Friday’s game in St. Catharines and Sunday’s unit game featured something I don’t see at the Airport Bridge Club – hand records – which offer the perfect opportunity to see why my partners and I did so poorly in both games.
Selina Volpatti and I knew we were in trouble on Friday. Nothing seemed to go right. Take Board 1. I’ve got a 15-point 1 No Trump opener, bid it, East doubles with a six-card Club suit, Selina passes and so do I. Down two. One point out of a possible 12. Next one is worse – a vulnerable sacrifice at 5 Spades doubled which runs aground on two offside kings, two Diamond tricks and a Club trick. Sure, they can make 5 Clubs, but it would have been preferable. And it keeps going like that – the opponents bidding and making games where they should have been set, us failing to do the same. No wonder we wind up at 41.03%.
Still, we do a couple things right. We bid the 6 Heart slam. Selina made a 2 Spade contract on a hand that didn’t even register any sort of contract for us on the hand records. That’s what kept us from being dead last.
The unit game, like the St. Catharines game, was scored on pickup slips, so Bob Kaprove and I had no idea how well we were doing as we played. Maybe 45-50%, we reckoned. Sure enough, we pull in at 46.59%. Playing in the B strat, we’re far from catching points.
Looking at the progression of hands, I can see why. After the first three rounds, we were at 34% -- 39.5% against Bob’s wife Judy and Marietta Kalman, 31.25% against Pow Wooldridge and Bill Bascom, both top players; another 31.25% against Ann Watkins and Rita Sofia, thanks to me leaving in Bob’s double of Rita’s 1 Spade opening bid (hey, I had five of them, but I should’ve bid 1 No Trump). Rita made it, although the hand record (Board 27) shows us East-Wests making 1 Spade, so we should’ve set that contract. We also can make 2 NT, so I’m doubly guilty on that one.
After that, we played a little better than 50% -- 58% against Fran Kurtz and Sue Neubecker, 72.9% against Pat Lakeman and Mary Terrana, 68.75% against Luke Danielson and Nita Ferrell (including a pass-out that gave us seven out of eight game points). Then came a poor finish – another 31.25% against Chongmin Zhang and Joanne Kelley, 47.91% against Ann and Mary O’Connor (Mary’s looking frailer these days), and a 37.5% in the final round against Stan Kozlowski and Berta Brown.
Looking at this record doesn’t bode well for my upcoming games at Bridge Club Meridian and the Bridge Center of Buffalo during the next three weeks. Bob and I did best against people we know best, not so hot against the folks from the other clubs.
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