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.
What’s the one thing that makes women go weak in their knees? Common guys, it’s no rocket science to know the answer to this! Yes, you finally got the right answer - Diamond is the word! No better thing in the whole world can bring joy to a woman, than those lovely sparkling, glittering diamonds rings!
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