Bridge Blog 444-E: BFS 1 -- Two more things

Morning session has what looks like 34 tables, split into two sections of 17. When tournament director Dick Rasmus asks for a show of hands from everyone who isn’t sticking around for the afternoon session, nearly half the place responds. Afternoon count is 10.5 tables in our section, 10 in the other. Little more than half.

Morning snacks are assorted baked goods, which prove tasty. Afternoon crowd gets cookies, some or maybe all of them baked by Joyce Greenspan. Everybody raves about them. Having had more than enough lunch at Old Country Buffet (second helping of jambalaya), I belatedly summon up some will power. Not to worry. Plenty of cookies for Saturday, I’m assured.

Bridge Blog 443: Nowhere man

          August’s statistics have been posted for nearly a week on the ACBL website, but I’m been too busy to give them a glance, thanks to my extended stay on the Buffalo News city desk and the fact that I’m way out of the running on the national standings. But now that I’m leading the more relaxed life of a reporter, I’ve got a little bit of time to go over and see what’s shaking on the unit, district and national levels.

          Ace of Clubs (now designated as Helen Shanbrom Ace of Clubs), which is just for club play, finds me in sixth place in Unit 116 (just Buffalo) with 99.92 points. Top dog is Mike Kisiel with 159.79 – I’ll never catch him – followed by Liz Clark (131.44), John Ziemer (128.55), Vince Pesce (107.89) and Carlton Stone (101.75). After me, there’s Carolyn Siracuse (96.32), Judy Padgug (84.87), Paul Libby (82.72) and Jim Gullo (78.23).

          And now the Mini-McKenney, which is club play and tournament play combined – in other words, everything. My total there is 109.21, which puts me in ninth position on a list of 10. The others: Dian Petrov (237.72), John Ziemer (170.68), Mike Kisiel (169.90), Judy Padgug (167.19), Liz Clark (142.05), Kathy Pollock (117.51), Carlton Stone (116.11), Vince Pesce (111.32) and, in 10th place, Jim Gullo (107.06).

          OK, let’s see if I show up at all on the District 5 (Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh) level. On the Ace of Clubs I do. Eighth place, behind a couple Pittsburgh players sitting fourth and fifth on the list of 25. No such luck on Mini-McKenney. The list cuts off at 133.69 points. Only five Buffalo players are on it. Leader once again is Hao Ge of Bay Village, Ohio, with 431.53 points, followed by Fred Schenker of Pittsburgh with 278.59. Dian Petrov is third.

          Nationwide, I’m nowhere. You need 120.16 to make the Top 100 in Ace of Clubs. Top player once again is Zita Lechter of Sunny Isles, Fla., with 272.27. She has a 57 point lead over second-place Ronald Andrews of Vero Beach, Fla. Mike Kisiel is 12th. Mini-McKenney, you need 234.61 to make the list. Top is Louise Clark of Glencoe, Ill., with 688.76 (wow!), followed by good old Geeske Joel of Palo Alto, Calif., with 619.32. District 5’s Hao Ge is eighth. Unit 116 leader Dian Petrov is 93rd.

Bridge Blog 442: Zingless

          Twelve days into September, 13 chances to have a game at the Airport Bridge Club and how many times have I played this month? Five. Adding golf to my week – I’ve played twice this month – has crimped things even more.

          And while I’ve long maintained that even a mediocre day on the golf course is better than a great day at the bridge table, I’m starting to wonder. I struggled to find the fun in my last round of golf and, after shooting seven strokes worse than I did the previous week, started wondering if that was what I can expect for letting myself get so far away from the game.

          En route to the card game this morning, I started wondering that about bridge. If I keep playing in this part-time manner, would I lose enough of an edge to take the zing out of the game?

          Fortunately, the fun was there in my game with Marilyn Sultz – she’s still in denial about being 15th in the country in her point division – and I’m looking forward to playing with her in the Sectional Tournament on Friday. Our game, however, was odd. At first it seemed like we were doing horribly. Then after a few top boards, it seemed like we were doing very well. When the scores came out, we were neither horrid nor torrid, but right in the middle with 50.30%. Looking at all the bottom boards we had, that was a minor miracle. Fourth in the A Strat, it was good for exactly .50 point. Total for the five days of play this month – 3.86 points.

Bridge Blog 441: Mustard round

          Nothing like the August doldrums to take all the blogging spirit out of you. My doldrums were double. Firstly, my game was in slump, one 40-odd percent round after another and no points to speak of. Beyond that, in the great shuffle at The Buffalo News in the wake of the latest round of buy-out retirements, I’m been dragooned over to the city desk for three weeks, which pushes me at the outer limits of my time and my writing energies. When I finally get clear of my obligations around 3 a.m., the gas tank’s empty.

