"Fun, competitive duplicate bridge at a very convenient location"

FOR CURRENT GAME RESULTS go to www.BridgeWebs.com/nwdbc

Alan Frantz, owner/principal director

KOSHER ONLY.  Bridge players are reminded that we are only allowed to bring Kosher food into Temple Reyim, and this means food packaged with one of the Kosher symbols on the package.  Even if you keep a Kosher kitchen at home, you cannot bring goodies to the club to share with other players.  If you are bringing a lunch to the daytime games, fruits and veggies are considered to be okay.

UNLESS YOU SEE A NOTICE HERE CANCELLING THE GAME, YOU SHOULD ASSUME THERE WILL BE BRIDGE AT OUR CLUB AT THE USUAL TIME.  Several tables have been showing up in bad weather conditions, so don't be shy -- Alan

	Click here for Monday, 21 December Game Results.
	FOR CURRENT GAME RESULTS go to www.BridgeWebs.com/nwdbc
	November Master Points Race: Results are in! The Masterpoint Race results for November are now posted on our website.

           The winners were Daniel Colatosti (second to Sheila Gabay, who as October winner is not eligible to win in November), Chris Gradijan, and Zachary Grossack

           in Flights A, B, and C, respectively.  Each will receive a Free Play. Details, as always, are on the MP Race tab.

	The 2010 calendar is available on the Schedule tab.
	Due to infestation of spam, the Suggestions, Reservations, and Partner pages on our website have been disabled.

          Please simply send e-mail to the club, or communicate directly with the director.

	Chris Apitz has submitted a Neat Play hand from The Tuesday evening December 30th game.
	Jeff Lehman has another neat hand, this from our Monday Feb 18th game, posted on the Neat Plays page.

Jeff Lehman has sent an example where non-standard defensive plays turn out to be the winning choices.

See the Neat Plays tab. 

	A new Free Play Policy took effect on April 3, 2006.  Thanks to all of you who provided input to this decision.  Click on the link above to read the policy.
	The ALERT procedure is to protect the opponents from cases where a bid has an unusual or unexpected meaning.  IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE BIDDER'S PARTNER TO BE *SURE* THAT THE OPPONENTS ARE AWARE THAT THE BID HAS BEEN ALERTED.  Saying "Alert" may not be enough, when many opponents do not hear well.  I strongly urge you to also use a visual signal -- that is why the bidding boxes come equipped with Alert cards.  Those of us who play highly artificial systems (e. g., Precision), do this as second nature, and often ask an apparently inattentive opponent, "did you see or hear the Alert?"   Last night I had to rule on a case of an unheard Alert.  South opened a Flannery 2D bid and North, a soft-spoken gentleman, said "Alert".  The auction then proceeded 2D-2S-X-P-P-P.  I was called to the table when the carnage was over and the hand with AJxxxx of spades had gone down four.  He was very surprised when his RHO had only one diamond.  Both opponents claimed not to have heard the Alert, but the bidder, who knew to expect the Alert, had heard it.  I ruled that a proper Alert had not been given and awarded Av-/Av+ on the board.  Be very clear on this point:  When you Alert, it is YOUR responsibility to be sure the opponents are aware of what is going on.  Recommended procedure for ALERTing:  1. Say "Alert!" 2. Put the ALERT card on the table.  3. Look directly at the opponent whose turn it is to call and get acknowledgement that s/he heard/saw the Alert.
	DISCUSSING HANDS DURING THE SESSION IS NOT SOCIABLE - IT IS ILLEGAL!  A good player, who plays infrequently at our club, sent me this e-mail after playing in a NAOP game: This morning, as I was looking over the hand sheet from Tuesday night, I remembered a comment from "North" as I sat down to play at a table in Section A. [I am editing out table information to protect the guilty.] She said, "Have you played Board 25 yet?" I try to ignore such comments,  because it just means something especially weird about the distribution of that board. We hadn't played it, but when I looked this morning of course it was a makeable slam on 1-0-7-5 distribution. This is a very bad habit of some who should know better after many years of playing. This kind of behavior could have an adverse effect on the game, AND IT IS ILLEGAL. The less discussion of hands, bids, leads and other I coulda, shoulda the better off we all are. There's plenty of time after the game to rehash.
	Fouled Boards are Serious! On Tuesday evening, two pairs told me that Board 7 from Monday morning May 16th's Int'l Fund Game, was fouled when they played it relatively late in the session.  The North and East hands had been interchanged.  I immediately verified that this was true, since the board had not yet been reshuffled for the Tuesday game.  The next question is when and how this happened.  The board was duplicated at table 4, and first played at table 2.  The contract at table 2 was consistent with the (correct) original configuration of the board.  At all subsequent tables the score is more consistent with the fouled state of the board.  This constitutes strong circumstantial evidence that the hands got put into the wrong pockets before the board left table 2.  Putting hands back into the wrong pockets is a very serious procedural error.  The director is free to assign a procedural penalty of up to a full board, and in this case, I am penalizing both pairs at Table 2 the full 11 matchpoints.  The penalty is moot since neither pair ranked high enough to win any masterpoints, but I wish to emphatically warn all players against post-mortem discussions that involve pulling hands out of a board you have just played.

	When attempting to send e-mail, I often get failure notices.  I invite each of you to help me by getting me your correct e-mail address or asking me to remove you from my list.  You can send e-mail to the club at NewtWellDBC@yahoo.com.
	Swiss Teams are still a HUGE success!  Swiss Team games have proven to be very popular at our club, attracting between 15-30 teams, and the current plan is to schedule two such games each quarter, one on Tuesday evening and one in the daytime, alternating Monday and Friday. All future Swiss Team games will be a special event that permits awarding more MP to the winners.
	Visit Us!  This club welcomes visitors.  In March and April we had a couple from England with us for several weeks.  Then a grandfather from North Carolina was visiting and brought his 12-year-old grandson with him to play at our club.  On October 15th, we welcomed Alvaro Betan of Medellin, Colombia, and found him a good partner with whom he came in third.  In each case, the visitor contacted the director early enough to make suitable arrangements.
	SCORING ACROSS THE FIELD:  Whenever we have two sections playing the same (computer dealt) boards, we will "score across the field," meaning that your result is compared to all pairs playing this board in both sections.  This causes the top on a board to be 15 instead of 7.
	Volunteer opportunity!  You can play with eager senior players at nursing home near Coolidge Corner. See the News & Notes page.