Bridge Blog 1056: Buffalo Regional Tournament, Day 6

Final minutes of Sunday's Swiss team event at the Buffalo Spooktacular Regional Tournament

      Our Swiss team just never gets it together – me and Joe Miranda, Usha Khurana and John Marvin. We routinely fail to take the tricks we should take. We let the opponents off the hook again and again. We break one of the cardinal rules of Swiss team strategy – we double and allow the other side to make their contract when they shouldn’t. Not once, but twice.

      We start out against a team of Toronto experts, who slam-dunk our asses en route to overall victory and 17.50 master points. Then we allow a poor team to take us further down, thanks to an unsuccessful double that should have been a sacrifice on our part. Without that, we beat them.

       We win two rounds out of seven and one is totally undeserved. Well-seasoned player Cleveland Fleming, of all people, fails to run the dummy’s long Diamond suit (he plays a low card and lets me win a trick with should have been a losing 9 of Diamonds, then can’t return to the dummy). Down five, vulnerable.

     Our reward for this sorry exercise – 0.72 of a red point. Our Victory Point total of 65 is third worst in the field. Yet there are people who get more VPs and fewer points because they won only one round, among them District 5 overall master point leader Sue Lan Ma.

     Out-of-town players dominate the leaderboard. The first all-Buffalo team – Chongmin Zhang, young whiz Ethan Xie, Penny and Peter Shui – is seventh, second in the B strat. They win 6.44 gold points.

     There’s a four-way tie for the top among overall point winners for the tournament – Kevin Dwyer and Shan Huang, both of Melbourne, Fla.; Joan Millens of Kingston, N.Y.; and Kevin Bathurst of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. They all had 92.50 points, 7.38 of them for finishing fourth in the Swiss teams.

      Top Buffalonian on the list is ninth. It’s Jay Levy with 59.43 points. Saleh Fetouh shows up next in 15th place with 54.32 points.

      Then there’s Jay Costello, tied for 23rd with 34.45; Chris Urbanek, 25th with 33.90; Donna Steffan, tied for 26th with 33.07; and Shakeel Ahmad and Manju Ceylony, tied for 28th with 32.46.

      I’m 176th with 7.92 points. In all, 476 players got points.

      How does this compare with my outcomes in other Buffalo Regionals? Middle of the pack. Here’s the history.  

      2017 – 16.68, 70th.

      2016 – 15.66, 97th.

      2015 – 5.38, 220th.

      2014 – 9.77, tied for 138th.

      2013 – 4.59, 330th.

      2012 – 12.12, 153rd.

      2011 – 6.97, 247th.

      2010 – 7.59, tied for 243rd.

      2009 – 4.15, 420th.

      2008 – 12.70, 118th.

      2007 – 5.44, 337th.

      2006 – 1.94, five-way tie for 332nd.

      2005 – 2.73, three-way tie for 432nd.

Bridge Blog 1055: Buffalo Regional Tournament Day 5

      The upcoming multi-million-dollar transformation of the Adam’s Mark Hotel into the Buffalo Grand Hotel can’t happen soon enough.

      Let’s not even consider the patched carpeting and the general worn-out aspect of the place. Other evidence of deterioration is beginning to reach an alarming level.

      For instance, during the last two days of the Buffalo Spooktacular Regional Tournament, all four urinals have been inoperable in the men’s room opposite the Erie Ballroom, where most of the play is taking place. Nevertheless, this feels like some sort of an improvement. Before that, as they were breaking down, the floor was flooded.

      The heating and air conditioning in the Erie Ballroom has temperature-sensitive players either bundling up or shedding clothing. Complaints were met with the explanation that the hotel had been notified, but nothing could be done.

     The pizza provided by the hotel to the tournament for lunchtime snacking ranks among the worst in town. Opt for the dining room and, unless you’re lucky, like me and Thursday partner David Colligan, you’ll wait so long for attention that you’ll give up and leave, like Barbara Sadkin and her party did while we were there Thursday.

     Today there was table talk about the reason fire trucks showed up at the hotel a couple days ago. Some kids got stuck in the elevator on the sixth floor.

