Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Pacific Northwest

After nearly 20 years in Oklahoma, we are moving to Seattle. I have a new job building the weather inputs to a data analytics system to improve agricultural yield.

With the upcoming move, I haven't had the chance to play much bridge, or to post bridge hands from the games that I did play. I was in New York last week, and played a game at the new Aces Bridge Club in Manhattan with my usual New York partner, Bill.  We ended up with a 61% game and won our direction, but there were a couple of hands where I overbid.

In one, I was not sure how Bill would bid with a minimum hand that held 5 diamonds and 4 of a major.
                         Me                Bill
                         1C                 1D
I had a 4414 hand with 14 points.  Some thing like QJxx AQxx x AJxx. What would you bid in response to 1D?  I tried 1H and Bill rebid 2C:
                         Me                 Bill
                         1C                  1D
                         1H                  2C
Now what? I tried 2NT, and Bill passed.  2NT went down 1.  2C would have made 3.

I will be playing at a sectional in Norman at the end of the month. It will give me a chance to say goodbye to a lot of friends. It is amazing how one builds both deep and broad relationships simply by playing cards once a week ...

I am going to have to look for bridge clubs and partners in Seattle. I went to the ACBL website and did a club search. There are 3 pages of listings, nearly 40 clubs in the area! How am I supposed to know which games are friendly and strong? And even then, finding a network of partners will take time.  One part of me is nervous about going to a club and saying that I have 250 masterpoints for fear of who I would be matched up with (I delude myself that I play much better than that ...). 

3 comments:

  1. Seattle has probably got the most enthusiastic bridge community in the U.S. Just look at the number of players from Seattle listed in the Bridge World's Masters Solvers club honor roll every month. You will love it there. Unfortunately I am relocating out of Seattle after seven happy years there but I do hope to see you in the Bothell sectional this weekend (September 6th and 7th) where I can introduce you to other players in Seattle

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