Covering Up

We have all heard that if playing in second place to a trick we should “play low”.  According to August Boehm, of course life isn’t always that simple.  If you are in second place to play to a trick, your goal is to promote lower values in yours or partner’s hand.  When, after reviewing Dummy’s and your hand, you don’t see that a promotion is apparent, play low as originally taught.   But there are additional guide lines that can be more helpful in other circumstances.  Tend to cover an honor with an honor if you hold a doubleton but duck if you hold 4 or more especially in NT.  You retain a potential stopper for later. Covering an honor with an honor may force opponent to spend 2 of his honors to take yours, possibly promoting a lower card in yours or partners hand.  If you see Dummy with 2 touching honors tend to cover the second of the honors when played again keeping opponent from running that suit.  There are no hard and fast rules covering all circumstances. Thinking and assessing and hoping that we’ve learned something  is what keeps us coming back for more week after week even after” taking a beating”.

The Friday, May 4th Evergreen GrassRoots FUNd  game was small, but competitive.  Winners were in Strat A: 1st Becky Creekmore and Pat Macon, 2nd Fern Albracht and Everett Halsall, 3rd Carol Bachl and Judy Gealy, 4th Ruth Bowles and Marie, 5th Pat Featherston and Dick Brisbin; StratB 1st Fred Bachl and Wade Lowder, 2nd Genny Mozolak and Joe O’Brien.

Featured is board # 8 from that game.     No one vulnerable    West dealing

NORTH:

S  A 7 5 4

H  5

D  A Q 6 5 3

C  Q 8 7

WEST:               EAST:

S  J 9 2                S  K 3

H  K 4 3               H  A J 8 6

D  T 4                   D  K 9 7 2

C  A K J 4 3         C  T 9 6

SOUTH:

S  Q T 8 6

H  Q T 9 7 2

D  J 8

C  5 2

The best N/S score was made by Pat Featherston and Dick Brisbin defeating opponent’s 2HE 3 tricks, while Anita Graham and Wayne Pegram bid 2NT making 4 for best E/W score

Winning the Women’s Club May 8th GrassRoots FUNd game : N/S 1st Dick Brisbin and Wayne Pegram (2nd overall), 2nd BettyBonner Steele and Ron Caudle(5th overall), 3rd Becky Creekmore and Pat Macon; E/W 1st Georgia Sorensen and John McLaughlin( 1st overall), 2nd Margaret and Chuck Rimer (3rd overall), 3rd Judy Hurder and Myrnie McLaughlin( 4th overall).

I am continuing to try to find out why my emails are not getting to all of you.  I have your addresses entered but they don’t all get copied. Be patient while I work on this.  Thanks