Bridge Blog 1206: Winners and losers

 

There was a Buffalo Bills theme at the Buffalo Bridge Center's party game on Saturday, Sept. 19, and like Bills fans these days, me and my partner Judie Bailey (pictured in her Bills regalia) came out smiling. We finished at 55.71% and collected 1.5 master points. Even though we were second North-South, it felt like a win.

What probably helped was that many of the top players weren't around. No Saleh Fetouh. No Chris Urbanek. No Jay Levy. In August, there were 8½ tables. This time only 6½. Were they all off at the Pittsburgh Regional? Jay Levy was, but not Chris or Saleh.

The Buffalo Bridge Center party game was my second straight game over 50%. Selina Volpatti and I had 55.29% on Friday at Niagara on the Lake Bridge Club, also second place North-South. But this mini-streak didn't last.

Rod Sumner agreed to play an extra day with me on Monday at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont., and we were dead last North-South in a nine-table game with 44.44%. On our regular date at BCON on Wednesday our percentage was lower, 42.62%, but we placed higher, eighth among 11 North-Souths.

After Wednesday’s Live for Clubs results arrived by email, I did a board-by-board analysis and determined that even if we maximized our bidding and corrected our mistakes in the play of the cards, we'd rightfully gain only 17.5 match points, not enough to break 50%. 

So here’s hoping the Bills keep their percentages up next Sunday against the Chargers. And here’s hoping my Swiss team can do the same that day in the Buffalo Fall Sectional.

Bridge Blog 1205: Slip-up

 

Want further proof that technology renders us helpless at simple tasks that used to be performed without a hitch by hand? Look no further than the annual Unit 116 picnic and game on Saturday, Aug. 29.

No hitches in the picnic part of the day. The food – roast chicken, potatoes, salads and the fabulous sweet corn picked that very morning from the fields at Paul Zittel's farm – was very much up to the standards set in previous years.

No, the breakdown didn't come until the game started, after some initial confusion about who was sitting where in a setup that spread 18 tables through all four playrooms at the Buffalo Bridge Center. The confusion over table assignments soon turned into confusion on the BridgeMates, the electronic scoring devices. After director Art Morth wasn't able to set them straight, he gave each table pick-up slips, little scoring cards for each round.

I hadn't seen a pick-up slip since before the pandemic, when director Bill Finkelstein favored them at the Airport Bridge Club. Since I was sitting East, I didn't have to deal with them. That challenge fell upon the players sitting North, since they’re in charge of scorekeeping, and many of them had forgotten how to fill the damn things out.

At one table, I coached North from start to finish on which figures went where. Several others also weren't sure what information went on which line. And forget about finding out how well or how badly you did when the game was over. There were no results right away.

There wasn't the usual email from the ACBL with results on Saturday night, either. There still wasn't one Sunday afternoon. It took until 9:52 p.m. Sunday for that familiar Live for Clubs message to show up. That was followed 15 minutes later by another email, this one from help@thecommongame.com. It read:

Dear Dale & Judy (sic),

Your reported score below looks highly unusual. Please do NOT reply to this email. IF this was scored on the wrong side or in error, please report this to your club director ASAP. ... While this might not impact your standing or masterpoint awards, it could affect someone else's.

 

Board #13

Score -600

Opponent #18

Your direction EW

 

The information for the Contract was blank, but the score suggests either a successful North-South bid of 3 No Trump vulnerable or us going down six vulnerable. According to the hand record that accompanied the email message, neither of those things was likely to happen. I dug out my personal tally of the hands and, sure enough, we didn't get minus 600 on Board 13. We got minus 200. How come?

I had snatched the bid from North-South, Pat Haynes and Agi Maisel, keeping them from playing it at 2 Spades. I went to 3 Diamonds – my opening bid was a Diamond, since I had four of them and no five-card major – and felt confident because my partner Judie Bailey had raised Diamonds. This was going to be a sacrifice. I fully expected to fall one trick short for a score of minus 100. On the other hand, if Pat and Agi made 2 Spades, and I reckoned they would, our score would be minus 110. This is why they say down one is good bridge.

When the dummy appeared, though, my heart sank. I saw only three Diamonds in Judie's hand. Didn't her bid promise four of them? Shouldn't she have mentioned her five-card Heart suit? In Hearts, according to the hand record, we win eight tricks. As the Diamonds stand, we're good for only seven. Draw all the Diamonds and play it like it's No Trump? Still good for only seven.

East (me)

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

South (Agi)

Spades: A-9-4; Hearts: Q-10-9-3; Diamonds: 8-7; Clubs: 9-8-7-3.

West (Judie)

Spades: 8-6; Hearts: K-8-7-5-2; Diamonds: K-J-10; Clubs: A-J-6.

