Bridge Blog 993: Niagara Falls Regional Thursday

June Feuerstein and I follow up Wednesday's deep mediocrity by sinking to a new low in the morning open pairs session Thursday – 39.74%. Only two other pairs go lower, Susan Barreca of Dundas, Ont., and Keith Coutlee of Hamilton, with 38.83% among us East-Wests and, in the North-Souths, Ruth Kozower and Ed Drozen with 35.49%. When the movement requires us to skip a table, Ruth and Ed are the ones we skip. (Susan and Keith, meanwhile, were knock-out finalists Tuesday and Wednesday on a team with my Buffalo Regional Swiss team partners, Usha Khurana and Joe Miranda, and won 7.76 gold points.)

High point in the morning session is making what seems to be an ill-advised, sacrificial 4 Diamond contract doubled and redoubled (by June). I set up a vicious cross-ruff to nail it, then see later in the hand records that I should have taken 11 tricks. Here's the hand:

South (Waclaw Grin) dealer

Spades: K-7-6-5; Hearts: J-9-8-7-5; Diamonds: A-9; Clubs: 10-3.

West (me)

Spades: 10; Hearts: 2; Diamonds: K-Q-6-4-2; Clubs: Q-J-9-8-6-4.

North (Steve McGrahan)

Spades: A-9-2; Hearts: Q-10-6-3; Diamonds: 3; Clubs: A-K-7-5-2.

East (June)

Spades: Q-J-8-4-3; Hearts: A-K-4; Diamonds: J-10-8-7-5; Clubs: none.

Not sure how things get started, but since June and I don't employ the unusual 2 No Trump convention, and since we have the advantage in vulnerability, I ignore my lack of high cards and jump right in with a 1 Diamond opening bid, intending to rebid my Club suit. Waclaw and Steve find their Heart suit and push the bidding up to the 3 level. When they double our 4 Diamond bid, June pulls out the blue card and redoubles.

Steve leads the Ace of Clubs. I trump it in the dummy, get rid of my singletons on the Ace-King of Hearts and commence the cross-ruff. It's exhilarating, to say the least, and we're sure it's a top board. Turns out, it isn't. At another table, against Bing and Mary Wong, somebody makes a doubled 6 Diamond slam.

We play the Wongs later and get our only top game of the morning there. We cross-ruff Mary mercilessly and she goes down three on a 4 Spade contract. The hand record says it could be a grand slam, but nobody takes more than 11 tricks.   

Meanwhile, still high from the redouble, we sit down next with California pro Mark Itabashi and partner July Ratley (See Wednesday's blog). Today June's complement to July is about her dress, a simple black knit with a tasteful little blue accent at the neck. It looks terrific.

Do we fare any better against them than we did on Wednesday? Not really. On Board 19, I miss a chance to beat Mark on a 4 Heart contract when I fail to return my singleton Diamond to set up a ruff after I take June's opening Spade lead. Hand record says he only makes 3 Hearts. They get 12.5 match points, we get 4.5. Setting him would be a 7 match-point swing.

On Board 20, Mark bids 4 Clubs, makes an overtrick, as the hand record says he should. (He deliberates a couple minutes, a pro at work, counting cards in his mind, before he decides to ignore my pitch of the Queen of Clubs and not to take a finesse, thereby catching the second half of my Queen-Jack doubleton). They get 10 match points, we get 7, our best result against them so far. Board 21 finds me at 4 Hearts doubled, but not vulnerable. I'm down for sure, but it should have been down one, not down two. They tie for a top board, 15 out of 17 match points. Down one would have been 6 match points better. Against us this time, they're 73.53% in three hands. Wednesday they were 71.74% in two hands. Gee, we're good to them.

The afternoon feels better. When we check the electronic Bridge Mate scoring gizmo after the last hand, it says we're fourth North-South with 51%. At last, a breakthrough! But it doesn’t hold up. Although our final 49.13% is our best effort, we're fifth (only three pairs out of 12 are over 50%), missing a fourth-place finish (and a fractional master point) by only 0.11%.

Offsetting our disappointment as the afternoon results are posted is the joy of Saleh Fetouh and Glenn Milgrim, who end their nail-biting when they narrowly win the overall open pairs, collecting a magnificent 31.06 gold points. Saleh is such a seasoned player that it's a surprise to see him so genuinely excited. Clearly, no matter how many you have, points are still good when you get them. And lots of points are better.