The Grandskam #54 April/May 2009

THE GRANDSLAM
SRC BRIDGE SECTION NEWSLETTER
Apr/May 09 ISSUE #54


1. Message from the Convenor – Zain Moledina
As Committee members of a mature bridge section, we are expected to build on our past – basically, more activities, more members and more achievements. The members’ survey conducted last year indicated that these should remain our key goals.
Our activities depend mainly on the drive and effort of our committee members. It is supported by our allocated budget and fund-raising efforts. Our membership size depends on holding regular courses and providing value through our activities. I believe we have a reasonable handle on these 2 attributes.
Our achievements depend on the quality of our players. This is the area we should now be focusing on. We need to increase this pool. We held an “advance course” 2 years ago with mixed results. We have just recently cut red tape, liberalized and made transparent our funding subsidy guidelines so as to give members more opportunities to hone their skills in external tournaments. But one avenue we have not seriously looked at is getting good bridge players to join SRC as ordinary or sporting members. Ours is a great family club with lots of facilities and low membership fees. Talk to your bridge friends. Our arms are wide open to welcome them.

2. Siglap CC CNY Ang Pow Special 1st Feb and Lo Hei Special 8th Feb
Siglap CC organised a double Lunar New Celebration with 2 consecutive weeks of food, fun and friendly socialising. Coinciding with the “double” concept, both games were won by David Chew and Adrian. SRC’s Zain Moledina also came in 2nd in both games – partnering Trevor Li in the “Ang Pow” and with SRC’s Yu Chun Yee in the “Lo Hei”.

3. GWCC CNY Special – Feb 6
Ever been to a tournament where you feel a little apprehensive when you get a top board? Well this is the norm at Geylang West CC with the sweetest ladies in town with their ever ready smiles. It was even more so at the Chinese New Year Lo Hei Special where their delicious contribution and “try my curry, please lah” coaxing made it impossible to stick to your New Year’s resolution.
Both our SRC pairs were in the money. 1st Michael & Randolph 65.7%, 2nd Carlton Parker (SRC) & Shamim Moledina (SRC) 64.3%, 3rd Ron Savage/Zain Moledina(SRC) 62.0%

4. New Bridge Venue – Kampong Kembangan Community Club
KKCC started operations on 26th Feb with 6 tables and some refreshment. The inaugural game was won by CC Seet and Chua Gang and Mr. Derek Maggs, secretary of the SCBA, was present with his family to grace the opening.. The activity is headed by Ron Savage. Welcome to the bridge fraternity and all the very best!
There will be 2 regular sessions a week. Monday evenings is for casual players while Thursday evening will cater for everybody. KKCC is about 200 meters from the Kembangan MRT station.

5. Support for SRC Section Members in Tournaments
Guidelines on the Selection, Sponsorship and Subsidy for bridge events have been approved by the Bridge Committee and distributed to all active SRC Bridge Section members. These clarify the section’s position and level of support on the various categories of tournaments.

6. Community Service – Batam Village Clothes Distribution – 11 Feb
All eyes were a-staring as Irene Tang, Shamim and Zain lugged 4 big suitcases packed full of clothes to the neighboring island of Batam in Indonesia. Over 500 pieces of clothing were kindly donated by New U2 store which is managed under the Singapore Council of Women’s Organizations. The trip and distribution was sponsored by the Bridge Section.
On arrival, we threw 2 bags into the trunk of a taxi and also used half the back seat to stack up the balance. This, plus the driver and the 3 of us, maxed the taxi to capacity. It was riding so low that even the smallest pothole caused the suspension to complain.
When we arrived at Tiban Kampong Lama, which had been recommended to us, we found it to be relatively affluent. After a discussion with the taxi driver, we decided to go to Kampong Seraya instead. We distributed 2 bags to residents whose dilapidated houses were literally dangling on a cliff! The remaining 2 bags were opened in a central location in the village. By now, the word had quickly got around and crowd was overwhelming. There was hoarding by a few individuals and the clothes had to be grabbed back from these people in order to ensure that latecomers also got something!