     And then, just as we’re preparing to bid the final hand in Saturday’s afternoon session, the fire alarm sounds, interspersed with a message advising everyone in the building to head outside. It’s drizzling. The fire trucks come back. Like many others, I give up and leave.

     Not that it’s worth hanging around for our scores. Those will show up on the Internet. Bob Forster and I bottomed out in the morning as we got used to one another – a 39.17% game, lowest overall in the two-session pairs. We improve in the afternoon, but not enough. Our 47.96% places us 12th out of 17 North-South partnerships. To earn points, we need at least 55%.

     All that’s left now is Swiss teams on Sunday. Hope the hotel hangs together long enough for us to finish the game.

Bridge Blog 1054: Buffalo Regional Tournament, Day 4

     Eva Schmidt is my Friday partner and we’re playing in the two-session pairs, a group which occupies the bulk of the big ballroom in the Adam’s Mark Hotel.

     I play gingerly in the morning session, not pushing hard in the bidding, and as a result we’re on defense on 11 of our first 15 hands. At lunch break, I see that’s one of the reasons why we finish last in our 11-table section with a 39.57% score. I tell Eva that we have to be more aggressive in the afternoon.

     We are and we're rewarded. 55.45%. We’re tied for fourth overall and we’re first in the B strat. 2.52 points. And they’re GOLD! Eva needs gold for her next life master level. I wonder if this is enough to get her there.

      As for me, this brings my total for the tournament to 7.20. (Last year, I earned 16.68. In 2016, it was 15.66. In 2015, it was just 5.38. And in 2014, in the Regional at the Hamburg Fairgrounds, it was 9.77.)

     Two days to go. Saturday I’m doing pairs with a fellow from the St. Catharines game, Bob Forster, who’s always said he’s available over there if I need a partner. Let’s see if we can make it work over here.

Bridge Blog 1053: Buffalo Regional Tournament, Days 2 and 3

Thursday teammates Hinda Silber, left, and Anita Greenberg. The guy in the blue T-shirt in the background is my partner David Colligan.

Nonchalant doesn’t work for me Wednesday. I show up at the hotel mostly still known as Adam’s Mark a few moments before the morning game starts at 10 a.m. and partnership chairman Dian Petrov is in an uproar. I need to show up much earlier.

Blame it on the parking enforcement officer who waved me away from an illegal spot in front of Tipico, I protest. Took me five minutes to find a place to put the car. Have to have my coffee.

At any rate, I have a partner for the pairs games Wednesday. She’s Marie Melnichuk, she’s Canadian, from Collingwood, on Georgian Bay. She doesn’t have a lot of points, but she's an agreeable player and we have a solid morning game, so solid that we’re shocked to see that our score is a mere 44.72%.

In the afternoon, we promise each other we’ll do better, but we falter.

Our biggest mistake is a bid over the opponent’s 1 No Trump bid, when I give her the 2 Club signal for a long suit and she figures Clubs are the long suit. I think she likes Clubs, so when the opponents double, I pass. She redoubles, hoping I’ll bid something else. I think she’s reaffirming Clubs. We have four Clubs between us. I’m lucky to make five tricks. Nevertheless, it’s minus 1,600, a bottom board.

Despite things like this, we’re not much worse than morning – 42.78% – but we’re last in our section. For all our good intentions, we get no points whatsoever.

The day isn’t a total loss, however. One of our opposing pairs in the morning wants teammates for Thursday Swiss teams. Anita Greenberg and Hinda Silber are an established partnership from Toronto and they seem lively, attractive and agreeable.

I text my Thursday partner, David Colligan, the good news and he advises me to arrive half an hour early so we can go over our convention card.

I try, but arrive only 15 minutes early, to the approbations of my teammates and partnership chairman Dian Petrov. Besides, how could it possibly take 15 minutes to fill out a convention card? Doing it with David shows me how. 15 minutes isn’t enough.

