Thursday July 13 2025

We had 10 full tables today and Carl directed in Skip's absence.

Liz Van Hof and Ted McMichael won NS with 60.1%!! Congrats! (Nice to see C players do well!)  Bob Fogarty and Sandra Larson won EW. Second place NS went to Nancy Hornbeck and Claire I,  Second Place EW went to Nick T and Eddie S.

Skip should be back next week.  Thanks to all of your cooperation and sorry about the slow start as some of you are not in my database, so it took a little while to get it going.  See you in a couple of weeks.--Carl

 

 Wednesday Open Game 30 July 2025

Congratulations to Susanne and Paul for placing second in the East-West and fifth overall.  Today's game was a Club Championship so there are section and overall awards for everyone.  All the points are black.

Tuesday Beginner's Lesson on Doubles, and Rule of Nine

 Unfortunately,  My ACBL program would not open the Bridgemate Control program.  Here are the cards for each hand.  Today we had 5 full tables. Anne left since she had nobody to play with! and she did not want the first sit out! 

The lesson today was on "Take out" Doubles, and Negative Doubles both of which are done at the Earliest opportunity and require their partner to respond UNLESS the opponents interfere.  As was explained during the lesson, There are only numbers 1 to 7, 4 suits, pass, double and redouble to tell your partner what you have. Some Brillant bridge player in the past decided to use doubles for more than doubling the score.  So several doubles were invented.  You all seem to remember the "BIG double".  Two more were introduced today, the Takeout double, and the Negative double. You also had a review of the Rule of Nine, which occurs when your partner makes a Takeout double of the opponent's suit, and you have several of the suit that was doubled and few points. You add the number of the bid (2 diamonds let's say), you have 5 diamonds including the Jack and 10, which are considered "honors", so 2 +5 +2 are 9 so you leave the double in hoping to take down your opponent, and you've converted the Takeout double to a Penalty double.

So here are the cards that were in play.   You had some very interesting hands, where one person opened a one of a major and their partner had few points but 6 of the other major, for instance board 17

News Flash!  Kate and Connie told me they won Everything!  Congratulations Oh my goodness Mary Lynn and Claire as well as Claire and Sally said they came in first!  Congratulations to all of you!  Jan and Chris tied with John and Bill Swett for the top all male teams, while the Kingsbury's came in first as a married couple and Jean and John came in first as an unmarried couple.  Wynne and Betty came in first as the longest lasting partnership, while Judy and Harriet came in first as the Shortest time partnership.  Jane and Susan came in first as the partnership containing a student of Dave Pepple's and a student of Carl's !  So Many Firsts!  Congratulations to all of you  I got really confused, since without partnership numbers I could not tell who was supposed to play at a particular table.  

Sorry my computer can't find files today!

Skip will be teaching the lesson the first Tuesday in August! and the first lesson of the next session starts the second week in August with Carl starting all over again.  What is this Ground Hog Day? 

Suzanne 

 

 

 

 

 Thursday Open Game 24 July 2025

Wow, we had some crazy hands today for our 10 table full Mitchell movement today.  Congratulations to the Defoss couple and Pam/Skip for today's win.  Ellen/Nancy, Liz/Ted,  Joyce/Bill, Yuni/John and Barbara/Lori all took home 25% red points for today's NAP game.  I was told that the N/S pair had a void in their partner's bid suit 4 times!

Wednesday Open Game 23 July 2025

Congratulation so our C players Chris and Ron for their 65% game. Congratulations also to Sharon and Joe for placing North-South and to Anne and Sally for placing East-West. Today's game will be 25% Silver and 75% Black.  Thank you all for coming out.

 Tuesday July 22, 2025

We finished up our Defense lessons set today in advanced beginners and reviewed competitive bidding in beginners. There will NOT BE an ADVANCED BEGINNER'S LESSON next week.  There WILL BE a BEGINNER'S LESSON next week that Suzanne will run on takeout doubles.  Skip Page will run the beginner's lesson on August 5th.  I will return to start a NEW CYCLE on August 12.  THERE WILL NOT BE AN ADVANCED BEGINNER'S LESSON UNTIL AUGUST 12 WHEN WE WILL BEGIN A REVIEW OF THE 2/1 GAME FORCE SYSTEM.  In beginner's we will restart the cycle for new beginner's on August 12.

