October 2015 - 8

Letters to the Editor

Let me tell you about my
grandchildren

I was delighted to read the Game For
All Ages column in the August issue. I
attended Hunter from seventh through
12th grades and graduated in 1955. I
had never heard of bridge, and like so
many of that era, I learned how to play
in college. I played at it until four years
ago, when I discovered duplicate.
It is particularly exciting to learn
that my alma mater is teaching the
game of games to youngsters, because
about the time I began to play duplicate, my then pre-teen grandson asked
me to teach him how to play. Using
Eddie Kantar's "Bridge for Dummies,"
I did.
I believe that bridge is highly beneficial for young people. It has enhanced
my grandson's critical thinking skills
and taught him how to play to win
while practicing excellent bridge etiquette. He has played with and against
opponents of all ages who come from
many varied backgrounds. He has
learned how to be a gracious winner
and to take losses in stride. Win or
lose, my grandson's enthusiasm for the
game remains undiminished.
I wish we both had had bridge in
elementary school!
PHYLLIS GRANT
Sugar Land TX

Bridge in Berlin

I just got back home from a great experience as part of Maccabi Team USA
for bridge. As this was the first year the
USA has participated in the European
Maccabi games, we didn't have time
to recruit our very best. This worked
out very well for our team of six to get a
chance to compete against world-class
players.
None of us had played with screens
before, which led to a very odd bidding

8 Bridge Bulletin October 2015

sequence. My partner opened 1NT, and
the tray was slid to our side. I responded 3NT. To my surprise, my left-hand
opponent bid 4♥. When the tray next
got back to me, I realized it was not
my partner but my RHO who opened
1NT. I guess the opponents assumed I
had the minors. I'll never know what I
would have done if they had doubled!
In two years, the Maccabi games
return to Israel. We are looking for "A"
players to complete our team. Contact
me at artseelen6@gmail.com.
ART SEELENFREUND
Rye NY

Dummy is fine

Larry Legault's letter in the August
issue calling for the elimination of the
word "dummy," if not satire (it is hard
to tell), is the silliest thing you have
ever published. I guess now we will
have to describe playing a hand well as
playing "double exposed hand."
For the record, I joined the ACBL
somewhere around 1970 and have
never read or heard bridge opponents
referred to as the enemy.
GLEN HOFFING
Shamong NJ

Online differences

Bridge Base Online (BBO) provides
a convenient service to bridge players
worldwide. A player may log in almost
anytime from anywhere in the world,
and play a 12-board session in less
than an hour - either with three robots
or with three humans from different
corners of the world. Many games are
ACBL-sanctioned, and members can
earn masterpoints, which is an added
incentive. However, BBO bridge does
not follow the same rules as bridge

in an ACBL club or tournament. An
important challenge of bridge is in
bidding. The partners must exchange
information using only a limited number of available bids, and the number
diminishes rapidly as the bidding
progresses. In engineering terms, the
capacity of the communication channel is small compared to the information that the partners wish it to carry.
BBO has simplified the bidding using
procedures that would be illegal in an
ACBL club or tournament.
For example, in a four-person BBO
game, the bidder is expected to Alert
and explain his own bid, and if a player
does not understand his partner's
bid, he can request an explanation,
and the partner complies! In a game
with three robots, the human player
can put his cursor on a bid and a brief
explanation of the bid pops up. These
and some other changes simplified
the task of developing the software,
but BBO would be much more useful
to ACBL members - both as a practice
platform for experienced players as
well as a learning tool for beginners - if
a next-generation BBO is developed to
conform to ACBL laws.
My suggestion would be for ACBL to
pick a date in the future beyond which
the current BBO games would no
longer be ACBL-sanctioned. The time
available would be used to develop a
next-generation BBO that will mimic
the bridge game we all love and play
in ACBL clubs and tournaments. The
current BBO could still continue to be
used by players who love it and do not
care about ACBL masterpoints. I solicit the opinions and support of other
ACBL members and experts.
ARUN GUHA
Silver Spring, MD

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of October 2015