Bridge Blog 1022-C: Buffalo Spring Sectional Day 3

     The ice storm warning went into effect before the game ended Saturday. Before we left, director Brian Meyer announced that the Swiss team game would be played as planned on Sunday, no matter how many people showed up.

     A travel advisory is posted for Erie and Niagara counties, plus the Niagara Region across the river in Ontario, and partner Selina Volpatti heeds it. While I’m still asleep, she texts me. She’s not going to risk it.

     I will, though. I’ll take local streets, like I did coming home in the freezing rain Saturday night. But, hey, the pavement is just wet, but not slippery. I hit the expressways and arrive early. Given the travel situation, however, I may wind up needing a whole new team.

     But no. Waiting inside the front door of social hall at the Main-Transit Fire Hall is the rest of our foursome. John Marksell and Joan Soifert have made it over from Canada. Selina should have called them, they said. Their number is in the St. Catharines bridge club’s member directory.

     Live and learn. Meanwhile, I impart my dilemma to partnership chairman Dian Petrov. Why don’t you call David Colligan, he says. He won yesterday. Here’s his number.

     David was going to work outdoors – cleaning up his maple sugar operation for the season down in Colden – but it’s too cold to rinse out the lines that bring the sap from the trees. He rolls in 15 minutes after the game starts, we settle in quickly and finish the first round with Bob Kaprove and Paula Kotowski on time.

     It’s wild. It’s wooly. And we win it! 40-21 International Match Points. Thanks to some fabulously good hands – a failed slam and a make-up slam – and despite some early uncertainty.

     We’re even more successful in the second round, a 26 IMP win, then run into Bert Hargeshimer and Christy Kellogg. They edge us out by 3 IMPs, setting us up for the guys from Rochester in Team 4.

     David identifies them as the big winners in the Rochester sectional last week. They stuff us, 27-4, and go on to finish first for the day, collecting 9.73 points.

     So at the lunch break, we’re 2-2, slightly better than 50%. We discover that although Joan and I are above 2,000 career points, our partners are well under that number. We’re not in the A strat. We’re B. We stand a chance.

     Fifth round pits us against another A-strat team. Barry Passer and Elaine Kurasiewicz make a couple mistakes, but we make our own luck with a 6 NT slam and win by 15 IMPs.

     Our fortunes sink again in the sixth round against A strat players Howard Foster and Mike Ryan, who dispatch us 17-4, but only because Joan and John have a minus 1,100 hand.       So it’s a must-win finale. I wait for the last-round assignments with Ken Meier, who also is anticipating a must-win finale. And dontcha know, we’re paired against each other. At our table, we play Shakeel Ahmad and Manju Ceylony, formidable at any time. The margin of victory turns out to be the very first hand we play, a 4 Spade contract. We defeat it. Our teammates make it. We win by 16 IMPs.

     Our Victory Point total: 125. We’re sixth overall out of 25 teams, third in the B strat. Our reward – a handsome 2.91 silver points. David Colligan is pleased. It makes him fifth overall in the tournament. Me? 4.92 points for the weekend. 38th overall. 159 players earn points.