7. Malacca Bridge & Community Service -- 17th Feb
The bridge section leveraged off a private bridge trip to Malacca to do some community service. This time the recipients were about 20 refugee children from Timor Leste who were housed in the Infant Jesus Convent. Aside from the bridge section, the following individuals also contributed cash and kind – Maureen & Rosalind Lim, Ong Cheng Huat & Mui Siok, Tan Hong Choon & Yuet Wah, Steven & Alice Chew, Zain & Shamim Moledina.
The Peranakan food of Malacca is legendary and the historical sites were well within walking distance of the Equatorial Hotel. A name anagram game was played and also a pun-like quiz to unscramble the capital cities of the world. On the bridge front, a draw was held to match a newbie with an experienced bridge player. This game was won by Hong Choon/Shamim followed by Yuet Wah/Ping and Steven/Zain. An individual event was held the next day. Ping and Zain were tied for first followed by Hong Choon.

8. Beginner Class – 28th March for 8 weeks
ACBL accredited teacher, Carlton Parker kicked off this year’s class with 17 participants.

9. When the Director is called …
One of the roles of the director is to protect the rights of ALL players by objectively enforcing the laws of Bridge.
Yet, once in a while when the director is summoned for an infraction, the offending side may disapprove by making comments like “Why call the director as this is a friendly game?” or even “Why do you want to win so badly?” Both these comments are not only unfair but wrong as well.
The first comment implies that irregularities should be ignored in “friendly” games. So how will players learn the proper game and improve? An “anything goes” game unfairly penalizes the law-biding player and may easily cause tempers to flare up.
The second comment implies that there is something wrong about wanting to win and indirectly implies that the offender is not playing the game to win! So why shouldn’t the offender happily allow the director to be called so that he can be penalized and help himself to lose? Does there really exist a person whose objective in playing bridge is to lose?
Everyone makes mistakes through a lapse in concentration or ignorance of the rules. Ethical players respect the law, face the consequences without fuss … and move on.

10. National Bridge League – March 21st to Sept 26th
Last year we won our division and are now in Div 2. This year, the team members will be Zain Moledina (Capt), Prof Yu Chun Yee (V. Capt), Prof C C Chen, Dr Trevor Li, Shamim Moledina, Murli Vassanmal, Zhang Ping and Shawn Tham. In the opening round on March 21st at SCBA, SRC Dreamers beat Blue Moon 23-7.

11. Premier League – March 29th to June 21st
Last year we won the Premier League and will be defending our title this year. Our team members are Prof Yu Chun Yee (Capt), Shamim Moledina (V. Capt), Carlton Parker, Chris Wong, B K Tham, Richard Lim, Dorothy Wong, Murli Vassanmal and Zain Moledina.
In the opening round on March 29th, SRC beat Siglap 17-13.

12. Who's Who In Bridge - Authors
Who can forget James Bond rigging the villain’s bridge hand in Ian Fleming's novel Moonraker? Somerset Maugham injected several bridge situations into his novels as did Agatha Christie in her murder plots. Bridge was not yet invented when Charles Dickens was around but he did insert a Whist (the forerunner of bridge) situation as did C. S. Forester. Terry Quinn went one step further by writing "The Great Bridge Conspiracy" where bridge took centre stage. And Don Von Elsner created a bridge character called Jake Winkman in his series of novels!

13. The Blind leading the Sighted
Those of us who complain that it is difficult to remember the cards or visualize the distribution, here is some inspirational information.
There are players -- good ones -- who are totally blind! The cards are marked with Braille dots for identification. Sighted players call out verbally the cards which are played and those exposed in dummy. Many blind players have attained sufficient Masterpoints to reach Life Master level and many have won major tournaments against sighted pairs. So stop complaining!

14. Lowest Scores – Major Teams Tournament
The lowest score in a major team event occurred in 1957 in the Far East Championships held in Manila. On the 3rd set of 8 boards between Hong Kong and the Philippines, not a single IMP was scored! On every board the contract was the same and the same number of tricks was made!

15. SRC Tuesday Bridge Results from Feb 3rd to March 31st
DATE PAIRS FIRST SECOND THIRD .
Feb 3 14 PengHuat/CCLim Shamim/CCChen Zain/ThomasWong
Feb 10 14 Shamim/CCChen Nancy/RonOh Zain/Shawn
Feb 24 13 BK/Adelene AiLeng/Rana Zain/ThomasWong
Mar 3 11 Nancy/RonOh B K/Richard Shamim/CCChen
Mar 10 11 Zain/ThomasWong Leong/Pat Yu/CCChen=Dot/RonS
Mar 17 14 Zain/ThomasWong Yu/CCChen BK/Adelene
Mar 24 11 Dot/RonS Yu/CCChen Leong/Pat
Mar 31 13 Dot/RonS Nancy/RonOh Zain/CCChen

