Bridge Blog 1033: Picnic

Winning youth tournament kids with one of their teachers, Jim Gullo.
Another teacher, Fred Yellen, is seated left in dark shirt. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The picnic is my favorite Unit 116 event. What's not to like? Two bridge games and a terrific summer feast with Weidner’s barbecued chicken. And plenty of Paul and Linda Zittel’s magnificent fresh corn salsa.

Not at the unit’s usual venue this time. The Erie County Fairgrounds in Hamburg, the site in recent years, was unavailable Sunday, Aug. 12. It's Fair Week.

Instead, Rescue Fire Hall in North Tonawanda, often a second choice for these affairs. Believing it had a 10:30 a.m. start, I arrived a few minutes before that to find only half a dozen cars in the parking lot. Was this a bust?

Then I looked at my ticket. 11 o’clock. The hall filled up and emcee Betty Metz announced that it was a record turnout – 104 players.

Well, 103 when she made the announcement. My partner, Florence Boyd, thought it started at 11:30. Gay Simpson, who was working the event, but not playing, filled in until Flo arrived in the middle of the first hand.

We had a reasonable morning game – 50.39%, just enough for a fraction of a point, 0.19, for seventh place in the B strat. We faded after lunch in the afternoon – 42.36%.

One of the day’s high points was the was introduction of the kids from the bridge class over at the Bridge Center of Buffalo, who made a good showing at a youth tournament in Atlanta a week earlier. Flo and I did not play against any of them, but one of the kid pairs – Daren Liu and Tyler Mu – earned more points than we did, 0.44 for coming in fourth in the C strat in the afternoon game.