News & Notes - March 24, 2012
The Rule of 20 is a method of hand evaluation based on trick-taking potential as opposed to High Card Points (HCP) alone. Based on the premise that hands with long suits and short suits have greater trick-taking potential than balanced hands, it allows a player to open the bidding when the HCP's plus the number of cards in the two longest suits equals 20 or more.  For example, if you hold AQxxx, AJxx, x, xxx, your two longest suits are 5 and 4 cards long which adds up to 9.  Add that to your 11 high card points and the result is 20. Therefore open 1S.

Bridge expert Marty Bergen believes that The Rule of 20 offers a number of advantages.
1. You bid more accurately after your side opens.
2. It is much easier to open than to overcall.
3. It is better to get in the first punch rather than having to guess after opps have bid, especially after a preempt.
4. It is more fun to bid than pass.
He offers this example. Dealer holds
S 63
H AJ742
D 8
C AJ943

LHO     Partner     RHO     Dealer
—         —             —         P*
1S        P              2S        ??

Once you have passed and opps have bid, what do you do? It's a tough position to be in. However, using the Rule of 20 you would not have passed initially; you would have opened 1H.  According to Bergen, "Either you open at the one level or you guess later".

There are some experts who do not recommend using The Rule of 20. They feel partner may expect more from you for your opening bid, and you may easily end up bidding too high especially if partner has no fit for your suits.

As a compromise, some people recommend using the rule but modifying it to count only the HCP's in the two longest suits, not the short suits. Thus you would open AJxxx, AQxx, x, xxx but not AJxxx, Qxxx, x Axx.

You and your partner may want to consider adding this method to your partnership agreement. If you do, don't forget to include it in your convention card, profile or announcement.
 

Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway

"Give me your hand.  Take my hand. 
Don't you let go.  Don't let go ... Reach!"
Sam says to Frodo in  JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

 Existential fear might be likened to an unexplainable "black hole" that looms precipitously above our heads threatening to swoosh us away into an indefinable nothingness.  As a spiritual condition, it is a tension between being and non-being on a physical or mortal level.  Perhaps the biggest danger of existential fear is its ability to paralyze us.  We can become afraid to live for fear of dying.  "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" yields to "Better to be safe than sorry." Being safe certainly seems smart when the spiritual alternative threatens our soul's very existence.  There is a sense, however, when being "safe" is only an illusion.  Being a deer in the headlights doesn't save us.

One of my favorite stories from literature is Beowulf, a myth that very influenced J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings.  Beowulf's stature as hero and beloved ruler of Sweden was sealed by saving King Hrothgar of Denmark from the evil monster Grendel and Grendel's mother.  Interestingly, Beowulf's battles with dragons began in his youth and eventually ended when he died of wounds inflicted by yet another dragon threatening his own country.  Sometimes I think we fool ourselves into believing that all the dragons have been conquered.  Perhaps the truth is - they never are.

The truth may very well be that unless we risk, our life purpose may never be realized.  Our spiritual journey asks us to live in such a way that our lives are fulfilled, purposeful, meaningful.  Life calls us to face our fears.

Life calls us to take risks.

Just for today, I choose to honor life

by feeling my fear and doing it anyway.

 - Sandy Harris