Bridge Blog 426: Not watching the odometer

          I’d expected to hit the 1100-point mark lifetime during May, but things were so pathetic, it didn’t happen. However, at the end of the month, I was very, very close – like 1097.31, according to the ACBL. Which means that while I wasn’t paying attention to it, I passed the milestone sometime since the beginning of June. But when was it?

          Lessee, .39 points on June 1, .56 on June 2, .65 on June 3. That was 1.6, putting me at 1098.91. And then off for the weekend and back on Monday with Sharon Chang. But that wasn’t it. We were last, or close to it, with 40.23%. No, but was it Tuesday with Helen Panza? We had a 53.17% game, fifth in A, third in B North-South for .45 red point and .44 black point. I forget whether red points count for this race. Either way, it wasn’t enough.

          Wednesday, however, was the charm with Celine Murray, with whom I probably play the most. We had a 58.84% game, best I’ve done in a while, which was good for third in A, second in B East-West, and .75 red points and .75 black points. That DID it! And I didn’t even notice.
          Sorry to say, I didn’t do much to distinguish myself for the rest of the week. With the exemplary Christine Pesce, wife of Vince, on Thursday, we had a 47% game, which didn’t even beat Vince and was thoroughly out of the money, even though we had a very good time. With Ruth Wurster on Friday, we kept thinking we weren’t having a very good time, but we got away with a few things (including my best move of the week – preempting with a six-card Heart suit, 9-high, keeping the opponents out of a sure 3 Spade contract and making 5 Hearts (thanks to a superb dummy hand). We wound up with a 51.65% game, fourth in A, third in B among East-Wests, yielding .32 red and .32 black.

          A now-rare Saturday appearance (Monica’s playing volleyball in the Empire State Senior Games in Cortland) paired me with Mike Silverman for what should have been an excellent game. But after the first two rounds, in which we underbid No Trump games and a Spade slam, we got more adventurous and got slapped down accordingly. We wound up at 40.43%, dead last, and were one of only three teams that didn’t beat club manager Bill Finkelstein in his “Beat Bill” game. So the tally so far this month is 3.11 black points, 1.52 red points. Not good. Hopefully things will improve next week. It’s STaC week – Sectional Tournament at the Clubs.