North (Pat)

Spades: K-Q-7-3-2; Hearts: 4; Diamonds: A-9-4-3; Clubs: Q-10-2.

Minus 600 was an absolute bottom board. Minus 200 tied us for bottom with two other East-Wests and gave us about 1.25 more match points. Our final score went up from 44-something percent to 45.44%. I hoped it would at least take us from 14th place to 13th among the East-Wests, but no-o-o-o. Marilyn Wortzman and Jim Easton still were in front of us. By 0.06%.

Bridge Blog 1204: The power of positive thinking

 

No sooner had I rolled onto Richmond Avenue en route to St. Catharines, Ont., on Wednesday than I fielded a phone call from one of my oldest and dearest friends in Florida, who was brimming with positivity now that she's emerged from the complications that followed the death of her husband last winter. She was so upbeat that I was sure that the positivity would rub off on my bridge game with Rod Sumner.

Rod, however, was as low as I was high. He was in pain. He'd injured his hamstring muscle. Nevertheless, we both felt uplifted after our first round against two of the better players, Myrna Mackey and Dot Duchnicki.

First hand, Board 10, felt good even though it was a wash, a complete middle board. Myrna stopped at 2 No Trump and went down two after Rod got to unload a six-card Spade suit. Other, unluckier, players sitting East stopped at 2 NT and went down three.

Board 11, though, was a complete triumph. I opened a weak 2 Spades and when they went to 5 Clubs, Rod doubled. Down two. Top board. Board 12 also felt good but still was middle board. I made 3 No Trump, along with four other Norths. So far, so good. We sailed into the second round at 66.67%.

But our positivity lost its punch in the next round against Motaz Farag and Dena Jones. Two ties for bottom boards. When we emerged, we’d deflated to 40.63%. It took until the final round against John Stevens and Rocky Laiqing to find another bright spot. Rod, playing 3 Hearts doubled vulnerable, made two overtricks. 1,130 match points! How often do you see that score? As a result, we managed to stumble across the finish line in seventh place with 45.98%.

Bridge Blog 1203: The one you remember

 

Sometimes the contract that goes down sticks in your mind more than the one you make. Take this wildly distributional holding on Board 12 on Monday, Aug. 17, at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines:

Spades: 8-7-4.

Hearts: K.

Diamonds: 2.

Clubs: A-10-9-8-7-6-5-3.

West is declarer. We're North-South. We're vulnerable. They’re not. My partner Selina has 15 high card points and opens 1 No Trump. East, Adrian Buis, has an opener too, with five cards in each of the red suits. His bid is 2 Hearts, implying a good minor suit, obviously Diamonds. Well then, 3 Clubs. After all, I have eight of them. And so it goes until they bid 5 Hearts and I take it to 6 Clubs.

We have to lose a Heart – Selina doesn't have the Ace. Everything else looks tight, with one important exception. We're missing two of the Clubs and one of them is the King. I lead a Club from the dummy, Adrian plays low and I'm facing that classic quandary – is there a singleton King? Do I want to lose a trick to it?

So I play the Ace. West is void. The rest is a laydown. Elsewhere, two Souths guess the finesse correctly, though only one of them bids the slam. Even so, what seems like a setback still turns out to be a bit of a plus hand for us – 4.5 match points out of 8.

Bridge Blog 1202: While the cat's away

 

Monica is off touring Scandinavia and this mouse is playing a lot of bridge. How much bridge? Four straight days of face-to-face competition for the first time since the pandemic.

Friday, Aug. 14. Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont., with my usual Friday partner, Selina Volpatti. Ordinarily, we play in Niagara-on-the-Lake on Fridays, but this time around there was a sectional tournament for non-life masters there. Not such a good day for us. 41.35%. Third from last among 15 pairs.

Saturday, Aug. 15. Back at BCON to get my first look at the Saturday Night Live game, which I would never get to if my sweetie was around. Selina directed. Making it livelier was wine by the glass. Partnered with an agreeable novice, David Baker, who introduced himself by informing me that he has just 10 master points. We got along just fine, though. In a 3.5 table game, we managed 51.04%, fourth overall and just 0.21% short of earning master points. We agreed that not only did we play well for first-timers, but we also had a good time.

Sunday, Aug. 16. Judy Zeckhauser and I had a good time at the monthly Buffalo Bridge Center party game, even though we didn't play very well. Not dead last, but at 43.75% we were far away from the winners' circle. At Table 1 early in the game, we learned that Buffalo's foremost master point winner, Saleh Fetouh, is suffering from macular degeneration to the extent that he has trouble reading the bids and seeing the cards. Nevertheless, while we had to tell him what our bids were and which cards we were playing, his powers of concentration were unimpaired. They beat us in match points, 11.5 to 9.5. He and partner Jay Levy finished second North-South and earned 1.27 points.

