Minnesota Bridge

Success to the East

 

Eau Claire is outside of Minnesota and District 14. Nevertheless, some Minnesotans traveled to the nearby regional last week - and the top five masterpoint winners were all from our fair state!

Congratulations to Barry Purrington, winner of more points than anyone else with over 74. Mike Cassel was a hair behind Barry.  Tom Grue, Greg Van Dyke and Steve Gaynor were 3rd through fifth.

Mike was excited about this statistic; he entered six events in Eau Claire - and won every one!  Well done, Mike.

Mike's favorite hand was this one,

He held:  x, AQJx, x, AKQxxxx.

As he was weighing whether he should open a Precision 1C strong, forcing and artificial call, his vulnerable left hand opponent opened a strong 2C!

East bid 2D, promising game forcing values!

Mike was pretty sure that his LHO had a big two suiter in spades and diamonds. So, Mike "put it to him" and bid 6C!

Without much pause for thought, LHO bid 6S. Thinking that 7C would be a good sacrifice, Mike bid it.

His partner held the king fifth of hearts, so unless the opponents found a diamond shift after cashing one spade, 7C is only down 1.

At the other table, the auction was slower.  Holding two aces, Mike's counterpart did not wish to save.

Mike's team won by only 10 IMPS, so his judgement to preempt the auction, then save, was critical to success.

The full hand: 

 

 

Detroit Lakes NLM Sectional

 

Many thanks to Mary Anne Bond and Mary Shaw of Unit 103! The District 14 NLM Sectionals continue to be a big hit with our Intermediate and Novice competitors.

Friday's two sessions drew a total of 22.5 tables!!  We look forward to the report about Saturday's third and final session at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Detroit Lakes.

A big hats off to Mary Anne and Mary for their successful promotion of this excellent tournament!

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Detroit Lakes NLM Sectional - August 26-27

You don't have to be an expert to enjoy bridge!

This coming weekend, Detroit Lakes is hosting a 0-500 non-Life Master tournament. 

See the last few weeks of summer in beautiful Minnesota, be treated to expert lecturer Platinum LM G.S. Jade Barrett - and compete against your peers!

Here's the flyer - no better way to complete summer!

From Here to Eternity

Not quite, but - pretty darn close!

Our thanks to Steve Gaynor for keeping Minnesota's bridge players up to date with bridge activities here and beyond!

Grand!

 

Being at a big, super regional is always a treat.  Last week, the Nebraska Regional was that treat, with cherries and whipped cream on top!

Steve Gaynor and Jean Boettcher added the nuts when they reached the ultimate - a grand slam.

Steve shares with us how they did it!

 

READ THE MN BRIDGE BLOG – IT WILL IMPROVE YOUR GAME

    

Board 6.  E deals, E/W vulnerable.

                        ♠ 9

                        ♥ K 8 6 2

                        ♦ K 6 4 2

                        ♣ K 9 7 5

        ♠ Q 7 3 2                                 ♠ A K J 10 8 6 5        

        ♥ —                                         ♥ J 9 7 3

        ♦ A 9 8 7 3                               ♦ J

        ♣ A Q 10 6                               ♣ 8

                        ♠ 4

                        ♥ A Q 10 5 4

                        ♦ Q 10 5

                        ♣ J 4 3 2

 

My sweet and lovely wife and bridge partner Jean and I played this hand on Tuesday afternoon in the second session of the Open Pairs at the Nebraska Regional in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Jean thought her 7-4-1-1 hand was too good for a preempt, so she decided to open 1S.  South passed and I chose a splinter bid over Jacoby 2N.  Our agreement is that the splinter is usually limited in strength and I thought she needed to know what I had more than I needed to know what she had.

Despite her minimum, she could see potential so she bid 1430 RKC.

Now remember that last week I wrote an article about a hand I played with the recently deceased Murray Appelbaum, a longtime Minnesota bridge star and great guy, where he answered a previously undiscussed 5N to my Blackwood bid showing two keys and a void.   So with that fresh in our minds, I bid 5N here.  This was all Jean needed to hear and she bid the spade grand.

South, Liane Turner, a longtime fine player got off to the accurate trump lead.  Jean had no problem ruffing out the diamonds for a late heart pitch to make her bid.

7S = 2210 was worth 25 out of 25 matchpoints. 

Thanks, Murray, I hope you had a chance to kibitz us from up there.

