Bridge Blog 570: Simple twist of fate

          Doug Dean, at 95, the oldest player in the clubs these days, remarked as I gave him a ride back to his assisted living quarters Monday that sometimes he felt like he had no control over how well or poorly the game was going. As an example, he cited his partner that day, who plunged ahead into an ill-advised 4 Club contract despite his repeated use of the Pass card and went down badly. Nothing he could do about it.

          I had that same feeling in the double session Tuesday at the Airport Bridge Club, though it wasn’t my partner Marilyn Sultz’s fault. In the morning game, our opponents seemed to have the magic touch. They’d zip into slams, stop prudently to avoid overbids and find the magic lead which deprived us of the extra trick that everybody else won. It was dismal. We ended up at 38.81%, dead last by a fraction.

          The afternoon session did not feel any better. We were on offense on only seven of the 24 hands and I got to play just two of them. Nevertheless, the opponents kept inadvertently knocking themselves out. For instance, in the four boards we played against club manager Bill Finkelstein and C strat player Elsie Rogers, we got 15.5 out of a possible 20 game points, although we were unaware of how good it was at the time. So Marilyn and I were shocked to discover that we came in first overall with 58.75%. Our reward – 1.73 points – boosts my September total to 15.29.