2023 Penticton Regional, Day Two: Tuesday, June 13

In 2022, there were 400½ tables to this point.
In 2019, there were 778½ tables to this point.
For full details, check out the Table Counts page!

Bridge clubs and tournaments throughout the ACBL are struggling with returning to live play, so comparing this tournament's attendance to one before the pandemic is not really fair. We'll hope to get a little more than last year, around 60% of the 2019 attendance, making the target number 1930 tables this time — but perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised!

Brain Warmups

What WAS His/Her Name Again?

Below is a short description of six famous people, five of whom were born on June 13, in alphabetical order by (unrevealed) surname. One was NOT born on this day, but rather on the day at the opposite end of the calendar, December 13. The imposter will always be either the first or last born of the six by more of a gap than the two at the other end of the list. Your job is to name the five people and place them in order of their birth years, leaving the imposter out. Answers are below, with the more tricky puzzles from that site that McBruce is addicted to...

• South Korean politician and diplomat who was the 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations.
• English actor who played the young Princess of Wales in The Crown and has since come out as transgender, thus the second word in this description and not the one you might expect.
• American radio and television host and announcer who created, produced and hosted This Is Your Life.
• American actor and comedian who played Uncle Arthur on Bewitched and was a centre-square mainstay on The Hollywood Squares for many years.
• American singer and actor who was featured on Sesame Street for nearly a half-century.
• Finnish middle and long-distance runner who won nine gold medals in a single decade and was unbeaten in 121 competitive races of 800 meters or more.

Masterpoints for all players are updated nightly here first, with everyone's current red and gold point total listed alphabetically below the leaders, before a shorter leaderboard is added to this page.

Returning To Live Bridge (Part Two)

Help Us Out, Please!

In yesterday's Bulletin I noted that the amount of online bridge we played during the covid hiatus had, for many of us, an unwanted and mostly unnoticed effect on post-hiatus live play. By automatically preventing us from basic infractions and automatically scoring for us, the computer made the live game, where we need to keep an accurate scorecard and handle the auction and cardplay without help, much more difficult when we returned. Suddenly having to cope with all of these things automatically kept track of by the machine led to time being lost through distractions. We all struggled, at sometimes quite different paces, to recapture the pace. Along with the increased number of irregularities seldom seen before the hiatus, such as an amazing number of revokes where a player has followed to the third card played instead of the card actually led to the trick, Directors are struggling with another effect of online play: many of you think you don't need us when you do!

There seem to be two reasons for this: 1) too many players still think that a Director call is a veiled accusation, and 2) too many players think that they can handle simple infractions without getting the Director involved, which prevents the discomfort of #1, but often causes more problems later.

Let's deal with #1 first. A Director call is not at all an accusation. The person who calls the Director may seem angry or frustrated and yell a bit louder than necessary in calling. (It's usually best, especially with unfamiliar opponents, to tell them that "we need a Director for this one" rather than raising your voice to call without warning.) When the Director arrives, the opponents may seem to be angling for a penalty that is way out of line for what has actually happened. Your best strategy is to remain calm, listen to what is being said, wait for your turn and let the Director know your side. Almost every Director call is made because a player thinks he may be damaged by an accidental infraction. The number of Director calls where the caller thinks the infraction was deliberately done in order to gain an advantage is vanishingly small. Most of the time the frustration or anger that the caller appears to display while making the call is because his partner's having a bad game, or something else is happening. They're not angry at you, or frustrated because of you. They simply want to get a fair result after an infraction, and the best way to do that, the way the Laws require, is to summon a Director and explain the situation.

Bridge is a competition and people are competitive. Sometimes that changes the mood and makes things seem more charged than they actually are. I have found that most players, even those with a competitive game face on maximum, are quite jovial and fun to be with once the competition is over. Getting the Director to the table helps to ease the mood if there is a clash of styles between the players. Not calling the Director because you fear it may look like an accusation leads to more trouble later, as we'll soon see. So call, wait for the Director to arrive, don't complicate the situation by playing on or trying to explain before the Director has arrived, and stay calm. If your side has done something wrong that you don't understand, the Director will try to explain the infraction and make a fair ruling: better for an impartial party to be doing this than for the players themselves to find their own solution.

