Announcements

Bob Kendall is a new Sectional Master.
Ned Forman is a new Bronze Life Master.

Congratulations to both!

The crown jewel of Oregon bridge tournaments, the Seaside Regional, is coming up September 29 through October 5.

The Seaside Regional is the fifth largest regional in the country, and no wonder: a beautiful location on the Oregon Coast, great playing venue, big name players, and plenty of opportunities for developing players.

If you’ve been thinking about going, time to get your accommodations booked. Hotels can fill up for this event.

Notice a new event: two sessions of bracketed pairs on October 4. See the schedule notes in the flyer below for what this means. Could be an interesting event.

As always, there are plenty of opportunities for newer players to earn gold and red points.

A good warm up for the Seaside event is the Portland Fall Intermediate/Newcomer Regional and Open Sectional coming up September 12 through September 14. The playing venue is in Wilsonville, so not a bad drive from Eugene/Springfield. Here’s the flyer.

Hope to see you at one or both of these events!

Join us on Saturday August 16 for our monthly Unit Game. This is always a fun event, with an excellent breakfast at 9am (free, of course, thanks to our great volunteers), followed by bridge at 9:30.

Last month, we had 9 tables in the main room and 4 tables in the 299er room. Great turnout! Let’s keep it up. This event is a great fundraiser for our Unit, and that benefits all of us.

See you there!

Janet Anderson recently sent a message out on our EBC Google Group asking about bidding of a hand in a recent club game. The topic was when would you open a five-card major holding a 15-17 balanced hand (vs a 1NT opening). The responses by our members were excellent and provide some valuable nuances to this situation.

Here is the hand and how it was bid at our club:

Here is the feedback:

From Josh Rosenbluth:

I prefer 1NT whenever I can with 15-17, but I don’t have a problem with 1S either.

From Ginny Stark:

Steve opened 1NT. I bid 2C, Stayman. He bid 2S. I bid 3NT.
Like Josh, we prefer 1NT with 15-17, unless the 5 card major is “chunky” & you’re wide open in 2 other suits.

From Don:

1NT.

From Laurie Rowe:

I would open 1nt also. If I have a good 17 count I will open 1 major because then I can rebid 2nt.  Also holding 3 of other major makes it easy as you don’t feel bad when transferred to other major.  In this hand after 1 s 1 nt , 2 c need to rebid 2 nt.

From Carole Schmitz:

I learned a long time ago that you only have one chance to show a balanced hand with a point count of 15-17.  I looked at bd 25 and the spade suit is not strong and you had 15 points so I agree the bid should be 1NT.  If I had a hand with a strong spade suit (AKJxx for instance) and maybe two unprotected suits with 15 points, I’d open 1S.

From John Cissel:

IMO, the key is to think ahead to your second bid. With 5332 shape and 15 HCP east does not have a good second bid consistent with their values after opening 1S. That is almost always true with 5332 shape, unless you have a good 17 HCP sufficient to bid 2NT over 1NT as Laurie suggests. With a 5422 shape and 15-17 HCP then it depends on where your values are. If you can rebid a lower ranking suit with 4-card length and your values are in those suits, then opening the major and rebidding the 4-card suit is probably best; that is where you live, and rebidding a new suit does not deny extra values. If your two long suits are weak and your two short suits are where your values are then 1NT may be best.; e.g., AQ and Kx in your short suits.

Thanks to all who took the time to respond!

It’s not too early to get your team together for August’s Swiss Team game on Saturday, August 2 at 9:30am.

Please let Don know if you’re planning on playing.

For those of you who qualified for the Progressive Sectional, the finals will be held Saturday, July 26 in Keizer. Here are the details: