congratulations to Liz/Ted who won 1st place even though they are in the C strat! In fact Darrell/Suzanne, Jim/Ed, Linda/Nancy and Claire/Simone all placed in the money even though they are C Strat players.  It makes me very happy to see the newly developing players learning so much and doing so well.

There will be no game next week.  The following week I will be giving a lesson on Bergen raises starting at 11.



Wednesday 19 December 2024 - See you on January 1, 2025 for PIZZA!

 Wednesday 18 December 2024  We had a relaxing 5 full table Howell movement where we all played 18 boards.  Was a gorgeous day out and the heating crew at Centennial banged around and turned the heat up to 80 Deg F to test the system on the last round of our hands..  Thank Heavens everybody had left!  Its Hot.

The Team that came in first was Hildy and Paul, followed by Dave and Jack.  Next were Penny and Rick followed by Jane and Jan!  Congratulations to you all! You all are winners and we had a great time.  Thank you all for coming today. 

See you On January 1st 2025 for a Pizza Party.  Please show up at 11:30.  We already have 3 and a half tables.  



 Tuesday 17 December 2024

We had our last lesson on finesses in Adv Beginners and another lesson on strong 2 club opens and responses.  Next time, (January 7th!!!) we will start Consider the Order in Advanced Beginners and Ace asking in Beginners. (Blackwood and 1430 RKC)  We will not have a lesson on December 24th or December 31st, so out next lesson day is January 7th!  Have a great Holiday Season!!!

Save the date of March 8th if you are interested in another "Bridge Boot Camp."  The cost will be $15/person and it will be run the same as the last ones were were discussion of 27 boards or from 10 AM until 4 PM, if we don't get to them all.  March 8th, 2025---Save the Date.  I will get more info to you and ask for more as the day approaches.

After the lessons, we had PIZZA!! and soda provided by the club.  Thanks so mush to Sue Hills for going to get the pizza and providing other items (like cookies!) and to the Cullys, the Kingsburys, and David Rollins for bringing stuff  to round out the fun.  Thanks for letting me lead a round of Jingle Bells as I had fun!

We started with 6.5 tables, but someone had to leave due to illness.  Rather than continue play with two sit-outs, we restarted and only played 6 rounds of two.  It was a bit hectic, but we all managed to have a good time!  See you NEXT YEAR!!! ----Carl




Climate Fact: Although the Winter Solstice on December 21st is the shortest day of the year, the sun has already begun to set later. The earliest sunset of the year in New England was actually December 9th. 

On Wednesday we will discuss adjusting our time. But I just found out its a bit late! LOL!

 It's going to be a Pizza Christmas Party on Tuesday!

All of the feedback I got was positive, so please plan to finish about half an hour later on Tuesday as we enjoy our Christmas Pizza between the lesson and the game.  See you then!  ---Carl

 Beginner Bridge Christmas Pizza Party on Tuesday Dec 17?

Skip has offered for the club to pay for pizza on Tuesday if we want to have it.  It will mean finishing about 3:30-3:45 instead of 3:00-3:15,  Please email me (cvwikstrom@gmail.com) with your opinion as to whether we should do it. ---Carl


 Thursday Open Game 12 December 2024

Do not forget to come to the Christmas party next week at 11:00 for free pizza. There will also be 25% gold points, but no lesson.

Thanks for a smoothly running 8 table Howell movement today. Congratulations to Susan/Nancy for first in the A strat, Nancy/Bill for first in the B and C strat and also Barbara and John for second place in the C strat. There were some tough bids and we needed to balance in the 4th seat a couple of times.





11 December 2024 - Very Rainy Day - Finally

 11 December 2024 - We had a 5 table Howell Movement where everyone played 3 hands a round. 

WE need to think about STARTING ON TIME.  It was dark when most of you got home.  We are not getting any younger and driving in the dark on a rainy (or snowy) evening is not something that we, who are developing cataracts need to do.  Next week we will vote on whether to start at 11:30 a.m., quit at 3 PM whether we have finished the movement or not.  There continues to be a couple of partnerships who play slow, even if I take away hands still I am not sure that it will be light when we go home. 

So Next week a vote!  Start earlier or quit at 3:30 period or both!

Today's winners were Rick and Penny with 61.57%, followed by Hildy and  Paul with 59.72%  and Wolfgang and Jim with a 58.33% and Bobbie and Sid with a 56%.  You all did very well and it was fun for the director to play a couple of hands!