#2 is the real problem here: not calling at the first infraction, or playing on while waiting for the Director to arrive, risks making the situation far more complex, and often does. Some commonly-seen examples:

• Penalty cards: This is a common situation for Directors; we arrive at a table to be told that the five of hearts is a penalty card. When we ask whether a different Director had made that ruling, we are told "no, we all decided it was." I have seen player-decided penalty cards belonging to declarer and even somehow dummy, as well as situations where the penalty card has been forgotten several times in the ensuing play and is now suddenly a winner! Let's be clear: a penalty card requires a Director, every time. It may in fact not be a penalty card. It will give declarer extra options that must be carefully explained if the other defender gets on lead before the penalty card is played. It might be a minor penalty card, which has quite different rules. And it needs to be played at the correct time, before things get even more complicated. All of this requires a Director who will stay until the card is played and things are back to normal. You may know the Laws better than I do, but if you handle it yourself, the opponents may remember and two rounds later they will do what you did, thinking that it is easy. It isn't that easy. Call.
  
  
• Revokes: Whenever I get to a table and I see people holding cards and at the same time having multiple played cards turned face up, I presume there has been a revoke and they're all trying to find it. We're not supposed to do this in the middle of a hand. A claim of a revoke does not give anyone the right to turn played cards face up before the play is over, except for the Director. It really doesn't, and even worse is the one player at every table who is reaching across and turning up everyone else's played cards (often after being specifically warned not to) in a desperate attempt to find out where the revoke happened. What should happen is this: someone (not dummy, who must wait until the end of play to speak up) notices, or thinks they noticed, a revoke and asks that play stop while the Director is summoned. While the Director is on the way, no cards should be turned up and no further tricks should be played. If you're the one who people are claiming has revoked, resist the urge to turn over played cards to prove your innocence. If you're claiming someone else revoked, don't turn over your played cards and especially don't reach over and flip others to prove it. That's the Director's job, except that in the majority of cases it is not really necessary.
  
  The Laws concerning revokes have been changed in the last two or three versions and many players argue their case based on phrases that are outdated. Currently the process is simple: play continues after the Director explains what the likely penalty will be, assuming the revoke is confirmed at the end of the deal. If the declarer or a defender absolutely needs to know whether there has been a revoke or not, the Director alone should be looking at face down played cards to determine this, but usually it is unnecessary: if there has been no revoke, the result will stand, and if it turns out that there in fact was a revoke, there is a prescribed penalty in tricks in the Laws, but more can be turned if needed so that the non-offending side is not damaged. Usually the person who revoked is the only one unaware of the revoke and the other three can continue without needing to illegally turn over three or four cards worth of tricks to confirm it.
  
  One phrase from a previous version of the Laws we often hear concerns "a card he could have played to the revoke trick." That's gone from the current Laws, which give the non-offenders the revoke trick back if lost, and turn one more later trick to the non-offenders if possible, as a default penalty. Then the non-offenders are asked if they might have done even better than the default penalty if the revoker had followed suit. If they think they might have, the Director gets the details and makes a decision. It's all very simple and quick, unless the situation is hopelessly muddied by players wanting to turn over multiple cards that should remain face down. Not only is this illegal and a waste of time, it is also a way to confuse what should be a simple situation. Let the Director handle it, please!
  
  
• Alerts and Announcements: These changed in the middle of the covid hiatus and many of us are still catching up, including me. It certainly doesn't help that there are thousands or millions of unused convention cards we'll be going through before we start using the new ones, which have the updated alertable status of many calls in colour. Three common bids that were alertable before are now not alertable:
  • Support Doubles (and redoubles)
  • Natural Jump Shifts in an uncontested auction (weak or strong or in-between)
  • Michaels Cuebids (minors promising both majors, majors promising the other major and an unknown minor)
  Other direct cuebids not conforming to the Michael's scheme must be alerted. 2♣ openers must be alerted if your partnership makes them on hands that might not meet the definition of 'Very Strong,' which is: 20+ highcard points, OR 14+ highcard points or 5+ controls (ace=2, king=1) and within a trick of game assuming normal breaks. If your strong 2♣ openers can be lighter than this, they need to be alerted.
  
