The build out of our new space is

president’s Message

T

virtually complete. The walls have been painted and the ceiling acoustical tile, carpet tile, kitchen tile, base boards, new refrigerator, cabinets and granite counter tops have all been installed. Signage and installa- tion of services are the only significant items to be com- pleted. We are planning to begin play at our new center at 31461 Rancho Viejo Road, Suite 205, San Juan Capist- rano, CA on April 11th.

Fire and Occupancy permits

We expect to receive the Fire Department sign-off and Oc- cupancy Permits on March 30th or 31st.

preparation for Move and Move-in date

We anticipate moving to our new space on Saturday, April 9th. We are planning to begin packing for the move Fri- day, April 8th, upon completion of the afternoon Bridge session. John Jonas has done a wonderful job supervising the build-out of the space, coordinating the move and or- dering the necessary services to facilitate play at our new location.

Volunteers Wanted to Help Friday afternoon and saturday

We have had numerous requests from Members wanting to know how and when they could help with the move.

Anyone wanting to take down bulletin boards, help break- down bridge tables, stack chairs, close and pack bidding

reLOCatiOn CeLeBratiOn

April 11th is getting close, and we plan to Celebrate the Opening of our New Bridge Center!

We’ll be putting Subway and Domino’s on hold the first week at our new location, and instead will be offering a Taste of San Juan Capistrano. Each day’s light lunch will feature food from a different local restaurant. We encourage every- one to be $$ extra $$ generous in feeding the Hungry Kitty

during our Taste week!

And we are also asking each of you to buy RAFFLE TICKETS.

10 Pros - Experts have graciously volunteered to play with the lucky Raffle Winners.

Be a winner! Purchase your $10 ticket from any of the Gala Committee volunteers: Loli Henderson * Janie Matlaf * Diane Velick * Ginnie Blitzman

South Orange County Bridge

Center

Newsletter Volume 3: No. 4 - April 2016

boxes and pack boards, kitchen items, books and supplies is in- vited to join us beginning at 4:00pm Friday, April 8th. Anyone wanting to help with the move and set-up of our new facility is invited to join us Saturday morning April 9th at the old and new facilities, please see John or me to let us know your avail- ability.

parking at Our new Bridge Center

Unlike Dana Harbor, the lease for our new Bridge Center does not allow us unlimited use of open parking spaces near the new facility. To make our new Bridge Center viable, we have ar- ranged for sufficient parking at two nearby churches and street parking is also available to us.

Of necessity, the parking is spread over five distinct areas, which include 16 handicap spaces within a short distance of the entrance to our building. If you have a handicap license plate or permit tag, please use the available handicap spaces, even if non-handicap spaces are available. There are spaces for more than 35 cars on the street/cul-de-sac adjacent to our facility;

please use these spaces, if available. We are leasing the right to use 40 parking spaces, for afternoon games Monday through Friday, from South Coast Christian Church, which is approxi- Continued on next page

Bridge etHiCs at sOCBC

(and all ACBL sanctioned games) By John Kissinger

There are three forms of Bridge:

• Party Bridge

• ACBL sanctioned games

• On-line Bridge

On-line Bridge is no doubt useful for partners located far apart that want to practice their game. I have never played on-line Bridge and therefore have no comment on what goes on there. The following discussion is about the differences between Party Bridge and ACBL games.

Imagine at Party Bridge the auction goes:

1S – 2C – 2D – Pass 2H – P – 2S – Pass

Was 2S forcing, invitational, not forcing, or ‘drop dead, ? please?’

In an ACBL game you are rewarded by having previously discussed such auctions with your partner. Of course, you likely discussed many other things as well, investing consid- erable time. Further, to iron out the wrinkles, you no doubt played with the same partner a number of times.

In a party game, responder, having bid 2S, might simply fold up his or her cards and place them on the table. If opener hes- itates, and might be wondering whether to press on in spite of the signal to stop, responder might add a withering glare.

Everybody knows the message is ‘drop dead’, and little good will come from further action. There is nothing wrong with this because the communication, which would be illegal in an ACBL game, is perfectly legal with this group playing at home. They set their own rules.

There is not supposed to be any difference between what con- stitutes ethical behavior at an ACBL club game and that at an ACBL National tournament. Communication is limited to your actual bids; any attempt to convey information to your partner in any other way, and any reading of such a signal by partner, is unethical.