We had 5 full tables in the pupil game today.  The Kingsburys were the winners today with 61.81%, followed closely by Christopher K and Jan E with 60.42%. Sue and Martha finished 3rd with 55.56%.

Next week there will be no Advanced Beginner lesson, but the beginner's lesson on takeout doubles will be run by Suzanne.  See you August 12 ---Carl 

 

 Thursday Open Game 17 July 2025

We had a very nice RED HOT CHALLENGE 10 table Mitchell game today where the winners should earn 25% RED points.  We were very happy to see Alan Carpenter here for the first time playing with Ken Gminski.  The ranking was settled in the last round when Yuni/John played Ed/Jim at Table 1 and they each came in first place!  Other C strat players who finished in the money include Nancy/Linda, Alan/Ken and Pat/Gordon.

What do you think of board 21  where there were 10 spades in one direction and they could make 4S and their opponents had 11 diamonds in the opposite direction and one partnership made 5D?  That is really a lesson in the LAW of Total Tricks!

Thanks so much to Nancy Bates for bringing in the yummy brownies and also to whomever brought in the dippable spreads.  It was a very nice day.

 Wednesday Open Game 16 July 2025

Congrats to Carl and Cliff for winning North-South and Dave and Nancy for winning East-West.  Also congrats to our C players Judy and Carolyn, Lynn and Cate and John and Nancy for placing in the overalls.  If you are interested the scores in the ACBL portal will have the Qualifying results for the North American Pairs in this game.

 Tuesday 15 July 2025

We continued lessons on interfering with declarer in Advanced Beginner and had a lesson using Gerber in beginners.  Next week we will finish up the lessons on Defense in Advanced beginners and review competitive bidding in Beginners.

We had 5.5 tables in the Pupil Game. Sue H and Martha R came in first with a whopping 68.75%!  Second place went to Elizabeth B and Jean L with 57.64% A close third was turned in by Jane G and Susan S with 56.25%.  See you next week! ---Carl

 

 

TOMORROW, July 12

Another Bridge Boot Camp is happening  July 12, 2025

What it will be like:

    We will discuss up to 27 randomly dealt boards, one at a time.  Attendees will all bid and play the same hand, followed by discussion of how I would have bid  and played the hand and why. A hard copy of the hands and my discussion of the bid and play will be provided at the end of the camp.  I will have enough sets of cards to handle up to 6 tables.  If needed, due to extra players that don't fill out a table, some players may need to rotate as observers, but no one will need to do so for more than a few of the hands.  That will only happen if we have one or two extra because I will fill out the table if we have three extra.

It will start at 10 AM and continue until 4 PM or until 27 boards have been discussed, whichever comes first.  There will be a 15 minute break for lunch at about noon, but no lunch will be available, so bring your own.  

The fee will be $15/person, which is divided between Centennial Hall, North Hampton DBC, and me.

If you have any questions, email me at cvwikstrom@gmail.com.  Hope to see you there!  ---Carl

 Thursday Open Game 10 July 2025

WE had a very nice 10-1/2 table Mitchell movement today.  Congratulations to Susan/Daryl and Erzsebet/Steve for the first places finishes.  Ellen/Nancy, Linda/Nancy, Carol/Carol and James/George all placed in the C stratification.  Rita/Claire, Lesley/Bob and Nick/Ed did the best in the B strat.

 

 THIS SATURDAY, July 12

Another Bridge Boot Camp is happening  July 12, 2025

What it will be like:

    We will discuss up to 27 randomly dealt boards, one at a time.  Attendees will all bid and play the same hand, followed by discussion of how I would have bid  and played the hand and why. A hard copy of the hands and my discussion of the bid and play will be provided at the end of the camp.  I will have enough sets of cards to handle up to 6 tables.  If needed, due to extra players that don't fill out a table, some players may need to rotate as observers, but no one will need to do so for more than a few of the hands.  That will only happen if we have one or two extra because I will fill out the table if we have three extra.

It will start at 10 AM and continue until 4 PM or until 27 boards have been discussed, whichever comes first.  There will be a 15 minute break for lunch at about noon, but no lunch will be available, so bring your own.  

The fee will be $15/person, which is divided between Centennial Hall, North Hampton DBC, and me.

If you have any questions, email me at cvwikstrom@gmail.com.  Hope to see you there!  ---Carl

 Wednesday Open Game 9 July 2025

We are very happy to see Sally Kroeker, Barb Hennebe and Margie Dickinson here today. Welcome! Today was a special NAP qualifier where you earned 1/2 red and had the chance to qualify to represent our district at the nationals.  

