Half
a point short of 1,700, I tell partner Selina Volpatti as we start playing Friday
afternoon in the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont. Sorry, she
says afterward, for the horrible game. But it wasn’t so horrible after all, we
discover when we call up the scores on the electronic scorekeeper. We’re fifth
in our direction – 54% or 55%. How did that happen?
Well, some of our alleged bottoms
weren’t so bad, like the 5 Spades doubled contract that Selina played, bumped there by
me when East bid 5 Hearts after she jumped to 4 Spades over East’s 1 Heart
opener. That went down one, not vulnerable, and gave us 10 out of 17 game
points in this 18-table game. Should have gone down two, according to the hand records. Several went
down two doubled at only 4 Spades. Or, worse yet, the opponents have no trouble
making 4 Hearts vulnerable. Some made 5 Hearts.
And sometimes we just accomplished the
impossible. One of our absolute tops was a 4 Spade contract that should have
gone down one, but didn’t, thanks to an opening lead that brought out the Ace
of Hearts, which I trumped, then got to throw off a couple losers on the King
and Queen of Hearts in the dummy. Another was a 3 No Trump bid on which I took
all the tricks, but it turned out two other North-Souths did the same.
What I thought was my most daring hand
– a gambling 3 No Trump prompted by an eight-card Diamond suit – looked like a
coup at the time, but only tied for second best. Two others bid and made 3 NT,
one with an overtrick. The hand record says it should make just 2 Diamonds and
2 NT.
Our final score was 53.39%, fifth
overall, for 0.36 of a master point. Alas, not enough to reach the milestone.
But wait, let’s have another look at the last time I earned points, on
Wednesday with Celine Murray. That was a 52.50% game, but it was for double
points, so we earned 0.62. If my math is right, that’s 1,699.17 + 0.62 +
0.36 = 1,700.15! Let’s get out the champagne.
No comments:
Post a Comment