Plus we come up against one of the toughest teams in the room in our first round – Paul Janicki and Lew Richardson from Toronto. We don’t make serious mistakes, but they prevail nevertheless, conquering us by 19 to 10 International Match Points.

What stings is our loss in the second round, 25-1, to an Erie, Pa., pair. It all comes down to two unfortunate hands. I get too excited about a 20-high-card-point 2 No Trump opening hand opposite David’s 3 Club opener and push it to slam, which it doesn’t make. The other table wisely stops at 3 NT, making two overtricks. On another hand, our partners go down doubled on a hand where we make a 4 Heart game. That’s all it takes – two bad hands.

The upshot is that we finally get easy opponents – our old friends Mary Terrana and Ruth Wurster, the only team to get no points whatsoever in the Swiss teams game. We win 25-7 IMPs and go to lunch full of hope for the afternoon.

        We return to wind up on the short end of a free-swinging 31-21 game. Hinda is discouraged and figures the day is over, but David reminds us we still have a chance.

        Sure enough, we prevail over some Waterloo, Ont., ladies, 31-18, then narrowly win the sixth and final round, 17-16.  

        It doesn’t feel like victory – we have only 83 victory points out of a possible 180 (a measly 46% if we were playing match points), but David says that since we’re in the C stratification, we might have scratched.  

       And we do. We tie for fourth in the C strat. Instead of earning 1.50 red points for winning three rounds, we capture 2.06 gold points. We’re jubilant. We talk about hooking up again next spring to play the Easter Regional in Toronto. 

       

Bridge Blog 1052: Buffalo Regional Tournament Day 1

For a guy who’s counting on this tournament for a big boost toward Gold Life Master, I’ve totally failed at planning. Until I get a call from David Colligan looking for a partner for Thursday, I’ve lined up nobody to play with except for the Swiss teams on Sunday.

Clutching a fresh mug of iced coffee and only too aware of my pathetic position, I get to the hotel formerly (and still mostly) known as Adam’s Mark just about half an hour before the morning game starts at 10 a.m. Tuesday, a major effort for a night owl like me, having worked the previous evening.

Partnership chairman Dian Petrov says a guy from Rochester is looking for a partner and was supposed to arrive at 9:30. He never shows up. By default, I’m paired with the assistant partnership chairman, Jim Gullo. Jim’s savvy and he’s good natured but, alas, his vision is bad and he is in great pain from throwing his back out this morning.

Yet despite a couple times when Jim misreads my bidding card or mistakes one suit for another, he plays very well – he even manages to make a 6 No Trump slam that I stuck him with – and we have a respectable morning in the pairs game. 57.81%, fourth out of 17 North-Souths in our section, 1.43 red points.

But can we do it again in the afternoon? Jim’s hurting worse, no one has Tylenol to lend him, and I’m making wretched mistakes, sometimes back to back. On one hand, not only do I miss Jim’s signal to shift to a new suit, but I also fail to take a winning trump trick, allowing our opponents to make game with an overtrick instead of perhaps going down one.

The cards add to our miseries. In the morning, we’re all offense. Now we’re all defense. In the first 20 boards, we take the bid only six times. I don’t know how we manage to finish with 51.44%, but we do. Our combined morning and afternoon scores place us eighth in the A stratification (Jim has more points than me, hence we’re A). We get 2.62 gold points.

Just to keep things in perspective, my regular Saturday partner Denise Slattery, playing with Bob Linn, an old hand at this game, comes in eleventh overall in the pairs, but they are in the B strat. There they’re fourth. They get 3.04 gold points.

Bridge Blog 1051: September Swan Song

My September saw a rebound, not because of the two tournaments in which I played (See Blogs 1043 to 1046 and Blog 1049), but because of a torrid streak at the Airport Bridge Club early in the month. For a while, I was second in the club’s master point race, with about half as many points as the unsinkable Alan Greer. In the end, I was third, still with about half as many points as Alan.

So let’s open up the ACBL races and see how everyone stands as the year’s third quarter ends.

            Unit 116 (Buffalo only), Ace of Clubs (club play only), Ruby Life Masters (players with 1,500 to 2,500 points). 

