Bridge Blog 612: Out of the woods?

I finally broke out of my 40% funk Thursday. Paired with substitute Paula Salamone in the morning STaC (Sectional Tournament at the Clubs) game at the Airport Bridge, we played modestly with few mistakes, although we missed a slam early on. Our final tally? 52.38%. Had we been North-South, we would have gotten B strat points, but we needed 54% to do that in our direction. At least it was better than 50%.

I was supposed to play all day with Barbara Sadkin, but she begged off from the morning session on Wednesday. When she arrived at 1 p.m., I was upbeat, figuring that the 40% curse could be beaten again. And it was. We emerged with 57.14%, just a fraction behind North-South winners Jim Mathis and Judi Marshall. Had I not come in a trick short by screwing up a couple hands, we would have been on top. Our reward? 1.05 silver points. Will our sub-60% performance get us a district-wide bonus? Maybe. A percentage like that would have won nearly 3.5 points Wednesday morning and a little better than 2 points Tuesday afternoon, but nothing at all Wednesday afternoon.