Eight days of bridge
this week. Once every day and twice on Sunday at the Unit 116 picnic (see Blog
969-A). Four fruitful, one also-ran, three absolutely abysmal.
Monday with Marilyn
Sultz. 47.72%. Actually a close one. One more match point and we would have
edged out Cleveland Fleming and Margaret Zhou for third place in the B strat. I
should have kept a Spade against the No Trump contract on Board 15.
Tuesday with Usha
Khurana. 42.11%. Last North-South.
Wednesday with Dottie
May. 48.26%. Should have been an also-ran, but we’re on top of a bunch of pairs
in the upper 40s. Fourth East-West. 0.83 of a point.
Thursday with Marietta
Kalman. 41.12%. Next to last North-South.
Friday in St.
Catharines with Selina Volpatti. 51.74%. Fourth North-South, on top of a
cluster of players right around 50%. 0.49 of a point. I arrive late because of
a 40-minute wait to get over the Peace Bridge and director Keith Burkell sits
in for me on Board 3. It’s a bottom, the only one where East-West makes a 3 NT
contract and, reviewing it on the website, I see why. Selina leads the 9 of
Clubs from A-Q-J-9-4, taken by dummy’s singleton 10. The two North-Souths who
beat 3 NT lead the Queen.
Saturday with Art
Matthies. Best game of the week so far. 56% in a three-table session. Second
overall. 1.83 points. Art gives only a few sighs of exasperation, notably in
the final round of the day, Board 24, against Christine Malarkey and Ron
Henrikson. Ron makes a 4 Spade contract that Art says would be defeated with a
different lead. Here’s the hand:
West is dealer. Nobody
vulnerable.
West: (Ron)
Spades: A-K-J-9-8-3;
Hearts: A-Q-J; Diamonds: A; Clubs: K-8-7
North: (me)
Spades: 5-2; Hearts:
10-8-7-3-2; Diamonds: K-2; Clubs: A-J-6-3
East (Christine)
Spades: 6-4; Hearts:
9-5; Diamonds: J-10-9-7-5-4-3; Clubs: 10-9
South (Art)
Spades: Q-10-7; Hearts:
K-6-4; Diamonds: Q-8-6; Clubs: Q-5-4-2
According to the hand
record, it’s all East-West, making 2 NT, 3 Spades, 1 Heart, 3 or 4 Diamonds and
even 1 Club. I wish I recalled the bidding, but I’m pretty sure Ron doesn’t do
a strong 2 Club opener and steer things into Spades, which is what I would do.
At any rate, I think he opens1 Spade and, emboldened by not being vulnerable, I
overcall 2 Hearts, Art supports the Hearts and Ron winds up at 4 Spades.
My lead is my
fourth-best Heart. Ron plays the 5 from the dummy. Art puts up the 6. Ron wins
with the Jack. Art maintains that I should have led my best Heart, the 10,
because he infers an honor from my lowball lead. I contend that the 10 is an
honor, albeit a low one, and he should have risen with the King anyway.
At any rate, I shall
follow his precept when I’m playing with him. I suspect that it makes no
difference in the play of the hand. Here I suspect the key to setting the
contract is the Clubs. We should hold Ron to five Spades, three Hearts and the
Ace of Diamonds.
Sunday morning with
Florence Boyd at the Unit 116 picnic. Absolutely abysmal. I'd have more to say
about it if I could figure out how to access the results on the Common Game.
Since I can't and because the Unit 116 result list only recounts the point
winners, I'm not even sure what our score was down there on the bottom.
Something like 33.7%
Sunday afternoon with
Florence Boyd at the Unit 116 picnic. Redemption. 58.81%. Ninth overall, which
wasn't good enough to pick up points in the A strat, but sixth in the B strat,
which earned us 0.75 of a point.
Total for the week:
3.90. And for the month so far: 10.88. Short week ahead because I'll be out of
town for a couple days. All of a sudden, hitting that goal of 15 points per
month looks like it might be a stretch.
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