Bridge Blog 1044: St. Catharines Regional, Part II

You never know what kind of day you’re going to have. Denise Slattery and I have 60% days and we have 30% days. Friday morning is on the low side of in-between – 42.27% with the B/C pairs. But do the sensible thing on just three hands and we get 50%. Here’s how.

Board 3. Denise jumps to 5 Clubs on this hand after an opening pass, a 1 No Trump opener by me and a 2 Heart overcall by East.

Dealer is South (Denise):

Spades: 6; Hearts: J 10 6; Diamonds: J 7; Clubs:  A J 9 8 7 6 5.

 West: Spades: 10 8 7 5 4 2; Hearts: 3 2; Diamonds: 10 9 5 4 2.

North (me):

Spades: A K J 9; Hearts: 9 8 7; Diamonds: A 8 4; Clubs: K 10 3.

East:

Spades: Q 3; Hearts: A K Q 5 4; Diamonds: K Q 6 3 2: Clubs: Q.

First of all, after the 2 Heart overcall, with systems on, Denise should relay me to 3 Clubs. Or with systems off, she should just bid 3 Clubs.

That aside, it goes down one if Denise doesn’t try a finesse the first time she leads Spades. Four other pairs do that. But she saw a shot a making the impossible games, so she finesses and loses and it’s down three for a bottom board. At 3 Clubs, we get 5 match points. At 5 Clubs down one, we get 3.

Board 20. If I spot the Diamond hiding behind my clubs, I don’t revoke and our opponents are down one at 3 No Trump instead of making the contract. Our 0.5 match point would have been 6.5.

Board 26. If I don’t have a mental lapse and trump that losing trick instead of tossing a Diamond, I make the 4 Spade contract I bid and collect 7 match points instead of 1.

Add those 17 match points to our total and we’re just over 50%, collecting 0.75 of a red master point for coming in sixth in the C strat.

In the afternoon, our 46.53% is still next-to-last East-West. And it doesn’t lift us up in the two-session overall score.

Would it be better if I don’t take a spectacular minus 1,700 by going down six vulnerable on a 4 Heart sacrifice bid on Board 23 against what looks like a certain 3 No Trump vulnerable? Let’s just see. Well, they’ll make 4 or 5 NT, so despite the fireworks, we only give up 2 or 3 match points.

Actually, throwing away the wrong card on the next-to-last trick on the previous hand is more costly. It gives those same opponents, Joyce Reger and Janet Glazebrook, an 8 match-point top board instead of a 4-point middle board. Add those to our total and we finish fifth instead of eighth out of nine, but no master points.

Can you get serious master points in the B/C pairs? You bet. The top four pairs won 18.38, 13.79, 10.34 and 7.75 gold points, respectively.

Random notes: Stars in the crowd. 

Sue Lan Ma from Cleveland, the leading overall point collector in District 5, is playing in the knock-outs. She doesn’t recognize me.

And Chris Urbanek introduces me to her partner in the A/X pairs, Joan Eaton from Toronto, who’s a multiple winner of Canadian Women’s Team Championships. They’re second overall Friday, collecting 22.64 points. For the entire tournament, they’ve got 53.04.

Consult my new smartphone for a lunch recommendation and pick a place 10 minutes away from the tournament on Welland Avenue called The Diner House 29. Formica tables, reasonable prices. It’s run by a trained chef and his wife and the menu is inventive.

I have the Lamb Kefta, with Lebanese spiced lamb and basmati rice in a bowl, topped with two deep-fried poached eggs enhanced by the lightest of breadings. If you ever see deep-fried poached eggs on a menu, get ‘em. They’re fabulous.

At the bottom of the menu on The Diner House 29 website is this note: “Dave likens the menu to Ween's 'Pure Guava' album. An eclectic mix of foods and flavours he has picked up from working with great folks around the country and travels in China. Like Ween, food can't be pigeon-holed.”