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This group is an ecumenical bunch; good natured, always end the sessions hearing congratulations and seeing high fives, and we note that at any given week, winners are teams from different locales.

One week it was a team from Rose Creek, this week a team from Austin, last week a team from Albert Lea, and the Mason City team often takes the money south. Duplicate Bridge is a competitive game played Tuesday and Wednesday at the Mower County Senior Center in Austin, starting at 11:30 a.m.

This week nine teams played on Tuesday. Winners were from Albert Lea:

First place, Lorraine Quinlivan and Barb Rofshus

Second place, Theresa Baldus and Millie Seiver

Third place, Bill Momsen and Larry Crowe

Fourth place, Vandy Newman and Ron Peters

Fifth place, Jim Fisher and Dave Ring

Wednesday winners from Austin, playing six tables were:

First place, Gail Schmidt and Dave Ring

Second place, Larry Crowe and  Jim Fisher

Third place, Tom Flaherty and  Stan Schultz

Fourth place, Vandy Newman and Ron Peters

Fifth place,   Barb Rofshus and  Paul Hanson

Duplicate Bridge is a game with lots of conventions. One of them is what is called “the Unusual No Trump.”

We all know that a no trump opening bid shows strength. Cutting to the crux of the convention, lets picture a game where the opponents open a bid of one spade or one heart. Your partner jumps to 2 NT, ie, alerting your team mate that you have a distributional two suited hand with the two lowest unbid suits, with 6 to 10 or 11 points.  It often works that your team has a good fit, are not vulnerable, etc. Moral of the story is that it  happened to a team a few weeks ago, who actually knew the convention, but one of them ‘missed the signal’ and the hand was played by opponents.

Still learning, looking forward to next weeks games.