Aug
29

The Cheese Stands

Awhile back an opponent bid and made a 3NT contract against me with only the singleton king of my bid suit as a stopper in his hand. I was left thinking “If only I’d lead my ace …” Later on I read some passing reference to a singleton king as a stopper and shuddered a bit at the memory, filing it away for a rainy day. Just such a day came recently at the club.

My partner opened 1NT (15-17 HCP) and my hand was: ♠K ♥Qxx ♦QJx ♣AJxxxx. I was ready to hop to 3NT when the opponent to my right bid 2♠ which was alerted as D.O.N.T. (Disturb Opponents No Trump) and explained as being spades, but not as strong/long as if he had gone through 2♣ first. My partner and I were playing Lebensohl and so I now had to make a decision, to wit, is it or isn’t it?

The whole auction: 1NT-(2S*)-2NT*-(3S)-P-(P)-3NT.

I took the view that it was a stopper for the following reasons: if I denied a stopper my partner would not consider queen doubleton sufficient to leave us in no trump and yet we would have the suit well and truly stopped (if but only once) and if my partner had no values in spades what were the chances my moth eaten club suit would not come home? Also I would wager both on the ace being to my right and that the ace would not be led. It was, it wasn’t and we scored up an average board so I was not alone in thinking of that king as a stopper. (For the record, my partner had three small spades so they had an awful lot of spades and the thought of a singleton king as a stopper still has me shuddering.)

Aug
11

I can sleep when I’m dead.

Once again work and bridge have conspired to keep me from sleeping for more than three hours at a time for the next few days. Granted whenever I drag myself off to a tournament I typically find myself getting five hours of sleep on a good night so two 3-hour naps isn’t that bad. I could blame my current preoccupation with playing on being so close to Life Master that I can taste it, but I’ll be surprised if my priorities actually change after that particular milestone has come and gone.

Speaking of time management, I now have a group of women meeting every other week so that I can teach them 2/1. I learned it from Audrey Grant’s excellent book on the topic, but some people don’t particularly like book learnin’ and I guess that is where I come in.

Last winter I was asked to take over two classes at a local community college when the regular teacher headed south for the winter — the bigger of the two classes is about 36 people and they are beginner/intermediate, the small class is about 12 people and they are novices. I’ve been asked to step in again, except this year it will be for the month of November as well as January, February and March. I’m already starting to think about lesson plans for the intermediate group — having spent some time last year emphasizing how important it is to show partner shape and HCP by opening NT whenever possible, this year I think I’ll teach them DONT so they can “disturb” those who actually adopted that particular proclivity.

Which brings me to the point of this scattered entry, I never wanted to be a bridge teacher. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve said in a number of contexts that I would make a lousy teacher and yet both classes last year seemed to like me, my little group of soon-to-be 2/1 players like me and I find the exercise challenging and surprisingly enjoyable (even as I see a significant absurdity to the idea that anyone could learn anything from me and my 2 1/2 years of experience). When I think about my own game, all I can see is how much I still need to improve. I don’t want to fall into a trap of being content as a decent player and a good teacher, I still want to be an expert one day, but I’m coming around to the notion that teaching might actually help me towards that end.