  Announcements have mostly remained the same — please don't assume from one announcement that you can announce any conventional bid; there are only four basic announceable types; most other conventional bids should be Alerted instead. There are a few slight differences in announcements from before:
  • Transfers: instead of saying 'transfer,' players are now supposed to say the suit that partner is showing, so if partner responds 2♥ to your 1NT opener, you would say 'spades,' instead of 'transfer.' If you play a system where a transfer bid can be made without the bidder necessarily promising length in the suit partner is supposed to bid, do not announce: alert instead.
  • Short minors: If your minor-suit openings may be less than three cards long, the former announcement 'could be short' has been replaced by 'could be [number]' and you insert the shortest possible length. This applies only to non-forcing minor suit openings. forcing 1♣ bids, for example, require an alert.
  • Notrump opening bids (if natural): still announceable, despite the one or two rebel clubs (hi there, Palm Springs) who seem to convince every visiting player that the ACBL has removed this requirement.
  • Forcing or Semi-forcing 1NT: still announceable, with the small addition that after 1♥ - 1NT you announce "forcing, could have four spades" if that's what your system allows.
  
  The Real Deal with Alerts: The goal of the Alert system is to keep the opponents informed what conventions you play; penalties are not automatic for mistakes; there must be actual damage for an adjusted score. In the vast majority of cases you will be safe by Alerting anything that you are not sure about. Far more adjustments are made because of a missed alert than an alert that shouldn't have been alerted, because an alert invites opponents to ask, and if there is doubt and a need to know, they certainly should ask. The strategy of not asking, for fear it may help the opponents remember their system, is usually a bad one, which will not carry much weight with a Director if you claim damage later that is in fact mostly self-inflicted. Most players know their systems and may simply not know the alertable status of a bid. Asking benefits your side far more often than it wakes up their side.
  
  Discussions about alerts with boards still to play in the round are nothing more than time wasting. If the opponents or partner insist on educating you (as far too many do), simply ask that the round continue and promise to look into the issue later.
  
  
• Partnership Agreements: This too has been updated since the hiatus, and the rules are a bit looser for most calls, but the new looser rules do not allow fudging. For example, a natural 1NT opener cannot have less than 10 points, cannot have two suits with more than nine cards combined, cannot have a singleton lower than a queen, and cannot have a range of more than five points from minimum to maximum. If your partnership is one where you (or partner) like to experiment and take the occasional shot, you cannot overstep these bounds. A pair that plays 10-13 as a 1NT range and finds a beautiful 9-count, or a hand in range with a singleton jack, that screams to be opened 1NT cannot claim it was a psyche: a psyche is a bid that is far off the agreed norm, not a slight tweak. When a call is found to be an illegal special agreement or outside the range of allowed agreements, a result is obtained normally, and then the Director decides if the use of the illegal call has caused damage to the non-offenders, adjusting the score if necessary. The Director can also warn or penalize the offending side for the infraction.
  
  But let's remember that bridge is a timed event, and what usually happens in these situations is that a defender claims that declarer's 1NT opener was illegal and wants to see the hand. Declarer often shows part of the hand only or refuses, and an argument ensues, wasting several minutes before the Director is called. All this is entirely unnecessary. Call the Director right away rather than get an argument started. It saves time.
  
  
• McBruce's Rule: I developed this one shortly after the ACBL decided that a 1♣ opener with 4=4=3=2 distribution (two clubs) was to be deemed natural, and notrump openers with high singleton honours were also OK.
  
     Just because ACBL rules say you CAN do something, does not mean you HAVE to do it, or even that it is a GOOD idea.
  
  Let the experts handle transfers into their singletons after a 1NT opener. Let the experts handle responders that insist on a slam in the 'natural' suit you opened with a small doubleton. I don't play often live but I've played hundreds of thousands of boards over the years against good software opposition and I cannot remember a time where I was worried about a minor suit opener that might be a three-card suit. Two I might have a problem with. You don't need this hassle. Changing the rules doesn't mean you need to change your system. Play what you know and is comfortable.
  