                                Steve Gaynor

 

(Cross posted at District14bridge.org)

Tributes to Larry

 

In addition to the fun game at the Twin City Bridge Center, along with the pot luck to honor Larry Oakey's 10,000 masterpoints and Platinum status, we had more.  People talked about just how special Larry has been - both to our Minnesota bridge world and as an amazing player.

 

Sharon Anderson, our District 14's ACBL Board of Director, gave a fine intro.  

 

Then, Ron DeHarpporte gave exemplary examples of just how impressive Larry's 10K masterpoint achievement really is.

Ronald contrasted a baseball player's "batting average" to the accumulation of masterpoints:

A baseball player can be judged by the number of home runs he hits over is lifetime and/or his lifetime batting average. 

 

Home runs are simply added to the previous years total each year and lifetime grand total is used to evaluate his career.  But batting average is calculated by dividing the total number of hits into the players total number of “at bats”.

 

So a player who got 2000 hits in 10,000 opportunities would have an average of .200.  And a player who got only 1500 hits in 6000 at bats would have a batting average of .250.  Which is the better hitter?  It is the .250 hitter even though he got 500 fewer hits in his career that the guy who got 2000 hits.

 

In bridge we count only masterpoint totals like home runs.  If we evaluated a bridge player’s “batting average," his masterpoints divided by the number of points he had an opportunity to win, it would obviously favor those who won one more while playing less.  Oakey has a higher batting average than anyone else around here.  He has 10,000 points but played far less than others thus had fewer opportunities to accumulate more.  

Juniors Win the Board-A-Match Teams in Italy!

Ben Kristensen, Kevin Rosenberg, Zach Brescoll, Zach Grossack, Adam Kaplan, Adam Grossack

In Salsomaggiore, Italy, Duluth's own Ben Kristensen, along with partner Kevin Rosenberg and teammates Zach Brescoll, Zach Grossack, Adam Kaplan and Adam Grossack won the Junior BAM title by 4.5 boards!

Congratulations to these fine players, all of whom have already won either medals, other junior titles and NABC events!

We especially look forward to more reports on Ben's successes at the bridge table.  We can say, "we knew him when!" 

Larry Oakey - Pure Platinum

TGLO - working away, even during the party honoring him!

 

Friday, Minnesotans and fans from afar came together to celebrate Pure Platinum Larry Oakey. The man who has contributed so much in so many varied ways to our bridge world has now earned an amazing 10,000 masterpoints. Friends and fans partied and competed to honor TGLO.

 

Long time partners and friends from all over came to celebrate!

 

During a lunchtime break, everyone enjoyed a fabulous pot-luck and regaled one another with TGLO stories.

 

Larry's SPECIAL 10,000 point, Platinum Life Master cake!

 

Thanks to Sharon Anderson and Sue Jackson for organizing, and of course, to Teri & Chip Blu for hosting the party.  

 

No one is the slightest bit surprised that Larry was working alongside Teri and Chip at his own party!  Larry may now be a Platinum Life Master - but - some things never, ever change!

More photos of everyone below. And - another post coming, highlighting honorifics for Larry!

 

Steve Gaynor Remembers Mur

Murray & Arlene - 58 years ago

Many of us in Minnesota's bridge world mourn the loss of Murray.  Our thanks to Steve Gaynor for sharing his wonderful recollections of Mur.

We lost a good bridge player and a great guy when Murray Appelbaum passed away this week. Usually I was his opponent and much more often than not his fine play was responsible for crushing our pair or team. However, one time, at least 20 years ago, Murray agreed to play with me in New Partner night at the MGSC. I do not remember exactly how we did except we did not win, but we scratched and there was one hand of note.

The exact hand is lost for the ages, but we had good cards and after we established a fit I bid 4N blackwood. Murray responded 5N. Undiscussed. I had to figure this out.

I looked up and across the table Murray had a little smile on his face. I had never seen the bid before, but somewhere in the recesses of my brain I remembered reading that this was supposed to show two key cards with a working void. If that was true, I was pretty sure where his void was and that we could make a grand slam.

So I bid 7 and was not disappointed when dummy came down. The play was academic and we scored it up.

After that we communicated more often, sending e-mail back and forth on bridge, politics and our mutual Jewish heritage.

Murray was a very wise and worldly man, someone I will greatly miss.

Shalom, Murray.

