Bridge Blog 1043: St. Catharines Regional, Part I

Swiss teams all day. Six rounds, eight boards per round. Even if we don't earn gobs of gold points, we'll take home a few fractional red points, just for winning a round or two or three. 

My team – Canadian partner Selina Volpatti plus Buffalonians Gay Simpson and Denise Slattery. 

Our first opponents are friendly and familiar Canadians – Lorna Johnson and Kathy Morrison from the Bridge Centre of Niagara. They’re also good players and show us no mercy. They thoroughly trounce us – 54-0 International Match Points – shutting us out in the very first round on their way to a fifth-place finish overall.

For us, it gets no better. It’s so bad, in fact, that we spend the three afternoon rounds in the round-robin match reserved for the bottom-most teams. 

We’re surprised to run into another creditable St. Catharines pair – Dorothy Duchnicki and the director of the club’s Friday games, Diane Kunselman – but they show us no mercy either. 

Of all the teams playing Friday, we’re the only ones to go without getting at least 0.31  of a point for winning a round.

Other observations: Adult caddies in the morning are slow to respond and seem a bit overwhelmed. Kids show up to do the chore in the afternoon and have a much easier time slipping between the chairs and tables. They’re fast.

Glancing through the doors of the Merlot Ballroom, where the Swiss team game is taking place, I see that familiar blank white wall of the industrial warehouse building next door and automatically look for snowflakes. Wait, this is summer! First time I’ve ever been here for something other than the St. Catharines Sectional in early February, when the temperature is always hovering around freezing and I'm wondering how treacherous the drive home is going to be.