Monday, Aug. 18. Back to BCON, this time in the company of two other Buffalo players – Mike Ryan, who topped the North-Souths on Sunday playing with Howard Foster, and my good friend Bill Finkelstein, who drove. Selina and I more or less held our own when Mike and Bill came to our table, limiting them to 13 match points out of a possible 24. They were more dominant elsewhere, finishing second East-West with 59.03%, collecting 1.69 master points. Selina and 1 did not go unrewarded, though. Fifth in the B stratification with 50.46%, happy to earn 0.42 of a master point.

Bridge Blog 1201: Blind Dates

I was pleasantly surprised to be paired with Susan Hawes, whose partner didn't show up, at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Duplicate Bridge Club on Friday, Aug. 7. She's not only an attractive presence (think Jamie Lee Curtis), but also a seasoned player. When we hastily compared bidding and conventions, we seemed to be very much on the same wavelength.

We shrugged off the first boards. The opponents took most of the bids. But after a few rounds, it was clear that this was going to be a bad day, a very bad day. Maybe a day below 30%. When the rankings on the Bridge Mate showed us in last place at the end of the afternoon, I was gratified that we managed to crawl away with 34.17%.

How did it seem so right at first and go so wrong? Bottom board straight from the get-go on the first hand, but still, that one was unavoidable. They bid 2 Hearts, making two overtricks. Impatient with the gloom by Board 4, I pushed Susan's raise of my Spade opener to game. Susan had three low Spades and two Aces, but East held K-Q-J-10 in my suit. Ouch! Bottom board, but compared with down-one at 3 Spades, it cost us only one extra match point.

Same with Board 8, the next notation on my score sheet. With four Spades to the King and an Ace of Clubs, I should have answered Susan's fourth-seat 1 Spade opening bid. It's good for 11 tricks in Spades. Amazingly, nobody bid game, though Susan says she would have. We're in a five-way tie for top board. Bidding game, we’d be two match points better.

Little stumbles and setbacks like those kept happening. Still, it would have taken a major blessing from the bridge gods to win us some master points. The two pairs who scratched North-South were tied for first, almost 25% ahead of us.

A week earlier at NOTL, a different story. I was paired for the first time with another player without a partner, Mike Freeman, a Toronto attorney who's lately moved to Niagara-on-the-Lake. Among eight tables, we were third North-South with 53.87% for 0.53 of a master point. It was my best game for the entire month of July. 

Bridge Blog 1200: Thou shalt not pass???

 

Rod Sumner and I were in a funk. We hadn't earned master points together in a coon's age and we sank to a new low – 30.21% – on June 17 at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont. But things finally took an upturn on the following Wednesday, June 24. Rod even sent me a celebratory text message of sorts: "Much better result. 1.62% out of second place."

Actually, if we added that 1.62% to our 51.02%, we would have been third overall and first in the B stratification. Nevertheless, we hauled in 0.42 of a master point and it made me wonder how we would have finished if we had gone ahead and bid on the two hands where we passed out.

The first one, Board 18 against two long-term partners, John Marskell and Joan Soifert, was not our hand at all. Just 17 high card points between us. At every other table, East-West took the bid and went down, mostly in No Trump. Nothing we can do about that.

No such excuse, though, for the other one, Board 3 on the final round of the day against Kathy Morrison and Keith Heckley, Sitting South, I'm declarer, but I have only nine high card points. Pass. So does Kathy, who's sitting West. Rod, on the other hand, has 12 hcp and we're not vulnerable. With his holding, I would open:

Spades: A-9-6-3. Hearts: 10-7. Diamonds: A-K-9-8. Clubs: J-9-5.

If he opens 1 Diamond, I go 1 Spade (I have K-Q-7-4 and 10 hcp) and we play it at 2 Spades. Most North-Souths did that and made an overtrick. That would give us six extra match points, enough to end up third overall and first in B.

Fortune smiled again Friday, June 26, with Selina Volpatti at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Bridge Club. We finished third North-South with 52.98% and got 0.53 of a master point. But once again there was a pass-out. Good? Or bad? This time, not so clear cut. We're vulnerable, Selina is the second seat for bidding and she's got 12 hcp:

Spades: K-9. Hearts: A-K-4. Diamonds: J-4-3. Clubs: J-10-7-5-2.

She passes. So does East. If Selina opens, I have a bid. But after three passes to me, I don't.

Spades: Q-10-8-6-3. Hearts: 8-5. Diamonds: A-9-8-5. Clubs: A-8.

Elsewhere, North-South played it in Clubs, Spades and No Trump. It makes 3 Spades. That would have given us an extra 2.5 match points. Enough to make a difference? Not quite. We needed 3 to overtake the second-place finishers, Harold Nash and my good friend Rod. They bid it and made 4 Clubs.