            Steve Gaynor

Murray Appelbaum - 1935-2016

 

Always a treat to report triumphs and success about Minnesota's bridge players. Conversely, such sadness to relay the loss of a long time, integral member of our state's bridge community.  So it is today, as I must report Murray Appelbaum's death on August 3rd.

Murray was among the top bridge players in Minnesota for decades.  He achieved Gold Life Master status, and as recently as 2015, was 53rd on the Top 100 list, despite being unable to play bridge for years due to health issues.

In addition to a never ending sense of humor, Murray was a prolific writer and communicator in his professional life and in the bridge world. Well informed, Murray and several other bridge players (including yours truly), met for years over lunch. There, we solved world issues, bridge problems, debating back and forth for hours.  Murray was always in the thick of things.

 

In addition to Murray's talents at bridge and communication, he was quite the fashion plate!  Day Glo orange, hot pink and amazing combinations of plaid and color were Mur's MO.

Murray's obituary, including information about funeral arrangements and shiva, can be viewed here.

Farewell to a funny, warm and talented member of our bridge community ... Loving husband to Arlene, father and grandfather - and good friend.  

You will be missed by many, Mur.

GNT Chuckles in DC

 

As many of you may know, Bill Voedisch and his GNT Flight B team of Dennis Cerkvenik, Andrew Clements and Jonathan Cohn earned a very respectable 5/8 finish in their event.  Well done, men!

Denny wanted to share a moment from their competition.  This is not some insightful declarer play or devilish defense.  Instead, it is one of the many whacko oddities that we all have experienced at the bridge table.

Thanks, Bill!

By now you know we failed against a solid CA team in the quarter finals.  But along the way we had one if the all time crazy director calls.

Cerks opens 1D and my RHO sitting on the same side of the screen as me bids 2S which he alerts to me as like a good weak 2 bid.  I held :  T, Qxx, ATxxx, ATxx.

I tried 3S at the moment, looking for a spade stopper.  LHO passes, Cerks bids 3NT, RHO passes and after some thought of 4D, I also passed.  (We have favorable vulnerability.)

The skate board slides back to the other side and in little time slides back to us.

The skate board may not have been pushed all the way back to us as both RHO and I failed to notice that LHO (North) had called 4S !!

We pushed it back and of course neither of us added another PASS card but the other side never would have caught that anyway.

Now the other side of the screen is waiting for me to lead against 4S while i'm waiting for RHO to lead at 3NT which he dutifully does.

You can predict what happens next.  RHO puts the 4 of spades on the table, I put down dummy (creating 13 penalty cards) we lift the window ...  and the guys on the other side say something like "What are you bozo's doing?" To which we reply "Playing 3NT!"

They call the director and my side of the screen still doesn't know what's going on.  The director shows up and they explain the contract is 4S but DECLARER made the opening lead while West put down his hand.

The director marches over to our side and asks us both, what's the contract?  We both say 3NT by East.  "You both failed to see North bid 4S?"  Errr .. Huh?  RHO and I just sat there, stunned.

"Well, isn't this side of the screen a treat.  Lead out of turn and 13 penalty cards!"

Now we have two directors.  They declared the board fouled and warned as to pay attention .. get the trolley all the way over etc.

When comparing scores Clements and Cohn had plus 620.  Even though they are short on HCP they have 2 excellent suits, the cards are well placed and 10 tricks are there.

I sheepishly announced the board was fouled at our table.  We tried to explain it as best we could ...

Had I seen 4S out of North at favorable vulnerability i would have called 5D which gets cracked for minus 500 and a 3 imp win for us.

Ahhh ... those bidding screens.

        Bill Voedisch

Ben and Curt - We are So Proud!

 

Some years ago, I met Curt Kristensen and his son, Ben, at the Gopher Regional. I recall my team winning a Swiss Team - yet Curt and Ben's team being the only team to beat ours. From that time on, I felt that this young boy was headed for the top.

All Minnesotans are proud of how Ben has succeeded in junior bridge - here in the ACBL and with a World Youth Silver Medal in 2014.

Now - Curt himself has won an NABC title, 0-1500 Mini Spingold, and Ben is playing in major events with the Big Boys.  After 3 days of play, Ben and his partner, Kevin Rosenberg, along with illustrious teammates Steve Robinson, Peter Boyd, Kit Woolsey and Fred Stewart, were 16th in the prestigious Roth Open Swiss.

