Grow the membership? How about nurturing the members we already have who are at the bottom of the MP totem pole. Find out how we can help them better appreciate the game, attend local, regional, and national tournaments. Let's recast the special events, particularly the GNTs so that newer players learn to play imps and enjoy the difference between imps and matchpoints. Reward districts who hold club qualifying events for Flight C players.
Our special events could be driving participation to a much greater extent than they are doing. Live tournament bridge will sputter if we don't engage new club players to enjoy play in a larger venue. It's time for a new grass roots approach: North American Swiss Pairs. Qualify during the Grass Roots Fund month in May and earn the right to play at the fall NABC. The grass roots events, NAP and GNT, should be designed to excite newer players, not just reward those who are already coming to the NABCs
Start the 6K Spingold on Day 2 of the regular Spingold. Structure the NABC+ events in a way that encourages folks to play up.
Lobby your ACBL Board rep to move the 10K event at the start of the Spring NABC to Sat-Sun rather than starting on Day1 of both the Platinum and the IMP Pairs. Bueller? Bueller? Hello? Strive to schedule the start 10K events on day 2 of 3 day NABC+ events whenever possible.
Scheduling a 10K event final that falls on day 1 of a new NABC+ event is WRONG
The ACBL doesn't need a one size fits all policy for team entry fees. If you want 100% of the masterpoints then you pay your 100%. A 6 person team willing to receive proportional overall awards, as we do in Swiss team events, can pay the 4 person team entry fee. We already track the sitouts. This is not rocket science
Read more »I found this a rather fascinating hand
LHO is playing 4♥ on the given auction
Partner led the ♦9
The hand record indicates that EW can make 4♥
But not if declarer takes the ♦A at trick 1 sez DF
Let's say that declarer does win the ♦A and continues with a second diamond.
How do you beat this contract?
Here is the whole hand
Even looking at the entire hand it wasn't evident to me what switch would kill the contract.
I clicked on the button to show me the right card.
There was one
DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND STUDY THE HAND BEFORE YOU CLICK ON "NEXT PAGE"
♠Q
Even after following various play lines with Deep Finesse it was not easy to see why only the ♠Q was the killing defense.
On the auction maybe an underlead of the ♠A will beat the hand. Leading a trump or club surely won't.
A diamond lead seems quite natural.
Let's say that declarer is 'on the ball' and ducks at T1.
South wants to cut dummy entries and leads back a trump.
It seems natural to win this in the dummy so that you can ruff a diamond low in dummy later.
Now ♣A
If you continue with a club ruff... down you go!
You have to cash the ♦A next because if you don't you won't be able to ruff your third diamond in dummy which exhausts North of their diamond exit card
If you have a double dummy analyzer you may find this hand to be a most interesting excursion.
Anytime I can see all four hands and still don't see the solution in a a minute of study
THAT'S A GREAT LEARNING EXPERIENCE
