Minnesota Bridge

Tree Trust - Unit 178 Charity Game

Saturday, August 2nd, the Twin City Bridge Center and Unit 178 presents a fine evening of food, bridge and community contributions!

Starting at 5:15PM, enjoy a great meal, a fun silent auction with a wide variety of items on which to bid (including trees!) - followed by a challenging evening of duplicate at 7PM. Entry fees are $8.00, with all proceeds going toward charity.

You can have a super evening with your friends, as you contribute to a most worthy cause along the way.

Tree Trust of Minneapolis is a non profit organization that supports the environment. It not only provides tree planting and the environment, but it also aids special needs and at-risk youth by offering work skill training and summer jobs as tree-planters.

 

Hindsight

We in the Minnesota bridge world are exceedingly fortunate to have John Koch. Not only is he one of our top players, John is a national champion. Of course, as we all know, John is also an insightful writer, sharing wisdom, insight and deft plays with us, week after week.

Yet, even the talented John sometimes finds these plays after the fact - and not at the table.

Such is the nature of our game.

Here are two such hands from the 2014 District GNT. John found the winning play ... but alas for John, in the rear view mirror.

Winning!

What does winning look like?

This!

Congratulations to the winners of the Tuesday-Wednesday KO Bracket 7: Jane Trahms, Shelly Husebo, Cindy Moat and Kay Johnson.

With a new team and partnerships, they went all the way to the top! After their success at the table, they celebrated with lunch at Bellagio. You can see their smiling faces and a smidge of their delicious meal above.

Well done, ladies!

 

Six Five - Come Alive

Sue Jackson's tip this week for I/N players relates to 6/5 hands. Specifically, Sue discusses hands with a six card minor and a five card major.

How can we best handle such distribution? Read Sue's contribution below to learn!

Insight for I/N

Sue Jackson, fine player, teacher, bridge administrator and volunteer (among other activities!) offered the wise idea of a bridge column for our intermediate and novice players. So, now on Saturdays*, we will feature "Insight for I/N". Advice, hands and other useful information for our newer players can be found here.

Sue has written a number of good columns already for this feature. Nevertheless, MN Bridge always welcomes submissions from throughout our bridge world!  Just send to our me, our webmaster, at [email protected]  

Here is our first entry from Sue.  Enjoy!

*Yes, I know it is Sunday but I am at the NABC in Las Vegas and could not get to the column yesterday! :)

Early Clues

As many Minnesotans travel to Las Vegas for the summer NABC, we share something that should help: another fine column from John Koch.

No matter how difficult the hand, John always shares insight to aid us in discovering a line to foil the opponents!

Play begins in Las Vegas today for GNT competitors. A number of our players are among the GNT finalists; we wish you all well!

Aquatennial Silver Sectional

Five days of competition in the middle of the summer! Lots of masterpoints and lots of fun.

Results from the tournament can be found here.  At the top of the masterpoint heap can be found Paolo Ranaldi. Paolo's 26.35 masterpoints bested 2nd place Brian Crossley by almost 5 points. Joe Rice was just behind Brian's 21.40 with 20.24.

Our thanks to tournament director Mike Flader, along with miraculously healed Larry Oakey and TCBC owner Teri Blu for a super sectional!  And - as always - thanks to all our players who came and played and conquered!

Harold Dodson - 1948 - 2014

A difficult week for our bridge community. One day prior to the loss of Loran Gruman, Harold Dodson passed away. Steve Gaynor remembers his long time friend.

Life did not deal Harold an opening hand, so he had to work harder to receive full value.  

I first met Harold when I was a freshman at Oakland University in the fall of 1967.  Harold was a year ahead of me, but we both frequented the Oakland Center student grill where card games of all sorts were played. 

It did not take Harold long to develop an understanding of the deeper subtleties of duplicate bridge.  Yet, he had a hard time recognizing his own talent and had to work on his patience with the rest of us who took longer to grasp the nuances that came so naturally to him. When we first played Duplicate Bridge in 1974, Harold was already known as a good player.  He had developed his own system, ‘Dodson Standard’.  It was well thought out and a lot of us still use the conventions and treatments.  

Harold moved to Minnesota in 1981 and stayed with Dave Anderson for a while.  I discovered him here when I got to town in 1983.  I asked him if he ever wanted to move back to Detroit.  Harold responded,  “I was ‘Weird Harold’ there, but here they call me ‘the King’.  What do you think?”

Harold was born on March 7, 1948 and lived longer than he or anyone expected.  He was the master of finding minor suit slams and could declare a hand with the best.  Once, Harold made 6D with AJ9x opposite Kx and the DQ was offside!  Harold had a passion for the Detroit Tigers and wine from Michigan.

Harold’s passing is our bridge world's loss. 

            Submitted by Steven Gaynor

 

Loran Gruman

We are sad to report that Loran Gruman passed away on July 12th.

 

Loran was a pilot for Northwest Airlines. When he retired, Loran discovered bridge. Not only did Loran fall in love with the game; he also became a "regular" around the Twin City Bridge Center. Loran studied to become a certified teacher and director. He was a favorite with the "chat bridge" crowd. Loran's own bridge game improved.

 

Then, Loran received a diagnosis of a serious brain tumor. Surgery was performed, and Loran was never quite the same afterwards.  Still, Loran remained a very sweet and wonderful guy. Though he had great difficulties with concentration, loyal friends Gary Rowland and Dave Bryant continued to play with Loran. 

 

Some months ago, the tumor had grown and more surgery was necessary. Unfortunately, not enough could be done to help Loran.

 

He will be missed.

 

 

Koch's Korner - Welcome Back!

After successfully dealing with some of the health issues that start to plague us aging bridge players, John Koch, our columnist extraordinaire, returns! 

We are most happy to see John back on the pages of MN Bridge. His fine writing, delicate declarer play and bold defense always instruct us.

Today's hand comes from a recent tournament. Of course, John accents it with a bit of bridge history too.

John warns his columns may not be as regular as in the past. No matter; we will take what we can get! 

Enjoy!

Aquatennial Silver Sectional - July 9-13

No milk carton boat races nor cows wearing leis. But, we can promise that Aquatennial Silver Sectional 2014 promises to be a great tournament!

This year's tourney starts Wednesday with a session at 10AM at the Twin City Bridge Center at Nicollet & 60th. Events are scheduled every day, with Swiss Teams on Sunday.

You can view the week's schedule here.  Beat the heat and have a hot game in summer's best sectional!

 

Fireworks!

We hope that everyone in our Minnesota bridge community is having an enjoyable and safe 4th of July holiday.

To celebrate this dramatic day, Steve Gaynor shares with us a dramatic "fireworks" hand.

Thanks Steve! Enjoy, everyone!

Unit 178 - Board Meeting Minutes June 2014

A recap of the June 2014 Unit 178 board meeting. Our thanks to hard working board members for their efforts!

Should you read through the minutes, please note that there is discussion about player stories. MNBridge always appreciates stories of interest!

If you have a great story, please send it to our webmaster, Peg Kaplan at [email protected]

Thanks!

Latest Schedule

Thanks, Steve Gaynor, for providing us with the latest and greatest schedule! Posted below!

Gopher 2014 Survey

Every year, the organizers of the Gopher wish to provide the best possible experience for our players. Toward that end, a survey was sent out to judge opinion about Gopher 2014.

The results can be found below. Thanks to all who participated in helping!