    I earned 15.09 club points in September, bringing my Ace of Clubs total to 109.33, enough to return me to fifth place and bump Ken Meier back to sixth among the Rubies. I also rebound from 19th to 17th among all players in the unit. Here's the top 10:

Mike Silverman keeps first place with 140.32. Still runner-up is Allen Beroza, who has 137.50. Previous leader David Millward, with 122.62, continues third, but could be overtaken soon by fourth-place Martin Pieterse, who has 118.81.

My fifth-place 109.33 seems laggardly behind Martin. Ken Meier rounds out the century club with 101.98. The rest of the list includes Fred Yellen with 90.53, Dorothy May with 87.31, Davis Heussler moving up a notch to ninth with 67.61, passing Gene Finton with 64.79.      

              Unit 116, Ace of Clubs overall. 
Alan Greer still rules. A 37-point month lifts him to 347.42 club points, now more than 125 ahead of his sometime partner Nancy Wolstoncroft, who’s still second with 218.19.
Then it’s John Ziemer, with 195.59; Liz Clark in fourth with 142.55 and Mike Silverman with 140.32. After that it’s Allen Beroza, 137.50; Barbara Libby, 136.94; Mike Ryan, 126.25; David Millward, 122.62; and tied for tenth, the Weltes, Martha and John, both with 119.93. Martin Pieterse is 12th with 118.81.
        Then it’s Bob Linn, 115.51; Gay Simpson, 110.93; Ron Henrikson, 110.56; me, 109.33; Judi Marshall, 102.67; Ken Meier, 101.98; and Judy Graf, 100.66. Frequent partner Denise Slattery lingers just under the century mark in 21st place with 98.95.

      Moving on to the Mini-McKenney races, which count all points earned everywhere, I’m still seventh among the Rubies with 132.06 overall for the year, up 17.82 since August.

Still far ahead is Davis Heussler at 289.53, also still third among all Unit 116 players. Second place continues to belong to Ken Meier with 194.40, down from 12th to 13th in the entire unit.  

Allen Beroza tightens his claim third place with 168.96 (down from 14th to 16th overall in the unit). Mike Silverman pushes David Millward out of fourth, 150.76 to 148.96. Mike’s up from 23rd to 20th overall, David is down from 16th to 22nd.  

Fred Yellen knocks Martin Pieterse out of sixth position. He has 137.14 (up to 26th from 31st overall). I’m also ahead of Martin with my 132.06 (27th overall, up from 30th).

Then we get Martin Pieterse, 128.53 (29th); and a big drop to Gene Finton, 97.35; Dorothy May, 90.58 (still 47th); and Elaine Kurasiewicz, 86.10 (50th).  

     Among all players in Unit 116, it’s Alan Greer, with 391.20. Saleh Fetouh continues second, with 322.42. Then comes Ruby leader Davis Heussler with his 289.53; John Ziemer with 288.44; and Nancy Wolstoncroft with 260.63.

After a big jump from 19th to fifth last month, Dian Petrov slips a notch with 257.97. Then there’s the Weltes, 254.44; Chris Urbanek, 244.53; Jay Levy, 244.47; Linda Burroughsford, 223.45; and Mike Ryan, 217.27.

Now let’s widen our horizons.

            District 5 (Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh) Ace of Clubs, Ruby Life Masters. 

     Here Unit 116 players hold five of the top six places, and six of the top 10, but we no longer possess the No. 1 spot.

Philip Goulding of Wexford, Pa., reclaims the lead he had in April by slipping ahead of Mike Silverman, 143.38 to 140.32. Silverman, top dog for only one month, is once again followed by Allen Beroza with 137.50. David Millward holds in fourth with 122.62. Then it’s Martin Pieterse, 118.81; moi, up from ninth to sixth with my 109.33; Marvin Shapiro of Akron, Ohio, 108.29; James Wheeler of Edinburg, Pa., 103.21; Ken Meier, 101.98; and Chantal Whitney of Bratenahl, Ohio, has 97.21.

