Just prior to Christmas, Jane and I made our first visit on a trek to out-of-town bridge clubs, researching what works and what doesn't. We played an open game on Christmas Eve at the In Tempo Bridge Club in Scottsdale, AZ.

For those of us accustomed to smaller clubs, this one seems enormous! With very comfortable spacing between the tables, this former gymnasium was set up for a full sixty tables. It reminds me of the size of the InBetween club in Sarasota, FL, and I'm sure many of the other large Florida clubs are at least this size. Our game was a lightly-attended holiday game of sixteen tables.

Board 2 in the August 13 game raised an interesting bidding question.

The question by email:

Last night on Board #2, South opened 1NT. As North, how do I reach 3-4♣? If 2♣ means Stayman, should I bid 3♣ with only 7HCP?

Lately I've had some timely questions about a practice that seems to have become common especially among novice and intermediate players. I had an email from a director in Palm Desert who has noticed this practice, and a question about it at my most recent summer bridge class.

Players, as dummy, have been routinely reminding declarer which hand they're in. The common thing is tapping the table to remind declarer that she's "on the board."

When it was brought up in class, I said, "Well it has to stop!" which got a bit of a chuckle.

Let me go into detail about dummy's rights and privileges. They're quite explicitly called out in the Laws of Duplicate Bridge.

First, there's Law 42 B. "Qualified Rights" paragraph 2.:

2. He may try to prevent any irregularity.

Morris Jones
July 9, 2018

The 2017 edition of the Laws of Duplicate Bridge brought in many small changes, and one huge one: Law 23, the Comparable Call rule. The intent is to preserve a bridge result in place of the rather severe penalties of earlier laws. It's not a bad thing, but we'll be adapting to it for quite a while.

Imagine this situation: LHO (Left-hand opponent) is the dealer, but you're distracted with a good hand and you put down a 1♠ bid. The director is called, and your bid-out-of-turn is not accepted by the opponents.

The director cancels your bid, and the auction reverts to LHO who passes. Your partner has no restrictions, but is not allowed to act on the unauthorized information of your 1♠ bid. Partner opens 1♥. RHO passes.

My desk with computer monitor and Dealer4 machine. On the screen is the Dealer4 software with a hand displayed.

Most players take my word when I say, "The hands are randomly generated and dealt to the boards by a machine." That's all true as far as it goes, but what does it really mean?

Let me give you a peek behind the curtain and show you what it takes to make pre-dealt hands and hand records for a duplicate pairs game1.

Since the early days of generating bridge deals by computer, quite a bit of research has gone into the mathematics involved. Early random number generators were woefully inadequate for being able to replicate a hand-shuffled deck of cards.

Bonnie and Angela take on the robot pair.
Photo by Roy Wilson, April 2018
Roy's article on the Unit web site here

Last week was our first trial-run for having a pair of BBO (BridgeBase Online) robots fill a half-table at the BridgeMojo game.

What's wrong with having a sit-out?

Normally when the game has a half-table, on every round there's a pair who can't play. That pair has a 15-minute break. For the BridgeMojo game, that means seven pairs in the game will play twelve boards, and the rest will play fourteen.

To compensate for the difference, the total matchpoint score for those pairs is factored before comparing it with the other pairs in the game. Their final score is multiplied by 14/12 (7/6, 1.166). (Remember your fractions?) That brings every player up to a common baseline score.

Mailing label for an ACBL Bridge Bulletin

When I applied for the sanction for my bridge club, one of the questions on the application form asks for a seven-character code for your club to appear on masterpoint reports.

For my club, it had to be BRGMOJO, of course.

So when I got to see it in print for the first time (yay, Jane!) it was a bit of a thrill. :)

My desk with boards, cards, and the Playbridge Dealer4 machine.

Morris Jones
March 11, 2018

When I was deciding how to equip my bridge club, I took my cues from the ACBL North American Bridge Championships. As the pinnacle of tournament play, and heavy-duty supply usage, I had a strong bias toward their selections.

I purchased "Neo Classic" bidding boxes. (They take more space than the folding boxes, but are more durable.) I bought "Imperial-Plus" duplicate boards to use in a Dealer4 dealing machine, Cosco tables (the MECO tables are good too but have minor problems).

Morris Jones
Feb. 11, 2018

At the Feb. 5 BridgeMojo postmortem I gave an overview of the standard Convention Card. The object was to show the various regions of the card and how it was laid out:

• The right half covers constructive bidding (our side opens)
• The left half upper two-thirds cover competitive bidding (their side opens)
• The left half lower portion covers defensive signals and carding

Each of the major areas are divided with titles that explain themselves fairly well, for example:

• Notrump openings and responses
• Major suit openings and responses
• Minor suit openings and responses
• Two-level openings and responses

The competitive bidding section on the left isn't quite as organized as the constructive section, but then competitive bidding is messy too. :)

Twelve tables in play at the BridgeMojo game

Morris Jones
25-Jan-2018

Directing is fascinating

When I first noticed bridge, of course the game was fascinating. The detail and the multi-level depth of the game continue to enthrall.

When I first started playing duplicate bridge and visiting tournaments, I found another fascination in the organization of the game itself — the movements of boards and players, the many ways of scoring that would shift the play strategy.

Early on I realized that I could play team games at home with nothing more than two or three tables of players, some score cards, and a few duplicate boards. My first directing was done at my house or others' houses exactly that way.