Bridge Blog 732: Bill would've fixed it

Great commotion at the start of the third two-board round Friday at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont. One of the players, Janet Glazebrook, suddenly wasn’t feeling well and had to leave, accompanied by her husband, Dennis, who was playing with someone else.

Janet was North-South, Dennis was East-West. Easily solved by pairing up their partners, but wait – this was a 15 ½ table game. Instead of having one sit-out, East-West would have two. Or would they?

For a minute or two, there was talk of East-West having two sit-outs, but the cobbled-together pair decided to play East-West, thereby creating a sit-out in both directions. For the rest of the afternoon, the idle pairs retreated to the other room, picked up a deck of cards and played a couple hands while they were waiting.
The sit-out never reached Selina Volpatti and me, we played a full 13 rounds. Meanwhile, during the confusion, it seemed to me that Airport Bridge Club manager Bill Finkelstein would have come up with a more creative solution, eliminating the sit-outs. Selina and the others at our table agreed.