Philip Goulding returns us Rubies the top 10 district-wide. Buffalo’s top four are ranked 14, 15, 21 and 27. I’m 35th, up from 41st.

            Overall Ace of Clubbers in District 5 look like this:

Still three Buffalonians on top – Alan Greer with 347.41, Nancy Wolstoncroft with 218.19 and John Ziemer with 195.59.

Then it’s still Arlene Port of Pittsburgh, 190.88; Richard Katz of North Versailles, Pa., 185.64; and Reanette Frobouck of Pittsburgh, 174.62.

Barbara Belardi of Pittsburgh breaks ranks by advancing from tenth to seventh. Then it’s Asim Ulke of Monroeville, Pa., 151.69; Robert Alexander of Mentor, Ohio, 149.29; and Ruby leader Philip Goulding’s 143.38. After Stephanie Alexander of Mentor, Ohio, with 143.08, Buffalo’s Liz Clark remains 12th with 142.55.

    Now for the District 5 Mini-McKenney, Ruby Life Masters. 

    Philip Goulding of Wexford, Pa., still is outdistancing everyone with 435.36. Craig Biddle of Pittsburgh, with 325.02, keeps second position. Unit 116’s David Heussler, first three months ago, stays third with 289.53. They’re eighth, 14th and 21st overall in the district.

     The other leaders include: Ken Meier, 194.40 (49th); Leroy Hackenberg of Pittsburgh, 171.57 (63rd); our Allen Beroza, 168.96 (65th); Marvin Shapiro of Akron, Ohio, 160.23 (71st); Mike Silverman, 150.75 (79th); Martin Kumer of Monroeville, Pa., 149.66 (80th); and Barbara Greenspan of Beachwood, Ohio, 149.46 (82nd). David Millward falls to 11th (84th overall) with 148.96. I’m up from 19th to 15th among Rubies with my 132.06, and up from 125th overall to 112th.

   Mini-McKenney leader among all District 5 players is, of course, Sue Lan Ma of Kirtland Hills, Ohio, who had a quiet month like everybody else in District 5. After adding 130 points in August, she only notched 13.07 to reach 735.89.

Reanette Frobouck of Pittsburgh takes back second place from Kathleen Sulgrove of Twinsburg, Ohio, 516.59 to 516.52.

     Robert Alexander of Mentor, Ohio, moves from sixth place to fourth place with 487.91. Bernie Greenspan of Beachwood, Ohio, stays fifth with 482.01. Slipping to sixth without gaining a point all month is Don Sulgrove of Twinsburg, Ohio, still with 469.78. Stephanie Alexander of Mentor, Ohio, stays seventh with 469.20.  

Then it’s Ruby leader Philip Goulding of Wexford, Pa., with 435.36; Richard Katz of North Versailles, Pa., 412.74; and a return to the Top 10 by Alan Greer with 391.20. Next Unit 116 player on the list is Saleh Fetouh, 15th with 322.43.

    Ace of Clubs, Ruby Life Masters, nationwide.

    Paul Hassett of The Villages, Fla., increases his lead by 16 points over Anna Maxcine Thacker of Palm Coast, Fla., 284.63 to 252.79. Joanne Matchette of Vero Beach, Fla., stays third with 248.92. Richard Seidman of Orlando, Fla., returns from fifth to fourth with 241.42,

Then Brian Breckenridge of Corvallis, Ore., with 237.86; Aivars Lapins of Cambria, Calif., with 229.80; and Mason Barge of Atlanta with 228.94. Bruce Ladin of Harwood Heights, Ill., who appeared out of nowhere last month to take fourth place, slips to eighth with 224.67. 

Then it’s Jonathan Williams of The Villages, Fla., with 222.06; and Barry Nish of Little Neck, L.I., with 216.18. April's leader, Russ Pearly, also of The Villages, drops from 12th  to 21st with 187.28, just 3.25 more than he had in August.  