On the other hand, you are required to fully disclose your agreements to your opponents. ACBL rules regarding what must be alerted, and when you must alert, are a little compli- cated and have changed over time. However, when respond- ing to a request for explanation of a bid or sequence, players must fully disclose their methods… it is not supposed to be

‘pulling teeth’ to receive the full agreement.

What constitutes ethical behavior at Duplicate Bridge?

• Tell the most necessary to explain your agreement, particularly when asked, rather than the minimum.

• Never hesitate or otherwise ‘coffee house’ in an ef- mately a three to four minute walk to our new Bridge Cen-

ter. Unless you are using a handicap space, we request that you park in the South Coast Christian Church parking lot.

We have also arranged for approximately 20 spaces in front of the Revival Church, near the Bridge Center (but not the eight spaces directly in front of the Church); please use these 20 spaces if they are available. We have also been granted the privilege of using parking spaces behind the leasing office, just a short walk to our facility. Finally, we have the right to use a very limited number of spaces around our facility; these should be used only under very special circumstances. Click here to see a map. Bob Cavanaugh has been appointed Parking Coordinator/Parking Czar and will along with volunteers help direct our members and players to available parking spaces.

directions to Our new Bridge Center

A map and directions to our new Bridge Center are posted on the front door at DHBC, as well as on the bulletin Board, and the website (the website has a Google link that you can use to explore the area). There are copies that you may take with you on the Game Directors’ desk and on the wall where the tournament fliers are located.

FaCiLitY Upgrade & sUppOrting dOnatiOns

New Facility Wish List

Several members have expressed an interest in our up- grading our new facility to be a premier place to play Bridge. We have had suggestions for new wooden tables, additional television monitors, a new convection oven, other new kitchen appliances, and tables and chairs for our outdoor balcony, among others. If you have sugges- tions to add to our wish list, please let me know.

Supporting Donations

A number of our members have also inquired about mak- ing donations to cover part of the cost of improvements that we make, despite the non-deductibility of such con- tributions. If you are interested in making a donation, please contact Susan Kissinger or me.

partnersHip pairing COOrdinatOrs

Ms. Bridge Manners’ COLUMn

Ms. Bridge Manners has been busy with our move and has not submitted a column this month. John Kissinger has, at my request, submitted an article on Bridge Ethics, which Continued on next page

president’s MessaGe from page 1

Continued on next page

fort to trick your opponent into thinking you do or do not have a card. Any effort to trick an opponent by play- ing quickly or slowly is unethical.

• Never ask a question when it is not your turn to bid or play, and never ask a question in an attempt to focus partner’s attention on something. (At tournaments you never hear the request, ‘partner, please lead face down’, implying an interest in asking about some bid… if your partner is on lead you will retain all of your rights to ask questions until you personally play to the first trick. The only reason for face down leads is to make sure a lead is not made from the wrong side.)

This is not to say there are no differences between ACBL tournament and Club play. Clubs may set rules regarding what bids are allowed that differ from tournaments; districts may allow or disallow certain bids on the mid-chart (which limits certain bids depending on the kind of game (e.g., KO vs pairs) and/or whether the event is stratified.)  The next article by John Kissinger will appear in the May Newsletter, and will feature Psychic Bids.

MOVe it Or LOse it

We are relocating to our new facility in San Juan Capist- rano after the game on Friday, April 8. Due to the short period of time we have to make the move and the large quantities of club essentials that must be transported, we are requesting the following cooperation from club mem- bers:

• All personal items must be removed from the club by that date or they will be donated to charity.

• All coffee mugs must be claimed and removed from the kitchen area. The club will not relocate your mug to the new facility.

Thank you for your understanding and help in making the move go smoothly.

Jane Dober, Lunch Program Coordinator, John Jonas, Moving Coordinator.

appears on page 2 of this Newsletter. Please email your bridge etiquette questions to Ms. Bridge Manners at ms- bridgemanners@gmail.com.

disCLaiMer

If you think this President’s Message was boring reading, think how much fun I must have had writing it. 

president’s MessaGe from page 2

bridGe ethics from page 2

WeBsite naMe CHange

With a change in our postal address comes a change in our web address. This will make it easier for search engines and anyone else to find us. In the meantime, and until we choose to retire the name, danaharborbridgecenter.org will continue to be valid.

However, for those who want to stay up-to-date, we do have two new website names - a short and a long one.

