Bridge Blog 996: Niagara Falls Regional Sunday

I pull past the entrance to the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Falls Street en route to the parking garage and who’s out there smoking? Amir Farsoud! He’s recovered from the back problems he told me about on Saturday? He’s playing with us?

In the hotel lobby, I find partner Selina Volpatti sitting across from the partnership desk. No, we do not have teammates. The partnership chairwoman, Janice Upenieks, is sympathetic. She joins us in hoping someone will show up at the last minute. But no.

Meanwhile, Amir is playing. According to the Janice, he hooked up with a woman he played with on Saturday – Suzanne Kosky from Toronto – and she found them teammates (a couple from Latham, N.Y.) at the partnership desk. They’re in. We’re out. (They go on to finish fifth in B and earn 3.26 gold points. Meanwhile, Saturday partner David Monro, playing with his wife, ties for fifth in the X strat – 4.60 gold points.)

Selina says now she can go help out at the fashion show her daughter is running that afternoon in Niagara-on-the-Lake. 

Me? Back across the bridge to Niagara Falls USA. The car is spattered with salt from Friday’s snow and low on gas. Very low on gas. I find the Delta Sonic in Niagara Falls and set the car straight, do some shopping at the nearby Target and come home to a strenuous afternoon of cleaning up leaves after confirming my original suspicion that the Bills-Saints football game won’t be worth watching.

So there it is – eight sessions of open or A/X pairs, $128 invested, no master points whatsoever. Three weeks after my best tournament ever in Buffalo, I have my worst ever in Niagara Falls.