Day Three: Wednesday, June 14 at the 2023 Penticton Regional

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Emergence and Rediscovery

A Few Thoughts on the Joys of Live Bridge

First, some adjusted lyrics:

"When we were home, and online was the way to play,
We shrugged and said, live and let live
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did...)
But now the game is coming back from our computers
Won't you give it a try?
There's nothing like Live!"

I wrote pieces for the Monday and Tuesday Bulletins about the effect that months and months of online bridge has had on some of us. Getting back to the live game is tough going at first after you get used to scoring, moving, and preventing irregularities all done for you automatically. But you'll soon find that it has interesting features that weren't in the online game, beyond all the extra work we need to do handling cards, scoresheets, table assignments, and everything else.

Tells, for one. Long ago I planned to go from Vancouver to Seattle to play in the Grand National Teams District Final on a five person team, and we mostly practiced online: each of us had two partners, depending on who was sitting out, and for several weeks we played most every night. Then we got to the site and sat down to play. On the very first deal, the opponents bid 1♠ - 2♥; 3♦ - 4♣. I passed, wondering why they bypassed 3NT, and my heavily-bearded LHO put his thirteen cards face down on the table, then followed by folding his arms and putting his face and beard face down on the table atop his thirteen cards. For about ninety seconds.

Not something you would ever see in the online game, I thought. After about twenty seconds, people would be checking to see if they were still at the keyboard. But once we got to the second minute, I realized that while I had no idea what this tell meant, it was sufficiently strange that I felt we would have little trouble with this pair. And we didn't. He emerged and passed. Big swing to us.

Later, in a different match with a different partner, a sacrifice went off the rails and a four-digit number was written on our scorecard in the wrong column, early on in a nine-board match. I looked at partner and he looked back and we said nothing; the opponents were trying not very successfully to contain their delight. While they were thinking that they had won the match on this fourth board of nine, we saw what they had done on the first three and we knew that there would be opportunities on the remaining five. We then calmly set about finding them. And we did.

There is a story about the Blue Team, the Italian stars who dominated the World Championships in the 1960s, playing against France and bidding a grand slam off two aces. Double, down two, and the declarer and dummy very calmly put their cards back in the slot, wrote the score on their scoresheets and went on to the next hand without comment. After all, they had had thirteen tricks to find out that there had been a bidding disaster and by the end of the cardplay both knew exactly what the problem was. The French players were so flabbergasted by this superhuman display of composure that they had given back twice the number of IMPs they gained on that board over the next six!

Maybe all this happens online but I doubt it. There's something about a computer screen that makes everything different. I often find that we're on trick three or four and as a defender I haven't really had a close look at dummy. In live bridge the tempo is slow enough that we all get a chance to count points and think about which missing highcards might be where, while we write down the contract on our scorecards as dummy appears. Part of the difference is that in online bridge the thirteen cards in dummy are revealed in a flicker of time, all at once, while in live bridge we see the dummy hand suit by suit and it's like being carefully told a good story. Because of this extra moment or two, often by the time I play to trick one as a defender I have two or three possible ways for us to get the number of tricks needed and I know what to watch for. But in online bridge, for some reason, we too often take a quick look at dummy and get on with it, making default plays that seem to be logical. On many hands this is sufficient; on some we miss opportunities with this shortcut.

I find that when I play (usually to fill in, these days) I see more tells then ever before, because most players are so overwhelmed with the scoring and card sorting and other things experienced players do naturally, that they are prone to giving information away by hesitating when they shouldn't, and by overthinking in obvious situations. If you hitch because declarer's about to finesse, declarer will know what to do. If you have a choice of two cards in dummy to play, one of which cannot possibly win a trick, the defenders will assume that you don't have that suit covered in hand (if you did, that would be an easy discard). Many players' tempo is a goldmine of information, like a pitcher who gives away which type of pitch he is about to throw by unconscious actions that batters have picked up on.

Meeting new people is something that has a decidedly different feel to it live than online. Perhaps you click on a player's profile and find that he is from Macedonia. Odds are that if you ask, he may just turn out to have a Macedonian grandfather and was born in Peoria, so we usually don't. New people at a tournament often make the time between rounds more interesting, and you need not check out their profile first. You may even find your next teammates or even a future partner in the opponents you meet in a pair game.

A big regional tournament live is much different than a regional tournament online, where players disappear once the last card is played and await the results. Lunch plans, dinner plans, days off to play golf or try a wine tour or sit on the beach or shop, are all part of a live tournament and contribute to the memories that make so many of us come back for more the next year. Some play almost every session and see little of the surrounding area; others combine bridge with sightseeing and find a good balance to do a perfect amount of both. It just seems to me that it is easier to have fun with others than alone in front of a screen.

About halfway through the long lockdown period, I was masked up in the grocery store, out of the apartment for the second time that week, and I went past the in-store sushi and realized it had been months since I had eaten any. I grabbed some on an impulse and it was, like most grocery store sushi, okay but not great. The next time I was in the mall getting other supplies and a haircut I stopped at a sushi place and got some to go, ate it when I got home. That was a step up, but there was one more step. Emerging from the lockdown with a tournament to run and having to go to the local printer to get hand records printed, the order was so small that I was told it could be done in a half an hour, so I went into the sushi restaurant nearby for lunch.

That was "A"-level sushi. Brought home from the mall and eaten a short time later was "B" sushi, grocery store packages made hours before is "C" sushi. Our game's survival as a live activity depends a lot on players rediscovering that "A" bridge (live clubs or tournaments) is a step above "B" bridge (online clubs or tournaments), and considerably above "C" bridge (that app on your phone or tablet or computer that you sometimes play). Vive le jeu en direct!

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. Unruly gives you another grid of cells which may be black or white, and starts you off by giving you some free hint cells, with the rest gray. Three simple rules define the completed grid: 1) no row or column will have three consecutive cells of the same colour (but three or more diagonally is allowed); 2) each row and column will have the same number of white and black squares; 3) No two rows or columns will have exactly the same sequence of black and white squares (although a row may match a column, or match another row in reverse). Strategies: look first for adjacent cells of the same colour and fill in the other colour on each end, or two cells with the same colour with one cell in the middle, and fill in the other colour in the middle cell. Then look for nearly completed rows and columns and count colours to see what is still needed. The third rule is less common but will get you out of binds in the endgame often! 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: 2min 33sec)
	Medium puzzle (McBruce's time: 3min 52sec)
	Tricky puzzle (McBruce's time: 9min 55sec)

2023 Penticton Regional, Day Three: Wednesday, June 14

Pretty Good Start! All sessions so far have been larger than 2022!

Attendance So Far

Brain Warmups

What WAS His/Her Name Again?

Today's Schedule — Day Three — Wednesday, June 14

Morning-only Events (9:00am)

Afternoon-Evening Events (1:00, 7:00pm)

Afternoon-only Events (1:00pm)

Evening-only Events (7:00pm)

Masterpoint Leaders thru Wednesday Evening

Should be up by about 11:45pm

Overall Leaders

Non-Life Master Leaders

Emergence and Rediscovery

A Few Thoughts on the Joys of Live Bridge

Brain Workout Section!

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

Tomorrow's Schedule — Day Four — Thursday, June 15

Morning-only Events (9:00am)

Afternoon-Evening Events (1:00, 7:00pm)

Afternoon-only Events (1:00pm)

Evening-only Events (7:00pm)

Non-Life Master Leaders
Masterpoints will be updated first on the masterpoints page. Leaders will appear here later, when the results are posted.