The long name is: SouthOrangeCountyBridge.Center and the short one: SOCB.center

Both of these names are valid immediately.

2016 rOster

There’s a little bit of last minute tweaking going on, but we do plan to have the new Roster available early in April.

Meanwhile, this is what the cover will look like:

- 4 -

CLASS AND EDUCATION SCHEDULES

Gale Senter is our Education Chairperson. Contact Gale at galesenter@cox.net if you have questions about any of the classes we offer, or perhaps would like to see offered. A schedule of courses for the next few months can be found on the website.

test YOUr pLaY

*

Contributed by Ginnie Johnson Dealer: East

♠ A 6 3

♥ Q 10 5

♦ Q 10

♣ K J 9 7 4

♠ 8 7 2 ♠ Q J 10 9 5

♥ A 9 4 3 2 ♥ 7

♦ 9 8 ♦ A K J 7 4

♣ 10 8 6 ♣ Q 2

♠ K 4

♥ K J 8 6

♦ 6 5 3 2

♣ A 5 3

North East South West

1 ♠ Pass Pass

2 ♣ Pass 2 NT Pass

Pass Pass

Opening lead: ♠2

T

Strangely, the number of tricks collected by the various Souths varied dramatically between six and ten. One declar- er in 2NT had a kind of knee-jerk reaction to his diamond weakness and went immediately - and desperately - after clubs. In his haste, he had failed to realize that even if the suit ran, he would have only seven fast tricks. He ended up going down two.

A second declarer, also in 2NT, did realize that he would have to play hearts eventually, so he took dummy’s ♠A and led the ♥Q. As East had signaled flamboyantly with the ♠Q at trick one, West won the ♥A and returned partner’s suit. South now realized a subtle dividend from his early play in that he knew for an absolute certainty that East had the ♣Q. West would have responded to his partner’s opening bid by raising to 2♠ if he had that card in addition to the ♥A, plus the three spades he had already revealed. So, after running hearts, de- clarer played clubs from the top and finished with ten tricks and a tie for the top score.

A third South was doubly unfortunate. First, he had misbid to 2NT. Second, he was opposed by good defenders. At least he tackled the hand as the previous South had. However, at trick one, his East had discouraged with the ♠5 (the spade holding was strong, but he desired a diamond shift should partner get in.)

Now, West smoothly ducked the ♥A. Declarer continued with a second heart on which East deposited the ♠9. (Observe that he cannot afford a high diamond.) Incidentally, this is a good example of expert defensive signaling at notrump. One dis- cards the suit one doesn’t want led, retaining the potential winners in the suit one does want. The message was unmis- takable; West now took his ♥A, and fired the ♦9. Down two!

In addition to the point already mentioned, this hand illustrates several important aspects of effective bridge: they’re simple, but bridge is - at bottom - a simple game: 1. Count tricks, 2.

Keep the auction in mind during the play, 3. Picture the situ- ation from the opponents’ point of view, and 4. As much as possible, play suits in which the top cards are missing (hearts in the above example), and avoid those lacking the intermedi- ate cards (here, clubs).

* This hand first appeared in an article by Paul Ivaska in the Contract Bridge Forum.

sWiss teaMs: saVe tHe date

Thursday, April 14: “8 is Enough” and NLM Games.

Contact Fran Blattner at (949) 366-9033 for “8 Is Enough” (franbill@cox.net) or Richard Picheny at (949) 295-0545 (rpicheny@gmail.com) for the NLM Game.

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

MOndaY MOrnings: pLaY OF tHe Hand - a series of Four Lessons

9:30 - 11:30 AM, Monday Mornings, April 11 through May 2, 2016. Fee: $48 for 4 classes if pre-registered, or $60 at the door. No partner needed,

The ABCs of Declarer Play and Defense-

• How to make the best leads against No-Trump and Suit Contracts

• Practice your bidding skills using Stayman, Jacoby Transfers, Blackwood and Gerber

• Getting to the right contract, and making that contract!

Each lesson includes handout sheets and eight Boards to play that support each lesson. There are also weekly review sessions, question and answer time, and hand analysis.

For more information, or to register for any of these classes, email instructor at JaneDober@gmail.com There will be another series of four lessons on Play of the Hand in May.

MOndaY eVenings: easYBridge iii+

Everything-You-Ever-Wanted-to-Know-About-NT-Bidding -Month 7:00 –10:00 PM … No Partner Required

• April 4 – Notrump Bidding – A Major Moment.

