Bridge Blog 1083: Long Overdue

It happened. It finally happened. A 20-point month. First time in a long time. A very long time. Near as I can tell, the last one was January 2018.

Other months have promised 20, but none of them delivered. And since I became a Gold Life Master early in the new year, things have been especially dismal. Not once have I even reached my goal of 15 per month.

But hey, no faltering this time. I went into Memorial Day weekend last Saturday with probably my best game of the year so far – 65.48% with Canadian partner Selina Volpatti over here on the American side at the Airport Bridge Club. That added 2.04 to the total.

Just scraps of points playing just slightly above par with Eva Schmidt on Tuesday (50.46%, 0.55) and with June Feuerstein on Wednesday (50.93%, 0.84), but I had no complaints.

Then, on the last day of the month Friday, with Selina playing with her priest friend at the non-life master sectional in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., I hooked up with Nadine Stein, who professed she was in a terrible slump. I'll help get you out of it, I said. Thus encouraged, we emerged third overall in a five-table Howell game (despite a sacrifice that gave us a minus 1,400) and first in the B strat with 57.87%.

That added 1.61 points to the total, enough for 20-plus at the Airport Club alone. And then there’s St. Catharines, where we scratched on four straight Fridays, including that vary satisfying overall victory back on May 3. Thank you, bridge gods. It’s been a long time since my miserable game has felt this good.