Bridge Blog 986: Buffalo Regional Day 4

Is this Friday the 20th or Friday the 13th all over again? Why are the upper levels of the parking garage closed at the Adam’s Mark Hotel? We last-minute arrivals need them desperately. Next best option: Under the Thruway overpass for $3. Then walk around the outside of the hotel to the front.

Where’s my partner? Art Matthies always gets to the game before I do, but he’s nowhere to be found. I scan the scene anxiously during the minutes that the start of the game is delayed because of the parking. Finally, I look up his number in my datebook – his home number – and call. His wife says he got to the hotel, saw what was happening with the parking, turned around and came back home.

So the man who filled in with me on Tuesday, partnership co-chairman Jim Gullo, is pulled off caddy duty in the Swiss team game. We get such a late start that we leave two out of the four boards unplayed in the first round and have to make them up at the end of the session.

Jim and I make some terrible mistakes in the beginning – I mislead him into a slam on a hand that makes only 10 tricks, he misses rising with the winning King of Diamonds on my opening lead against an opponent’s No Trump contract and blows our chance of defeating it – but we rally to 53.47% in this six-table single-session side game. Third overall, second in the B strat, 1.85 red points.

I really need to play the afternoon side game to preserve the gold points I earned Thursday afternoon. The directors assure me that even though my Thursday partner is missing, I can collect the gold even if I play another side game with a different partner. In this case, it’s the book-selling lady, Rose Cassmer.

But only two pairs sign up for the side game. They need us and the other folks – Frank Henriques and Suzanne Nunn, from Newmarket, north of Toronto – to fill out the single-session Swiss team game as the 14th team. 

We have great success in the first round, winning by 28-2 victory points. Unfortunately, that puts us up against a really good team in the second round – Chongmin Zhang and Glenn Milgrim, who are playing with Jay Costello and Donna Steffan – and they drub us accordingly on their way to becoming overall winners. We get nailed again in the third round by two Cleveland ladies – Gladys Martin and Mina Ronen.

Now that we’re out of running for bonus points, we rebound in the fourth round. Two rounds won, two rounds lost. Award for winning each round – 0.25 of a point.

But what I don’t know until I check the emailed results from the ACBL just now is what our 54 victory points did for us. We’re ninth out of 14 teams overall, but we’re second in the B strat. Instead of just 0.50 of a point, we won 1.84.

So, with two days to go, this already ranks as my second-best-ever Buffalo Regional (see previous totals in Blog 985). Total points so far: 12.77.