March rose up into a bodacious shower of points as it slid into its final days. Our Swiss team on Sunday – me and Celine Murray, Usha Khurana and Cleveland Fleming – proved particularly potent early on (39 out of 40 possible points in the first two rounds) and split the next four rounds to come in a respectable second for 2.15 points.
Mike Silverman and I then had back-to-back dates on Monday and Tuesday that also were quite profitable. Against a fairly weak seven-table field on Monday, we romped to a 66.42% game. First overall and, with double points, a reward of 1.98.
Tuesday I was more sleep deprived and, thereby, less sharp. The 11-table field also included some of the city’s leading players. We finished with 53.40%, fifth overall in the B stratification, fourth in A, third in B North-South, for .57 of a point.
That would be the end of my point-gathering for March. Celine and I stumbled to a 42.86% finish on Wednesday, not last, but not good. This was the day that, after the first card on one hand was played, Celine picked up the card that opponent Paul Zittel had just placed face down and looked at it. Fortunately, Paul thought it was cute. Thursday found me and Flo Boyd struggling with terrible East-West cards – our opponents had a lay-down grand slam on the very first hand of the day (See Blog 399) – and finishing with a 43.75% game, eighth of 11 in our direction.
Final tally for the month is something like 14.50 (I’ll have to check the bulletin board at the club), which makes it not as good as February, and a far cry from ’09 and ’10 (respectively, 26.61 and 43.76, my all-time monthly high). Total for the first quarter should be somewhere around 40. Can you believe it? Three months and I don’t have as many points as I earned last March all by itself.
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