Bridge Blog 1175: Four takeaways from the Buffalo Bridge Center annual meeting

 

1. Betty Metz reports that the club's Monday morning supervised play games and Tuesday morning social bridge games are great successes. Several players from each of those sessions have become full club members. 

2. Speaking of memberships, the count is up to 80. More are expected, Betty says, when the snowbirds come back North when the winter's over. (That's still way below the Bridge Centre of Niagara over in St. Catharines, Ont., where membership is more than 300.)

3. The club is in the black, which is good news when bridge organizations everywhere are depressed financially. It finished the year with $3,000 more in the bank than it had 12 months earlier. 

4. Virtual play is in a big decline. Revenues from games on Bridge Base Online and elsewhere were down to $11 in December.

Bridge Blog 1174: Now you see it, now you don't

The screen on the Bridge Mate says we're third out of eight pairs when we finish our last hand in the four-table Howell game Friday at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Bridge Club, but when the email arrives from ACBL Live for Clubs with the final results, we're fourth. We miss collecting 0.53 of a point by just one-tenth of 1%. 

Although partner Selina Volpatti and I defrosted from this frigid, windblown day (the car said it was 8 above on the ride up) with a kickoff 6 Heart slam and an overtrick, we veered off the winning path on many occasions en route to our 52.40%.

My deepest chagrin came in the final round on Board 20, where a 2 Club contract turned improbably into 12 tricks. I took just 11, thanks to a losing finesse I immediately recognized that I didn't need to take. 

Without that fumble, we'd be third. Had Selina succeeded on a pair of game contracts that may or may not have been makeable, we'd be second. Had we kept up the torrid pace we set in the first round, where we won 10 out of a possible 12 match points, we'd be seeing our names in next month's ACBL Bridge Bulletin. 

At any rate, it was a fitting end for a day of fiendishly unbalanced hands. Six-, 7- and 8-card suits were not unusual. Furthermore, in this Howell movement, we switched sides of the table repeatedly and seemed to zig-zag into more than our share of good cards. We bid accordingly. In the 24 boards we played, we let our opponents take the bid only 25% of the time. 

Bridge Blog 1173: It’s all in the numbers

 

"Hi Dale," the email subject line declares, "Welcome to your Bridge Wrapped report!" How about that? A year-in-review from the ACBL. It certainly sucks this bridge nut a little deeper into the statistics-mad world of sports and pastimes.

And right on top are my total points for the year: 38.04. I feel pretty good about that – it's my best year since the pandemic – but a pittance compared to Buffalo's premier point collector, Saleh Fetouh, who raked in more than 1,000 in 2025.

The statistics pop up in cold precision, but suddenly one of them – Best Day, the day when I earned the most points – warms up a memory. That was Nov. 14, two days after I was officially severed from The Buffalo News, ending my 57-year career there. I was still in a state of existential shell shock when Selina Volpatti and I came in second in our section in the Swiss team game at the Niagara Regional Tournament in St. Catharines, Ont. We hauled in 8.69 gold points and my existence suddenly started to have meaning again. That also made November my Best Month, the report noted, with 11.83 points overall.

The report goes on to recount my Best Pair Game – 68.15% – but I don't remember how it happened and it doesn't say when. For that, it’s over to the ACBL website for a search of my results on MyACBL. There, I discover, it was on Feb. 21 with Selina in the Niagara-on-the-Lake Bridge Club. First overall, we collected 1.47 points. My first-ever visit to the club on Jan. 10 resulted in my second-best game of the year – 66.82% – but that was only good for second place.

Back to the report, which next is tracking my wayward whereabouts. Unique Days Played? 61. Total face-to-face club sessions? 48. Largest club game? 16.5 tables. Tournament events? 14. Sectionals? 4. Regionals? 1. Nationals? Zero. Tournament cities? 2. And that's all, folks. In-ter-est-ing, but I have a sneaky feeling these stats are fodder for what really matters more to the number-crunchers at ACBL Central – trends.

Bridge Blog 1172-A: Bridgeless

 

The new year started the same way the old one ended – no bridge. Until the Wednesday, Jan. 14, game at Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont., I hadn't played in month. Not since the special game at the Bridge Center of Buffalo on Saturday, Dec. 13.

That big holiday break was not my idea. I would have played Friday, Dec. 19, at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Bridge Club, but hardly anybody else did except for partner Selina Volpatti. They called it off and sent an email over the holidays warning that if players didn't come, they'd have to call things off completely.

Then I got Covid and the flu at the same time over Christmas. On Dec. 26, I could barely climb out of bed. A game in St. Catharines was out of the question. A week later I was still testing positive for the coronavirus. And the Friday after that was the postponed date for our big New Year's Eve party, so no go then either.

Without me to sit in the South chair, did Selina find a substitute? I combed the results on the ACBL website and didn't see her name. Turns out she had Covid too.