We had a very nice even 9 table Mitchell movement.  Congratulations to Ellen/Lewis and Carole/Steve for the first place finishes.  Susanne/Paul, Joyce/James, and Coleen/Ronald all earned points in the C stratification.

 

 THIS SATURDAY, July 12

Another Bridge Boot Camp is happening  July 12, 2025

What it will be like:

    We will discuss up to 27 randomly dealt boards, one at a time.  Attendees will all bid and play the same hand, followed by discussion of how I would have bid  and played the hand and why. A hard copy of the hands and my discussion of the bid and play will be provided at the end of the camp.  I will have enough sets of cards to handle up to 6 tables.  If needed, due to extra players that don't fill out a table, some players may need to rotate as observers, but no one will need to do so for more than a few of the hands.  That will only happen if we have one or two extra because I will fill out the table if we have three extra.

It will start at 10 AM and continue until 4 PM or until 27 boards have been discussed, whichever comes first.  There will be a 15 minute break for lunch at about noon, but no lunch will be available, so bring your own.  

The fee will be $15/person, which is divided between Centennial Hall, North Hampton DBC, and me.

If you have any questions, email me at cvwikstrom@gmail.com.  Hope to see you there!  ---Carl

 Tuesday 8 July 2025

We had a lesson on interfering with the declarer on defense in Adv Beginner and Asking about Kings in Slam bidding in Beginners.

Next week we will continue on Defensive interference (No penalty for it, this is bridge not Football!)   in advanced beginners and Gerber in beginners.

We had 6.5 tables in the pupil game and welcomes a new participant, Al Bowen who played with yours truly and managed to pull me up to second place at 58.12%. First place (58.33%) went to Jean L. and Elizabeth B. (back from a long time away and playing like she never left!).  The Cullys came in third with 55.62%.  

I will see some of you at the boot cap this weekend and the rest of you next Tuesday!  --Carl

 

 

 

 THIS SATURDAY, July 12

Another Bridge Boot Camp is happening  July 12, 2025

What it will be like:

    We will discuss up to 27 randomly dealt boards, one at a time.  Attendees will all bid and play the same hand, followed by discussion of how I would have bid  and played the hand and why. A hard copy of the hands and my discussion of the bid and play will be provided at the end of the camp.  I will have enough sets of cards to handle up to 6 tables.  If needed, due to extra players that don't fill out a table, some players may need to rotate as observers, but no one will need to do so for more than a few of the hands.  That will only happen if we have one or two extra because I will fill out the table if we have three extra.

It will start at 10 AM and continue until 4 PM or until 27 boards have been discussed, whichever comes first.  There will be a 15 minute break for lunch at about noon, but no lunch will be available, so bring your own.  

The fee will be $15/person, which is divided between Centennial Hall, North Hampton DBC, and me.

If you have any questions, email me at cvwikstrom@gmail.com.  Hope to see you there!  ---Carl

 Thursday Open Game 3 July 2025

We had a perfect 9 table Mitchell movement today.  Congratulations to Lisa/Nancy for a 72.5% game!  Patricia/Joe were first NS.  Jude/Ken and Sid/Gordo were both first in their respective C strats.  James/George and Lesley/Carole were first in the B strats.

Have a fabulous 4th of July holiday.

 Wednesday Open Game 2 July 2025

We had a perfectly even 9 table Mitchell movement today.  Congrats to Bob/David and Lesley/Carol for the first place finishes today.  I am also impressed with the C strat finishers of Pat/Jackie, Anne/Paul and Nancy/John.

 Centennial Hall Bridge Club Meets Monday at 12.  This is a duplicate bridge game that does not award ACBL points

 Tuesday 1 July 2025

We had a lesson on finessing and ruffing on defense, including signaling your partner in Adv Beginners and a lesson on RKC 1430 in beginners.  Next week we will look at interfering with declarer on defense in Advanced Beginner and asking for the Q of trump and Kings in beginner's lesson.

 We had 6.5 tables in the Pupil game today.  Newcomer Judy Pinette managed to  come in first, even with yours truly dragging her down with 67.5%.  Second was Wynne and Betty with 66.88%.  We also had returning players of long ago with Barb M and Sally K!  Welcome back!

Don't forget about the bridge boot camp right here in Centennial Hall on July 11!. Have a great 4th of July!  ----Carl