When I first heard of Ben's team (also for the Spingold), I told Kit, "So nice of you guys to play with Ben and Kevin."  I loved Kit's response.  "We are fortunate that Ben and Kevin are willing to play with us!"

Now, while we await Ben achieving his first win on the national stage, we will let his dad report on the huge success Curt himself secured in DC.

Congratulations to a wonderful father and son from our great state!

And now, some thoughts from Champion Curt Kristensen about his adventure and win!

I met Greg Sellgren at the partnership desk of the 2014 Summer Las Vegas NABC. We played on a Swiss team there with different partners, and then one session together. Ti Davis and Brian Rink were added to our Spingold team using the ACBL partnership desk. They had played 3 sessions previously in the last year or so.

In our quarterfinal match, we led by 39 IMPS with 14 boards to play. We felt confident, setting the opponents' contracts on 6 of the boards. But we ended up tied - ultimately winning 20-0 in 6 boards, with each team bidding to the same contract.

During the event, I learned that my sister-in-law had been hospitalized with metastatic cancer. Thus, we decided to devote our team effort as a dedication to her and her family.

Each round, our team play improved as we faced better opponents. In our final match, we beat the Chang team 160-131. Their team had placed 2nd in the GNT C-Flight; for the Mini Spingold, they added Frank Lin. Their entire team showed class throughout. Playing against them was just great!

Curt Kristensen

 

10,000 Masterpoints for The Great Larry Oakey!

 

If you have played duplicate bridge in Minnesota some time over the past 45+ years, then the odds are high you know Larry Oakey (TGLO).  Larry has been involved in so many aspects of our game for decades - one might say he is truly the icon of Minnesota duplicate.

Everyone knows that Larry is an incredible player. As someone who was lucky enough to have TGLO as my regular partner for some years, I can attest to his enormous talents. I remember once looking at dummy, and thinking to myself "the only way to beat this hand is if Larry has the unsupported heart queen - and he leads it." No sooner did my brain form this thought, when - there it was; the queen of hearts.  We could use up all the space in the Internet regaling people with stories of how Larry has shown his prowess at the bridge table!

Yet, as everyone knows, Larry's stellar bridge abilities are only one portion of the impact he has had on Minnesota bridge.

Larry is a master director.  If you need it done, as well as humanly possible and in the blink of an eye - Larry is your guy.  If you need some one to volunteer - no matter what the task - Larry is there.  If you need someone to play with club players needing a game, filling in, solving any issue you can imagine - again, Larry is The One.

Away from bridge, Larry's other talents shine. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of movies.  Any movie worth seeing (plus about 10,000 others in addition) - Larry's viewed it, knows the cast, the story behind the story, and so on. I don't know Larry's IQ - but, let's just say if you are a betting person, don't put up much moolah thinking someone else's number is higher than Larry's.

Now, despite virtually his entire bridge career playing with lesser mortals (as almost all of us are), Larry has earned over 10,000 masterpoints.  And, in honor of Larry's "going over" and reaching Platinum Life Master, the Twin City Bridge Center is hosting a party to celebrate!  The details are below - and note, this is one game and celebration you do not want to miss!

 

The Great Larry Oakey Goes Over 10,000 Masterpoints Celebration!

Friday, August 5th - 11AM

Twin City Bridge Center

Pot Luck - Bring Your Favorite Dish

See Everyone Friday! 

Dazzling in DC!

 

The Summer NABC 2016 is complete. Washington DC sizzled through the nationals - and - a number of our Minnesotans were hot!

At the end of the Life Master Pairs, Steve Garner and Ralph Katz were 2nd, a tiny fraction behind the winners.

Also achieving 2nd place were Paul Meerschaert, Carol Miner, Serdar Ogut and Peg Waller in the 0-10,000 Mixed Swiss Teams.

Claiming a first place finish in the 0-1500 Mini-Spingold, we find Curt Kristensen! Curt won his event with teammates Greg Sellgren, Ti Davis and Brian Rink.

And, seizing the Big Prize of the nationals, the Spingold, first place went to Joe Grue, with teammates Brad Moss, Sabine Auken, Roy Welland, Marty Fleisher and Chip Martel

 

Other of our players placed in NABC overalls and had successes in regional events.

So proud of everyone; very well done!

(If I happened to have missed anyone with a fine finish - my apologies.  And - please do let me know, so I can highlight your achievement!  Also - sorry no additional photos of our players, but some individuals to come and looking forward to seeing smiling faces from the ACBL photographer!)
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