Thank you for coming.  See you next week

Suzanne



 Tuesday 10 December 2024

We continued our lessons on Play of the Hand in advanced beginners bridge, covering different types of finesses when missing the queen. In beginners lessons, we discussed when to open 2 Clubs and how to respond.  We will continue on both of those topics next week.  There will be lessons next week, but no lessons on 12/24 or 12/31. 

We had 5 full tables in the pupil game. The winners this week were Elizabeth B and Jean L with 60.25%!! Second place went to John Burnap and Joan Nickell with a very nice 57.31%.  I had a great time as I could freely direct without playing.  Thanks to all of the players who partnered up this week!  I think we had at least 3 pairs made up of players whose regular partner wasn't in attendance.  See you all next week!



5 December 2024 - North Hampton ACBL Charity Game

 5 December 2024 - Lightly snowing and we had a robust 5.5 table game with a Howell movement.  

I just typed in all the hands for 24 boards that you played.  Sorry for the delay.  Also I added one late score on Board 3 for Hornbeck v Hornbeck.

I believe that yesterday is still the Nancy's day!  

Suzanne

Here are the results:















4 December 2024 North Hampton Fun Bridge

  4 December 2024 North Hampton Fun Bridge

Today we had 5 and a half tables and we played 7 rounds with a pair who had to sit out for 3 hands.  The light was weird and you could tell its winter.  You all did well. Everybody had a good time and Jan had to play with me, who was distracted the whole day, and brought Jan's play to the bottom.  Sorry Jan!  Hope you will come back!  First place as frequently happens were Jillian and Janet with a 65.18%, followed by Bobbie and Sid with a 62.24%, Dave and Jack came in third with a 61.01%, and to round out in fourth place were Audrey and  Colleen with 57.06%.

Thank you all for playing and helping take stuff down.  Somehow I must have jammed a finger cause my hand is not working!  

See you all next week!

Suzanne



3 December 2024 Review of Pre-emptive Bids and Responses, and Responses to No Trump Openings.

 3 December 2024 Pre-Emptive Bids  (Plenty of material in this alone!)

This review was led by Suzanne.   We started the review lesson  of Opening 2 Preempts, 3 premempts, and Gary Terhune asked a prescinet question ("how can a preempt at 4" be WEAK??)  Good question  it is to stop opponents from bidding 4 at their suit?  I do not know how its weak?   Ask Carl! I'd like to know)  BTW  we want to thank Melissa for the scrumpuous sott caramels (what dentist is she related to?  Just kidding, these caramels were soft and goey.  and YUMMY!).  Thank you!  Some of us had never had a carmel??

We started at 11 a.m. with a review of Preempts, and then played 3 hands that were reviews of NT openings, Preempt openings and ? openings(overcalls).  These took 55 minutes.  We  then took a 10 minute break at noon and started the game at 12:10.    Because two people had more than the 5 Master Points (Suzanne and Herb) ACBL disallowed the pairs with a NE (Not Eligible)  and we could not earn Master points.

We had a 4 table Howell movement with 4 sets of boards a round.   Table 1 and 2 shared a set of boards.  You all did very well.  However there is always someone that comes in first, and today it was with Dave and Gary with 60.05%, with Lyndon and Charles coming in second with 57.55% , followed by Melissa and Chris with 52.22 %.   Wow  Lyndon and Charles are two of our newest members! congratulations!  We closed shop at 3:15 since another 4 hands might have taken us to 4:15pm. ( In a "Sanctioned" open game each hand is estimated at 12 minutes, with a few minutes to change tables.  So 4 hands would take 48 minutes, but we are a bit slower- don't be surprised if you go to an Open game that they will hurry you through!!) 

There was an interesting hand, board 13 where East opened 2 CLUBS.  In 2 partnerships West replied 2 Hearts. East, not knowing what that meant, East went to 2 NT at which point west went to 3 Hearts.  One Partnership opened 2 Clubs, West did the standard 2 Diamonds that Dave taught (There are at least 3 different responses available depending upon PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT(something you will hear about frequently).  After 2 Diamonds by West, East bid 2 NT and west bid 3 diamonds transferring East to Hearts.  Then West went to 4 hearts.  I believe all partnerships made 6 hearts, and one partnership made 6 NT, but bid only 3 NT.  

There are no standard  hand records for 22, 23, and 24.  I think Carl had only made up 21 hand records, but the game called for 24, so 3 Unrecorded boards were played.  ( I added the last 3 hands but not with the possible contracts).  Thank you Dianne for coming back to our game after the unsettling game you had when our First director retired after 25 years to the great surprise, and upset to all of us. We are so happy you tried us again!. 

Hope you had a good time! I did!

Suzanne