Bridge Blog 1210: Nothing succeeds like success

 

I've pretty much resigned myself to adding to my career total of master points in dribs and drabs, a fraction at a time. Will I ever accumulate 3,500 of them reach the next plateau – Emerald Life Master?

OK, I could try harder. Now that I'm not working, there's more time to play bridge and I've been doing that, frequently adding an extra game a week. And I could play better, even though I’ve gotten pretty set in my ways.

So I don't know quite what to make of my fortunes in October.

I was shocked, shocked, to finish second East-West in my first game of the month Oct. 7 at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont. Wednesday partner Rod Sumner and I have been mired in the 40s percentage wise for so long that we’ve forgotten what winning feels like. But here we were with 59.93%, nipping at the heels of first-place John Stevens and Rocky Laiqing. What's more, since this was a Club Appreciation Game, it awarded extra points. We got 2.61.

Our returns were much more modest a week later. Tied for fourth-overall in the B strat with 51.85%, our winnings were fractional, 0.64. Two days later, however, on Friday, Oct. 16, at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Duplicate Bridge Club, Selina Volpatti and I came up with one of our infrequent good days in a Club Championship game. We weren't first overall with our 62.28%, but second place was good for a mighty return of 2.37 points.

A peculiar AC/BC Team Game at BCON on Monday, Oct. 19, didn't produce much for our thrown-together ensemble of one A player (moi), a B player (the adept and well-organized Suzanne Haber) and two C players (Deanna Guzda, who was my partner, and Yvonne Stevenson). We won only one of our four Swiss team matches, the first one, but at least it was something – 0.23 of a point, 0.01 of it being a Gold point.

Then a road trip to see family in Ohio kept me away from the tables until Wednesday, Oct. 28. Rod Sumner and I thought we had a decent game at BCON, but it was just our imagination. Eighth east-west, 45.06%.

But then Selina and I were triumphant in another Club Appreciation game at NOTL on Friday, Oct. 30. Our percentage wasn't as good as it was two weeks earlier, just 59.26%, but this time we were first overall and 2.39 points richer. Total for the month: 8.24. All in increments in club play. Usually it takes a good day at a tournament to finish a month with that many.