June 2019 - 65

Special Contributors

George's World
BY GEORGE JACOBS

It is nice to feel loved. Many of you
know April was to be my last column.
But in a wonderful show of humanity and joie de vivre, the ACBL and
the Bulletin editors devoted the April
cover to me. They did it cleverly, so
it wouldn't be too obvious, but it was
truly touching. The cover purported to
be about the upcoming NABC in Las
Vegas, but I saw through that immediately, and was moved. The cover says
"Let's Roll" - beautiful in its simplicity.
Everyone knows my fondness for
eggrolls, as I have written of them endlessly. What is shorthand for "Let's get
George some eggrolls to thank him and
induce him to stay"? Obviously: "Let's
Roll." After something that special, I
had to stay.
Claude and I played quite a bit in
Memphis, a place that I loved for an
NABC site. Fried baloney sandwiches
just outside the door, trolleys, many
cool restaurants, Beale Street,
museums ... it was awesome.
We had one high finish - fourth
in the NAP. Claude played so well
throughout. It was me who made many
bad bids and plays. One stood out.
Carol Frank reminds me every day online that I must report it. Our poor opponents (who were very gracious and
asked not to be named) were Daniel
Kroll and Peter Bonfanti. As responder,
Claude jumped in hearts, which was
a slam try (think 1♦-1♥; 1♠-3♥). I
keep forgetting that and passed, thinking it was invitational. Well, every
possible thing went wrong and 3♥ was
the limit of the hand. I felt very bad for

NOBET8888@aol.com

Peter and Daniel.
Check this out! Claude at the wheel
on Board 5 of the first final of the NAP.
The bidding is unimportant.
Dlr: North ♠ A Q J 8
Vul: None ♥ Q 10
♦K76
♣8765
♠ 10 6 5 4
♠K732
♥J76
♥A432
♦432
♦AJ9
♣KQ3
♣J9
♠9
♥K985
♦ Q 10 8 5
♣ A 10 4 2
Claude, sitting West, somehow made
the 2♠ contract he was in. As far as
I could tell, he had three spades, two
hearts, two diamonds and a club to
lose. He stroked every card in every
suit. It was like watching Baryshnikov.
What makes this so noteworthy is that
Deep Finesse says North-South can
make 3♥, 2NT, 2♠(!), 3♦ and 3♣,
and that par is plus 140 N-S. It doesn't
give East-West a making contract of
any kind. But he did it. Wow!
Please congratulate Claude when
you see him and buy him an eggroll.
I'll close with this, and you will
need some imagination. I'm on the
trolley one day, sitting across from
Greg Humphreys and Deirdre Nickel.
Naturally, I insert myself into their
conversation. There is a funny story of
a hand gone awry, and I ask how this
happened. She says, "We don't get to

play very often." I ask, "How often?"
She says, "One or two times a year."
I ask, "When was the last time you
played?" She says, "New Year's." I say,
"Well, that was only a few months ago.
You should know this bid." Without
skipping a beat, she says, "There was
alcohol involved." I say ... nothing.
Next month, some of the hundreds
of emails about "Not through the Iron
Duke."
Ciao for now.
◾

USA wins Buffett Cup

The team representing the United
States won the 2019 Buffett Cup, which
was held in Haikou, China, April 24-28.
The Buffett Cup was conceived as a
bridge version of golf's Ryder Cup. Teams
of eight from Europe, the United States
and China competed in multiple formats:
teams, pairs and individual.
The final scores were: USA 972.3;
Europe 967.7; China 953. Team Europe
won the team competition; Team USA
carried the pairs segment and Team
China topped the individual contest.
The USA players were Bob Hamman
- Peter Weichsel; Jill Meyers - Sylvia Shi;
Bart Bramley - Kit Woolsey; Oren Kriegel
- Ron Smith and npc Peg Kaplan.
Sponsored by the Cultural and Sports
Bureau of Haikou City, the Tourism
Bureau of Haikou City, Hainan Provincial
Tourism and Culture Department and the
XiuYing District Government, the event
is named after world-renowned businessman Warren Buffett, who sponsored the
event when it debuted in 2006.
June 2019 Bridge Bulletin

June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of June 2019