September 2021 - 36

THE
BIDDING
BOX
For our September competition, we
are featuring two of the winning pairs
from the recent North American Online
Bridge Championships.
First, we have the winners of the
Two-Day 0-1500 Pairs, the father-son
partnership of Xin Ge and Brandon
Ge of Cupertino CA. Brandon, who is
14 years old, started learning bridge
when he was just 8. He has trained
with Silicon Valley Youth Bridge and
with the United States Bridge Federation
Junior training program. Brandon
has already achieved success at
a young age. He won the pair game in
a recent Online Youth NABC, and he
had qualified for the U.S. Under-16
team for the next Junior World
Championships Before the pandemic
forced its cancellation. Brandon has
even done well outside the Junior
game, coming in second nationally in
the Grand National Teams Flight C in
2019. He enjoys playing golf, basketball
and games in general. His father,
Xin, is an experienced player, having
started playing bridge over 30 years
ago. He has a Ph.D. in statistics and is
a chief technology officer working in
risk management. This pair plays a
very simple and recognizable version
of 2/1 forcing to game.
Our other pair won the Two-Day
0-5000 pairs, and they will also be
36 | Bridge Bulletin | September 2021
MODERATOR JOSH DONN
josh@thedonns.com
The Ges were able to stop just in
time. Xin bid 3 due to his nice distribution,
but Brandon commented
that he didn't think his hand was
close to bidding game.
Gerardo
See the West and East hands that appear on pages 47 and 59 respectively, and
try bidding them with a regular partner. Compare how you performed with the
expert pairs whose auctions you can read about in this month's column. The
North-South players are silent unless otherwise noted. The competitors were
not informed of any interference by the opponents before the bidding commenced.
The form of scoring is matchpoints with a 12 top.
The Bridge Bulletin auctions are meant to portray possible bidding
sequences to one of the top-scoring contracts using common methods.
familiar names to experienced online
bridge players: the husband-wife pair
of Gerardo and Trisha Malazdrewicz
who live in Dartmouth NS. Both have
worked for Bridge Base Online for
over a decade; Gerardo as a system
administrator, and Trisha as the
tournament director manager (and a
frequent director herself). They are
both " yellows, " members of BBO who
work for the company and who can
be asked for help by other users. They
even met through BBO, which ultimately
led to their relationship and
marriage. Gerardo originally hails
from Argentina, but moved to Nova
Scotia in 2013 to be with Trisha. They
play 2/1 forcing to game, with the only
quirk being that their opening 1NT is
15-17 HCP when they are vulnerable,
but 11-14 when they aren't.
Problem 1
North deals. None vulnerable.
West
East
 K 9 6 4
k 9 4
l 5 2
' K J 10 6 4
Brandon
1
Pass
 A J 10 7
k A 6 5 2
l A 8 6 3
' 8
Xin
1l
3
1
Pass
The Malazdrewiczes had no problem
staying low here, partly due to
their system. Because an opening
1NT would have been weak, opening a
minor and raising the spade response
showed equivalent strength of a
strong notrump, including distribution.
Gerardo was able to pass at a low
level.
Trisha
1l
2
Bidding Box Videos
with Bergen and Cohen
Watch national champions, expert
teachers and Bridge Bulletin columnists
Marty Bergen and Larry Cohen
bid this month's Bidding Box hands
at acbl.org! Check out the BridgeFeed
tab on the ACBL website to see free
videos from Bergen and Cohen as
they bid two of the problems from this
issue. Improve your game by listening
to them describe their reasoning on
each deal.
If you love the free videos and
want to see more, follow the links
to larryco.com where the remaining
problems are available in their online
store for purchase.
http://www.acbl.org http://www.larryco.com
September 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2021