• April 11 – Notrump Bidding – No Future in the Majors.

• April 18 – Extra Power …. what to do?

• April 25 – Let’s Get in the Way!

No sign-up required for EB II (Wednesdays). Just show up and have fun.

Need more information? Call Sally Pelmear at 949-855-8953 or email: sallypelmear@cox.net.

WednesdaY MOrnings: easYBridge ii

9:30 - 11:45 AM at the South Orange Bridge Center. No partner needed.

The cost for each session is $10.00.

• April 6 - Rebids

• April 13 - Play of the Hand in No Trump

• April 20 - Play of the Hand in a Suit Contract

• April 27 - Leads Against Suit Contracts

For more information, please contact Sharon Rippy at fleurpdlur@cox.net

COMing in MaY...

2-Over-1 Classes Begin May 3

If you’re playing bridge in the 21st Century, you are somewhat familiar with 2 over 1. Here is your chance to own it! Be- ginning May 3, Robert Irani will be teaching everything you ever wanted to know about 2 over 1 based on Max Hardy’s book, “Advanced Bridge Bidding for the 21st Century.” The first week will see two sessions, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, followed by subsequent Tuesdays for a total of 10 classes. Be sure to put this on your calendar and watch for upcoming emails and details!

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

COntaCts

BOard OF direCtOrs

President Richard Picheny rpicheny@gmail.com Vice President Susan Kissinger jskissinger@mac.com Secretary Meg Casalaspi mcasalaspi@aol.com Treasurer Judy Brennan judyjolene@gmail.com Education Gale Senter galesenter@cox.net Health Steve Rakower srakower1@gmail.com Facilities & Parking Robert Cavanaugh cavancat@gmail.com

CHairpersOns

Unit Manager Judy Elbogen judyeo1@cox.net Director of Directors Judy Elbogen judyeo1@cox.net Membership Susan Kissinger jskissinger@mac.comt Newsletter/Website Peter Redwood phsredwood@gmail.com Lunch Program Jane Dober janedober@gmail.com Banking Leslie Levine leslielevine@cox.net

Financial Review Michael Cohen michael@michaelcohencpa.com Education Gale Senter galesenter@cox.net

Ethics Gary Waldron gwaldron@weintraub.com Forum Gary Waldron gwaldron@weintraub.com Hand-of-the-Month Ginny Johnson lucyjon1@cox.net Rain or Shine Beverly Bain beverly.bain@gmail.com Partnerships Fran Blattner (Open) franbill@cox.net

Joyce Potter (299er) jpotter333@cox.net (or 949-582-1401) Annual Holiday Party Loli Henderson L2bridg@att.com

Mentor Program Sharon Rippy fleurpdlur@cox.net Moving-Up Program Gale Senter galesenter@cox.net

instrUCtOrs

Hal Binder halbinder@cox.net Scott Campbell kenton1947@yahoo.com Jane Dober janedober@gmail.com Alex Fowlie fowlie@yahoo.com Alan Gailfus dobakala@sbcglobal.net Debbie Gailfus dobakala@sbcglobal.net Robert Irani iroberti@live.com Dae Leckie daeleckie@gmail.com Marshall Pearlman Mbp36963@gmail.com Sally Pelmear sallypelmear@cox.net

gaMe direCtOrs

Ginnie Blitzman (949) 768-8869 ginnieb21@hotmail.com Susan Bristol (949) 829-8191 bristolsg@cox.net Scott Campbell (951) 990-1855 kenton1947@yahoo.com Judy Elbogen (949) 233-6655 judyeo1@cox.net Fran Foresta (949) 248-8100 franforesta@verizon.net Alex Fowlie (760) 304-0122 fowlie@yahoo.com Debbie Gailfus (760) 720-0057 dobakala@sbcglobal.net Allen Golbert (949) 768-8869 brettsdad@hotmail.com Trudi Hanscom (949) 498-4363 t.hanscom@live.com Anne Jameson (949) 910-8860 ajameson43@gmail.com Dae Leckie (949) 427-3284 daeleckie@gmail.com Sally Pelmear (949) 855-8953 sallypelmear@cox.net Sharon Rippy (949) 498-9994 fleurpdlur@cox.net Barry Sussman (973) 632-1652 druvea@yahoo.com