Not that I haven’t had things to write about. Reflecting on my slump, there was the question of whether the problem was with me or my partners. And after the slump, there was a month-end bump. And finally there was still another death in the bridge family – the woman who was my first regular partner, Maggie McNamara. So in the spirit of Bill Rieker, former director of the former B&P Bridge Club, here’s the mustard round, where we ketchup on things with three new blogs in all, and get back on schedule.

Bridge Blog 440: Bump

It’s bad enough for my point count not to be playing weekends, but it was particularly grievous when I learned that my brother and sister-in-law weren’t going to end their visit on Sunday, as I’d expected, but were staying over to Monday. I mean, I had plans. What’s more, I had even taken pains to remind my partner for the day – Niagara Regional Councilor Selina Volpatti, who would be coming over from Canada – that Monday was a double session and the morning section started at 10 a.m.

She wound up playing the morning session with Bill Finkelstein and shrugged off his abrasiveness. They had a 57% game. With me, the score wasn’t nearly as wonderful. We limped in at 45.83%, helped along by a couple complete disasters on my part. But that wasn’t the end. We were playing Tuesday, too.

Maybe we just needed to get used to each other, because Tuesday was stellar. In the morning, we did 59.47%, first in North-South, second overall, 2.58 points. The afternoon was 62.98%, second in A, first in B in our direction and overall, 2.38 points. This also lifted me to second place in the club’s monthly series for Tuesday, another .76 points.

On Wednesday with Celine Murray, the getting-to-know-you factor again was in force. Our morning session was 44.14%, followed by a 55.67% in the afternoon for another 1.07 points. My monthly total practically doubled in two days – unofficial tally for August: 15.12 at the Airport Bridge Club, of which 4.54 are red points.

Bridge Blog 439: Maggie

I was instantly drawn to Maggie McNamara when I saw her playing at the old B&P Bridge Club during my first year of duplicate in 2005. Like me, she was one of the youngest people in the room. She was thin and attractive. And she had a feisty attitude as prominent as her Scottish accent.

So I was delighted and flattered when Maggie suggested that we become regular partners. In those days, I just showed up at games solo, as did she. What’s more, we were practically neighbors. She lived on Ripley Place then, not even half a dozen blocks from me. And she frequently needed a ride, which I was happy to provide.

I heard a lot about Maggie on our rides to bridge – her multiple marriages and her current dating (even old Gerry Fried was asking her out), the deaths of her children – all three had passed away, and her health problems, including her mastectomy and breast replacement. And then there was her book. She’d written this romance and published it. It was a source of pride for her and a marvel for the other players. I bought a copy and got halfway through it – it’s wonderfully plotted and the characters were well-drawn, but it was way overwritten. Monica’s mother loved it.

In the end, Maggie and I weren’t the best of partners. Our game was inconsistent and I was even less of a player in those days than I am now. Furthermore, some of the plays and conventions she was so certain about were just plain mistaken.

When she sold her house on Ripley and moved to Tonawanda, she didn’t need rides any more. She started playing more tennis and less bridge. And when Bill Finkelstein’s club moved to the edge of the airport, she was less inclined to make the trip over there. When she played bridge, it was at the Bridge Center and B&P. I’d only see her at the tournaments.

Last time I saw her, last winter, she looked faded, shockingly so. She didn’t say anything about her health, but I had a hunch that the cancer had come back. I was saddened to hear a couple weeks ago that she was in hospice, but not surprised. And then in last Sunday’s paper, a short death notice. She died on Aug. 25. Services had already been held.

Bridge Blog 438: Slump

I didn’t realize how deep my late summer funk had gotten until the fourth week of August, when I was sitting with about half a dozen points and was way down the list in the monthly master point race at the Airport Bridge Club. If I recall correctly, that was when I was tied for 33rd place with Joe Rooney, who hasn’t been playing much this month.

It started on Saturday the 20th, actually, the day after I skipped bridge to play my first round of golf of the year. Paired with a really good player, Judi Marshall, who also didn’t have a partner, we had a 43.65% game. Not last, but way below what we both expected. She apologized repeatedly for playing badly, but I wondered – was it her or was it me?

The next week was a litany of mediocrity and noble misses. After a 51.44% game with Usha Khurana on Monday, I assured her we did really well as she acknowledged ruefully that if we had been in the C strat, we’d have gotten points. With Marie Suprinick on Tuesday, I was hoping to repeat our 54% effort of the previous week, but no luck. Just 42.45%. Celine Murray and I struck out on Wednesday with 47.87%. My first outing Thursday with Nancy Littenburg had promise – she usually does well – but our 49.15% was out of the money. And on Friday, Dede Kluckhohn and I had a lot of fun and wound up at exactly 50%, fourth in the A strat, second in B, for .78 point. That brought my total for the month to 8.33. As you can see, it’s nothing to write about.