March 2008 Bridge Newsletter.

This year’s annual match between the House of Lords and the House of Commons was won by the Lords with a margin of 4820.  It was a needle match as the teams were neck and neck,  but the win was comprehensive!

The final of the Gold Cup was played in Peebles,  Scotland.  This year A.Allfrey,  A. Robson, T. Forrester  and D.Bahkshi  were the winners.

In York on the 13th April the EBU will be presenting Bridge to the public during a ‘mindsports’ event.   All are welcome .
Info  www.ebu.co.uk/education/learning/awarenessdays.htm

More Terms for the Glossary

Game forcing- partner must keep bidding until game is reached.

Garbage- speaks for itself.

Gardener- a 1 no-trump overcall to show either a strong no trump or a weak hand with an escape suit.

Gladiator- a method of responding to 1 no trump based on a 2 club puppet to 2 diamonds.

Grosvenor gambit- a play that cannot gain and might lose but is virtually certain to break even because an opponent will assume it would never have been made.

Gulpic- a very weak opening bid.

I have been looking at bridge sites and discovered wanttoplaybridge.com. This site offers free tips and puzzles and is fun to browse.  It also offers links to other sites unfamiliar to me.
Bridge Great Britain  was very informative.  I shall certainly be looking at these again.  There was a lot of good stuff on conventions and signals.

Following on from my reading my partner and I are going to play Roman Key card Gerber from now on.  I will let you know if any blood is spilt in the learning process. 

4D shows 0-3 key cards
4H shows 1-4
4S shows 2-5  without the trump queen
4 NT shows 2-5 with the trump queen
  The king of trumps is counted as one of the key cards.

It seems as if the Russians are claiming to have invented the game and that itarrived in 1860-5 in Istanbul where it was called something like ‘Britch’.   When the English discovered the game they renamed it Bridge.  This story comes from Graeme Williams  webmaster@gwilliams.org.uk where more of this fascinating history can be found.

Pattie Dupree