Bridge Blog 1172-B: Second verse, same as the first.

 

Finally hale and hearty again, I text Selina to see if she's available to play Wednesday, Jan. 14, at BCON. She's already partnered up, she replies. Why don't I try Rod Sumner? Sure enough, Rod can do it.

Nevertheless, this is only the second time that Rod and I have played. He reviews my convention card, but it doesn't tell him that I like to use the modified Mini-Roman bid – 2 Diamonds to show 4-4-4-1 distribution, 4-4 in both major suits, with 11 to 15 high card points. Sure enough, it comes up in the second round, when we're up against two of the better players – Marg Dykstra and Christine Pentesco. I'm dealer, we're vulnerable, and I do the magic 2 Diamond bid with this hand:

Spades: K-J-8-7; Hearts: Q-J-4-3; Diamonds: A-J-7-3; Clubs: 4.

Pass-pass to Christine, who's South and has a 14-point hand with five Diamonds. She doubles. To escape, I bid up the line to 2 Hearts. The opponents take over and wind up at 3 No Trump. They ask Rod what the 2 Diamond bid was. He says he thinks it was weak. Then we play it. Down two. When we finish, I explain what I meant and then there's a director call. The ruling: Average-minus. Instead of a top board of 8 match points, we get 3.20.

Rod and I finish third overall East-West and first in the B strat with 55.74%. (Talk about being steady, we also were third overall and first in the B strat the first time we played together in the NOTL Christmas party game back on Dec. 9.) Our Mini-Roman escapade didn’t make a difference one way or the other. We're almost 13 match points behind the second-place pair. As for Marg and Chris, they're hopelessly mired in last place.

Bridge Blog 1172-C: The one that really matters

 

The big question, though, is how well are we going to fare against Selina, who’s playing North-South with Sandra Felton. We get to them in the last round.

Not well on Board 7. I go down one on a 3 Spade contract. I've got six of them. Rod's got one. Hand analysis says we should let them play it in Hearts or No Trump and let them go down. This way, they get 5.5 match points, we get 2.5.

Can we make it up on Board 8? I hold 5 Hearts, 6 Clubs and a void in Diamonds. I make an overtrick and it feels good, but 4 Hearts always makes an overtrick. It’s just average. Both sides get 4 match points. 

One more chance. Board 9. A wimpy 1 Spade contract. Sandra makes it. Hand analysis says East-West could make 2 Hearts, we don’t bid it and North-South have the better cards anyway. Drat! Average again. Meanwhile, Selina and Sandra come in first North-South.

Bridge Blog 1172: It all adds up

I wince every time I make 12 or 13 tricks and don't bid the slam. Sharpest jab recently was that train wreck Dec. 9 in Niagara-on-the-Lake (see Blog 1171). And it happened again on Saturday, Dec. 13, in the Christmas Party game at the Buffalo Bridge Center, with frequent collaborator, Florence Boyd. Not once, but twice, though this time it was more like minor derailments. First jump of the tracks was my killer hand on Board 3:

Spades: A-K-Q-6-5; Hearts: A; Diamonds: K-6-2; Clubs: K-10-4-3.

Sitting South, I open 1 Spade and have big dreams until Florence gives a single raise to 2 Spades with this:

Spades: 9-8-4-3; Hearts: Q-8-5-2; Diamonds: 10-3; Clubs: A-Q-J.

All right, 4 Spades, closing things out cleanly with a jump to game. Had Florence gone 3 Spades, I’d have been bolder, but her hand was a little light for that, so safety first. Then zap! Twelve fast tricks, losing only one Diamond. The experienced pairs – John Ziemer and Judy Graf, who finished third, and Howard Foster and Mike Ryan, who came in first – get to 6 Spades. So do a pair of novices, Brian Fleming and Julie Mitchell. Going to slam would have given us 3 more match points and elevated us to first in the B strat.

At least it was less consequential when it happened again on wickedly distributional Board 26:

Spades: A-K-9-6-2; Hearts: Void; Diamonds: K-Q-J-10-8-6-2; Clubs: A.

I open a Diamond. Holding this hand, Florence responds 1 Heart:

Spades: Q-3; Hearts: 10-9-8-6-2; Diamonds: A-4; Clubs K-5-4-3.

So with my void apparently covered, I head again for a safe haven, 3 No Trump, and wind up running all 13 tricks – seven Diamonds, four Spades, two Clubs. If Linda Burroughsford, sitting West, had been inspired to lead one of her three Hearts, we're down one. But she didn't. Meanwhile, bidding the slam would have given us only one more match point.

In the end, not a big difference in the universal scheme of things, but a reminder of how every little thing adds up. Instead of fifth place with 48.94% and 0.69 silver points (it was STaC week, Sectional Tournament at the Clubs), we coulda-shoulda-woulda been third with 50.79% and 0.98 silver.