   Unit 116 leader Mike Silverman clings to the Top 100, slipping from 95th to 100th exactly. Allen Beroza slips slightly from 111th to 118th. But now he’s ahead of David Millward, who’s down from 139th to 212th. Other local notables include Martin Pieterse, down from 214th to 242nd; Ken Meier, down from 315th to 443rd; and me, up to 328th from 393rd. The list cuts off at 99.58.

            Ace of Clubs, all players, nationwide. 

Bill Kulbersh of Atlanta is still on top, up 71+ points in September to reach 613.19. Repeating in second place is Irva Neyhart of Corvallis, Ore., with a 43-point month at 433.20.

Harry Kaufmann of North Redington Beach, Fla., with 419.62, and last month’s tenth-place holder, En Xie of St. Louis, with 401.63, move ahead of Bella Ionis-Sorren of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. She’s now fifth with 401.55.

Then it’s Sheila Gabay of Newton, Mass., 387.04; Diane Hurt and Edgar Hurt Jr. of Laguna Woods, Calif., both with 380.03; Robert Epstein of Atlanta, 378.96; and Kay Schulle of Purchase, N.Y., 378.84.

Alan Greer keeps his hold on 14th; Nancy Wolstoncroft slips from 133rd to 156th. John Ziemer drops to 274th from 209th. The list stops at 170.97.

    Onward to Mini-McKenney, Ruby Life Masters, nationwide.

Robert L. McClendon of Ponte Vedra, Fla., added another 174 points to reach 1,547.49. Soon he will triple the totals for Alex Khrakovsky of Columbus, Ohio, still second despite just a 30-point month with 624.96.

Mary Ose of Sacramento, Calif, who earned no points and has 559.24, slips to fourth behind Sabrina Miles of Mansfield, Mass., who has 572.29. Darryl Legassie of Milton, N.H., remains fifth with 491.78.

     Then it’s District 5’s Philip Goulding of Wexford, Pa., staying in sixth with 435.36; Mason Barge of Atlanta, 406.33; Paul Moss of Millersburg, Ky., with 392.97; Kim Brinkman, who’s changed addresses from Highland Village, Texas, to Flower Mound, Texas, has 390.69. Ann Buchholz of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., keeps her foot on the bottom rung of the Top 10 with 388.89.

Still off the list is the only Top Tenner we know, Junko Hemus of San Clemente, Calif., who had just 10 points for the month and has fallen from 11th to 15th with 365.77.

Unit 116’s Davis Heussler is down from 62nd to 63rd with his 289.53. Ken Meier is down from 240th to 263rd. Allen Beroza, who joined the list in July, moves up from 430th to 415th. The list ends at 158.69.  

     And now for the really heavy hitters, the Mini-McKenney leaders overall.

A month ago there were 34 players in four figures. Now there are 38. But none of them have joined the three who surpassed 2,000 a month ago. And there’s still a horse race at the top.

Joe Grue of New York City clings to first for the eighth straight month with 2,538.96. He’s only got a 23-point lead over Mark Itabashi of Murrieta, Calif., who now has 2,515.04.

Kevin Dwyer of Melbourne, Fla., moved ahead of Brad Moss of Denver, two months ago and has further increased his margin. He now has 2,122.96, while Moss stood pat all September with 1,898.43.

The legendary Jeff Meckstroth of Clearwater Beach, Fla., could have overtaken him, but only had a 3-point month to reach 1,849.61. Same with his longtime partner Eric Rodwell, who only picked up 11 points to stand at 1,824.12.

Shan Huang from Melbourne, Fla., continues in seventh with 1,756.36. January leader Geoff Hampson of Las Vegas continues eighth with 1,750.10. John Hurd of New York City is ninth with 1,723.36. Ruby Life Master leader Robert L. McClendon of Ponte Vedra, Fla., regains tenth place with 1,547.49.

     Familiar names: Former Buffalonian Joel Wooldridge slips from 26th to 27th with a 19-point month for a total of 1,130.97. District 5 leader Sue Lan Ma goes from 81st to 92nd with her 735.89.

Unit 116’s representative on this list, Alan Greer, bounces back to 444th from last month’s 477th with 391.20. The list cuts off at 373.53.