Bridge Blog 700: One for the books

          Getting an early start on next week’s duplicate bridge column for the Buffalo News on Thursday night, my eyebrows jumped when I saw the results from Monday morning’s game at Bridge Club Meridian. The winners – Bud Seidenberg and Fred Yellen – had a 76.44% game.

          I’ve had a couple games just over 70% in my eight-year career, but nothing as big as that. How rare is it? Rare enough that it will get reported in the Bridge Bulletin, the ACBL’s monthly magazine, where anything over 75% is acknowledged. 

         What does a 76% game look like? Go to the Bridge Club Meridian website and you’ll witness a lot of top boards East-West. Four absolute tops, nine ties for tops in 24 hands, plus a lot of above-average scores. In fact, the only pair who got an overall plus against them (12.57 out of a possible 24 match points) were the North-South winners, Howard Foster and Mike Ryan, who had a 63.64% game.