  
• Help Us Out, Please: If you've called for the Director, waited for the Director to arrive, there is one last thing you can do to get a fair resolution in the shortest possible time: Remember that the Director is getting all the information about the deal at once. You've watched the auction develop and perhaps seen the first few tricks, over several minutes; the Director has seen none of this and needs to get the facts straight quickly. This is surprisingly difficult if everyone talks at once, if players tell the Director what has happened out of the natural order or leave key bits out, if players respond to questions with the answer to a different question, or if the conversation takes us down an unexpected path that turns out to be irrelevant. Some players seem to go into Perry Mason Mode the second a Director arrives, and a simple yes-no question gets a rambling response that goes on for several minutes and into new areas of imagined contention. Others shush the other three players at the table to have their side of the story told first, but are quick to interrupt others when they finally get their turn. One notorious player once insisted on recounting a seven-round auction bid by bid with the bid-box cards still on the table, and when finished looked at me as though the infraction was obvious: when I asked what it was, there was an incredulous look that lasted another fifteen seconds before he said "obviously, the 3♠ bid in the fourth round was made after a hesitation." How that was supposed to be obvious to me I will never know!
  
  

Bridge is a pastime; it is supposed to be fun and competitive at the same time. But also at the same time, and unlike any other game, we have players of very different skill levels and very different conceptions of just how far you can take that word 'competitive' in a social setting, with these very different standards sometimes playing against one another. This can lead to difficulties and misunderstandings and complications if we decide to try to solve it ourselves. Call the Director as soon as there is an infraction pointed out by one of the players, and wait for the Director to arrive. It helps.

Brain Workout Section!

For those of you who used to like the puzzles I printed in the old bulletins, here is a link to an online version: one of the puzzles that I used to feature in the old paper Bulletins, but it is easy to play on a computer as well. Not so easy on a tablet or phone, since most of the puzzles require right-clicks, not easily done in a tablet or phone environment. Dominosa gives you a grid of numbers, which represent the full set of dominos that would fill that space, starting with 0-0. The first puzzle has numbers up to 4 and there are 15 dominos (0-0, 0-1, 0-2, 0-3, 0-4, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 3-3, 3-4, and 4-4). The catch is that the boundaries between the individual dominos have been removed and it is up to you to fill them in! The second puzzle goes up to 5-5 and there are 21 dominos to find; the third has a full 6-6 set of 28 dominos! Strategy: Most of the time you will be checking if there is only one possibility for a specific domino; I usually check doubles first, then the others. Occasionally you will find a corner domino which will cover the same numbers whichever way it is placed, when you find one you can eliminate the other spots where those two numbers appear together. It looks difficult, but eventually comes together surprisingly quickly once you work out a few dominos. Click on the puzzle you want to try at the right (or the caption below) to go to the page with all the instructions you'll need. These puzzles come from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection (see below) and there are links there to apps for most devices.	Easy puzzle (McBruce's time: 0min 59sec)
	Medium puzzle (McBruce's time: 5min 54sec)
	Tricky puzzle (McBruce's time: 7min 38sec)

Answers to the trivia questions at the top of the page...

(Click here to go back to the questions!)

June 13 birthdays:

• 1897 — Paavo Nurmi, Finnish middle and long-distance runner who won nine gold medals in a single decade and was unbeaten in 121 competitive races of 800 meters or more.
• 1913 — Ralph Edwards, American radio and television host and announcer who created, produced and hosted This Is Your Life.
• 1926 — Paul Lynde, American actor and comedian who played Uncle Arthur on Bewitched and was a centre-square mainstay on The Hollywood Squares for many years.
• 1932 — Bob McGrath, American singer and actor who was featured on Sesame Street for nearly a half-century.
• 1944 — Ban Ki-Moon, South Korean politician and diplomat who was the 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations.
• ...and...
• December 13, 1995 — Emma Corrin, English actor who played the young Princess of Wales in The Crown and has since come out as transgender, thus the second word in this description and not the one you might expect.