March 2011 - 7

Letters to the Editor

of playing bridge at the Essex Bridge
Center in Livingston NJ.
The article in the January 2011 issue
about Jeff Ahrens (page 22) brought a
smile to our faces. We played against
Jeff on both visits and found him to
be not only a talented bridge player,
but also a smart, courageous and
most pleasant young man.
Thank you for telling his inspiring
story.
ARTHUR SCHUMAN
West Hartford CT

Big score
To the Editor:
At the District 3 Winter Regional
in Rye Brook NY, our team took 147
victory points out of a possible 160 in
the B/C Swiss Teams (20‑point scale).
Some of the players at the tournament
thought that might be the highest total
ever.
The ACBL apparently does not
keep records of such things, and we
are wondering if anyone knows of a
higher total of VPs in a Swiss team
game of this type.
ROB BAKER
West Harrison NY

Different deal
To the Editor:
The letter by Steve Conrad in De‑
cember (page 6) sparked my interest.
I wondered about back‑and‑forth
dealing, so I searched on the Inter‑
net and found http://www‑personal.
umich.edu/~mconger/thesis.pdf by
one of the authors of the referenced
paper.
Back‑and‑forth dealing consists
of dealing not all around repeatedly,
but rather reversing the circle direc‑
tion after four cards are dealt. For
example, normal dealing with be
North‑East‑South‑West, then repeat,
whereas back‑and‑forth dealing would
be North‑East‑South‑West, West‑
South‑East‑North, etc.
Apparently this works because no
player always gets a higher‑ or lower‑
positioned card in the deck. The bias
could be further reduced if the last

four cards were chosen randomly by
the four players.
TOM TROTTIER
Ottawa ON

KO Pairs
To the Editor:
I wholeheartedly agree with my
nephew Michael Shuster, whose letter
was published in December (page 8).
He disagreed with a columnist who
wrote that IMPs is "a better test of
bridge than matchpoints." Michael
argued that matchpoints requires just
as much skill but along differing lines.
As most players know, there is a
huge disparity in masterpoint awards
at regionals and NABCs between pairs
and teams that can be easily cor‑
rected.
The idea is to mimic knockout
teams by knockout pairs. These
would be two‑day events, just like
KOs. First, the pairs are bracketed as
they are for teams, except 32 pairs are
put into each bracket. After the first
session, half are eliminated, reducing
the field to 16.
Masterpoint awards would be based
strictly on whether the pair advances,
and would be the same as round one
of a 16‑team KO. In the second and
third sessions, the field is cut to eight
pairs and four pairs respectively, with
awards per KO teams.
In the final session, the four teams
play a 27‑board round‑robin, with the
bottom two teams getting no further
award.
The top team might get 120% of the
last‑session increment of a winning
KO team, while the runner‑up might
get 80% of that. As in teams, you can
play in a side game if eliminated in
round one or three, and play in an‑
other KO event the next day regard‑
less of when eliminated. This would
level the playing field for those who
would rather play pairs, but are lured
into teams by the current masterpoint
award system.
JON SHUSTER
Gainesville FL
Comments, readers?

Familiar face
To the Editor:
I was raised by a single mom, and
when I was about 10 years old, my
mother dated a man named Dan for
about a year. I really liked him. We
used to play chess, and I borrowed
his science fiction books to read. He
ended up moving out of town and we
lost touch.
Now at 37, I'm a regular at the
bridge house. Not long ago, I encoun‑
tered a fairly new player named Dan
Graham. I thought he looked familiar,
and I asked if he used to live in my
hometown. He said he did for about a
year. I asked if he used to date Karen
Berry. With a surprised look on his
face, he said he did.
We were both kind of awestruck
that we had run into each other after
all these years. Bridge sure is a won‑
derful game.
BRYAN LEE WILLIAMS
Benton AR

Tell it like it is
To the Editor:
Why do we disclose our partner‑
ship understandings? The Laws of
Duplicate Bridge require us to. Note
this passage: "Each partnership has a
duty to make available its partnership
understandings to opponents before
commencing play against them."
How far back can we find historical
precedent? In Robert Foster's Whist
Tactics, published in 1895, we find:
"The intelligence department is per‑
haps the most important in modern
warfare; it is certainly the leading fea‑
ture in modern whist. But there is this
great difference between them, that
in actual warfare every precaution ➤
Letters to the editor are welcome
by regular mail, e-mail editor@acbl.
org or fax 662-253-3187. Brevity is considered a virtue, as is subject matter with
relevance to a majority of ACBL members.
Unsigned letters are not considered for
publication, so please include your name
and hometown. Letters may be edited.
All letters will receive a response.
March 2011 Bridge Bulletin

7
http://www‑personal http://www.umich.edu/~mconger/thesis.pdf
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2011