16. Ciao Caio
We like to wish ciao to Caio Feilhaber who is returning to Brazil in April. Caio was an ardent supporter of SRC and contributed to several great results partnering SRC players. He was also a team member of the winning 2008 SRC Dreamers in the National League.
17. Puzzle: Highest HCP Hand that cannot Defeat Small Slam (moderate)
In the last issue, we had the “James Bond Hand” which is the highest HCP hand that cannot defeat all grand slams. In this puzzle, you are required to find the highest HCP hand that still cannot defeat all Small Slams. (answer below)


BROKEN BRIDG –JQK (jokes, quotes & krap)
18. Bridging the World
In a recent public survey, it was found that …
In Italy, all Bridge Players are important.
In the US, only the successful Bridge Players are important.
In China, all Bridge Players are equally unimportant.
In Singapore, the survey was cancelled because nobody knew what a Bridge Player was.

19. Splish Splash
Declarers are like ducks. They look cool, calm and unruffled on the surface, but are paddling like crazy underneath.

20. Why Women Love Bridge Players? (original)
Bridge Players use a strong Club with Precision.

21. Bridge to Eternity
The devil appeared before a Bridge player and made him an offer. "I can arrange some things for you,” the devil said. "I'll make sure you win every tournament you enter. Your partners will love and worship you. Your opponents will fear and respect you and you will live to be a hundred. All I want in return is your wife's soul which will burn in hell for eternity.
The Bridge player thought for a moment. "Ok, I give up …What's the catch?"

22. Best of the Worst
Think of how bad your partner is.
Now for the scary part. As your partner was chosen at random, we can rate him as average. Now just imagine half of the partners in the world are worse than that!

23. Last Step
After all the hard work, confidence is final step to victory.

24. View from the Top
Bridge is “just a game” unless of course when you win.

25. Self Confidence
”Of course I talk to myself during bridge. I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”

26. Circle of Life
”Bridge players are NOT out of shape. I’m in shape. Look! Round is a shape.”

27. Waking Sleeping Dogs
There is nothing wrong with giving advice to your Bridge partner that calm, logical reasoning won't aggravate.

28. Painful Entertainment
“Why should I learn bridge? It is against my philosophy. My philosophy is no pain, no pain.”

29. Sacker or Sucker?
The difference between a champ and a chump is u.

30. The Impossible Dream
A Partner who only gives advice when asked.

31. No Uno
The element of luck ensures that even the best bridge players do not always win. For example, under-bidders gain when the distribution is bad and over-bidders score on those hands where finesses always work.

32. How’s That Again?
“My idea of an agreeable partner is someone who always agrees with me.”

33. Just Desserts
“The only reason I play bridge is to punish my partner.”

34. Boy-boy started to Crawl Yesterday
A bridge player who talks about his bridge hands is more boring than a mother who talks about her children.

35. Pass the Dice
A bridge player is trained in the art of inexactitude.

36. Yum Yum
Bridge and potato chips are alike. You can never have enough of either.

37. Daffy-nit-shuns - Bridge
Bridge is a Contract Sport

35. Puzzle Answer: Highest HCP that cannot Defeat Small Slam
West’s 35 HCP are insufficient to defeat this 6S contract by S.
West’s powerhouse is S: AQ H: AKQ D: AKQJ C: AKQJ
North has S: KJxxxx H: xxxxxxx D/C: Void
South has S:xxxxx H: Void D/C : any 8 cards
Best lead is a minor which is trumped in dummy. A Heart is ruffed followed by a trump. Whether W wins or not doesn’t matter. His best chance is to win the SA and play the SQ. But this is not enough to stop 2 more H ruffs to establish the suit for 12 tricks. (PS. W’s 6NT is cold)

36. JQK till you Drop
For the LARGEST COLLECTION of Bridge Jokes, Quotes and Krap in the WHOLE WORLD (no joke!), visit http://bridgejokes.blogspot.com. These are extracted from past issues of THE GRANDSLAM. If you also want to read the articles and puzzles as well, visit THE GRANDSLAM archives at http://bridge-newsletter.blogspot.com
Zain Moledina, SRC Bridge Section Convenor
April 1, 2009, zaris@singnet.com.sg