Bridge Blog 465: Yes-s-s-s!!!

          We did it! Our team has won a spot in the semi-finals in the Wednesday-Thursday knock-out game in the Niagara Falls, Ont., Regional Tournament. No matter what happens Thursday, we’re guaranteed 4.83 master points. Gold master points. All Selina Volpatti, Mike Silverman, Helen Panza and I have to do is show up at 1 p.m. and play. If we’re good enough to win our semi-final round, it’s 8-plus points. Go all the way in the finals and it’s 12.

          So congratulate me. I went to Niagara Falls this morning 2.8 gold points short of becoming a Life Master and now I’ve got ‘em. With more than 1,000 points overall, I get to skip right past the Bronze Life Master category and become a Silver Life Master. Hallelujah! Thank you, bridge gods.

          Thank you especially, bridge gods, for putting us in three-way contests in the first two knock-out rounds. In the three-way game, there are two teams that continue to the next round – much better odds than the head-to-head matchups. The afternoon round found us crushing one team by 63 points and losing to another by 35, so we got to play on.

        The evening three-way started out much tighter – we led one team by 5-1 International Match Points at the midway point and trailed the other one, 20-12. But we made up that deficit in the second half, thanks to a 6 Heart slam where our opponents went down three (Helen and Mike bid 3 Hearts and made an overtrick) and a 5 Hearts doubled contract that Selina brought home (Helen and Mike didn’t double). We happily paid the knock-out director $15 apiece for Thursday afternoon’s round. Life Master! At last!