Bridge Blog 1196-A: Back to the tables -- Under the radar

 

But at least not under the tables on Thursday morning at the Anchor Bar at Maple and Sweet Home Roads in Amherst, my first game in nearly two weeks after a trip to Washington, D.C., for a wedding.

This was Third Thursdays, a non-ACBL-sanctioned game directed by my dear friend and sometimes partner Judie Bailey that I never expected to play in. Back when it met at a country club, it was ladies only. Lately, however, a gentleman has been invited to fill out an empty chair and on Wednesday, while I was homeward bound and stopped at a Starbucks in Clark's Summit, Pa., Judie texted an invitation to me.

Indeed, I was not the only gentleman who helped fill up four tables in the side dining room at the Anchor Bar. There were three of us. Entry fee was $1. Judie told me to sit anywhere East-West. I'd never met the attractive white-haired woman across from me, Judy McDermid, one of three Judys present, but we quickly determined that we could do things like 14-30, asking for key cards in a slam attempt.

Before play, a waitress took orders for lunch and when food came out, we took a break after the second round. Music from the restaurant's sound system sifted into our area. Elsewhere sports channels played on flat-screen TVs, a few patrons sat at the main bar and, in the regular dining room, there was a group of Red Hat ladies having lunch.

In all, we played 16 boards in four rounds. Aggressive me, I took the bid on at least half of them and was nailed for minus 1,100 on the second hand when I went after a 5 Spade sacrifice. Sitting North and doubling was Paula Kotowski, who reminded me how I kept her from getting her final points for Ruby Life Master 17 years ago when I failed to return a card for her to trump. She was delighted to inflict some revenge. Down 5. But was it a bottom board? The scoring slips later showed that North-South could take 12 tricks.

Even so, this was not a slam-bidding crowd. Mostly, they were social players familiar with some of the modern bridge basics. Nevertheless, there were a few that I know from the clubs – the aforementioned Paula Kotowski, Florence Boyd, Dorothy May, Judy Kaprove and Paula Salamone. I hadn't seen Paula Salamone since before the pandemic. We greeted each other with a hug.

No results right away. Judie let me know with an email on Friday and it turned out that we club players carried the day. Judy McDermid and I tied for first with Paula Kotowski and her partner with a 29. Figuring a maximum of three match points on 16 hands, that would translate to 60.41%. Paula Salamone and Flo Boyd and their respective partners tied for second with 28, or 58.33%.

Bridge Blog 1196-B: Back to the tables -- Switcheroo!

 

Having warmed up from my layoff at the Third Thursday game, I was ready, ready, ready to reunite on Friday with my Canadian partner, Selina Volpatti, at the ACBL-sanctioned game in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. But surprise! When I walked in, Selina, who was directing, announced that I would be playing with her son-in-law, John Beck, who unexpectedly found himself with the day off from his thriving construction business.

John is a bit of a novice, having followed his wife Laura into the game, but no problem. Selina not only transferred her love of bridge to John and Laura, but she also taught them to play. Essentially, it was like playing with Selina. Plus, not only did John cover my entry fee, he also has an easy sense of humor and an upbeat attitude. I'd be happy to hang with him even if we didn't have cards in our hands. Turns out we're OK with cards, too. Second North-South with 59.58%.

Bridge Blog 1195: Shot at the Buzzer

"That dbl (double) on Board 4 may have put us over the top," partner Selina Volpatti texted me after our first place showing Friday at the Niagara on the Lake Duplicate Bridge Club. "... that gave us the point over the Tremblays." 

It's a great day whenever we beat Claude and Muriel Tremblay, the perennial top pair at the club. On this occasion, they were second. We outdistanced them in match points, 74.18 to 71.45. Translated into percentages, that's 61.82% to 59.54%. 

True, Selina's double on Board 4, our last deal of the day, earned us one match point more than the Tremblays, who had the second-best score on that hand, where East-West took only six tricks at 3 Hearts. Same thing happened at the Tremblays' table, but they didn't double. As it turns out, though, that only gave us a break-even against Claude and Muriel in that round. Board 4 was a feel-good finale, the frosting on the cake. We already had piled up our advantage elsewhere. 

It wasn't in the first round, where we played Boards 5 through 8. The Tremblays roared to a four match-point lead there, even though we were second-best on each hand. 

The crucial difference came during the two rounds that followed, Boards 10 to 14, where we grabbed 10.5 more match points than they did. We won No. 10 on defense, holding a 2 Spade contract by East-West to one fewer overtrick than they did. No. 11 found me down one at 3 Spades, for a score of minus 50, while they let East-West play and make 3 Diamonds for minus 110. On No. 13, the opponents helped us out. East went to 4 Spades with a seven-card trump fit, which we set by one trick, while Claude and Muriel saw West play it at a much more solid 3 Hearts, where they had a 10-card fit and made an overtrick.

No. 14 was a top board for us, again thanks to our opponents. They passed after Selina boldly bid it up to 3 Spades. She made an overtrick, despite our deficiency in high card points (she had 14, I had just two Jacks). At Claude and Muriel's table, West took the bid at 3 No Trump and took an overtrick.  

Bridge Blog 1194: April shower

Once upon a time, when I was playing bridge five or six days a week, it was a bad month if I didn't pile up at least 15 master points. Now I'm lucky to play twice a week and the rewards have dried up so much that 5.63 points in April feels like manna from heaven. It more than doubles my total for the year so far.

But no luck juicing up my monthly master point total even more on Wednesday at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont. Partner Rod Sumner and I wound up dead last East-West.

I kicked myself more than once over Aces I failed to cash and leads I should have made to Rod, but now that I’m reviewing the hand records, it would have taken much more than those to reach the winners' circle. In fact, if we hadn't broken out of our funk with a stellar final round, we'd be truly wretched – four percentage points below our eventual 40.74%. 

Bridge Blog 1193: New gear, old mistakes

 

Everyone admired the brand-new bidding boxes Wednesday in the 10-table open game at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont. Unfortunately, we didn't make the best use of them on Board 11, which we passed out. Hand analysis says we can make 5 Spades or 5 Clubs. I'm South and I'm dealer, nobody vulnerable.

South

Spades: K-J-5-4.

Hearts: A-9-8.

Diamonds: Q-3.

Clubs: J-7-5-2.

Eleven high card points. Fulfills the Rule of 15, but falls short on the Rule of 20. Should I open 1 Club in the first seat? I don’t. Partner Rod Sumner is North. Here's what he’s holding:

Spades: A-10-3-2.

Hearts: 4.

Diamonds: J-4-2.

Clubs: A-Q-8-6-4.

Also 11 high card points, also fulfills the Rule of 15. Rod also happens to meet the Rule of 20. Sitting in the third seat, he might open 1 Club, I would respond 1 Spade and we'd settle for at least a 2-bid. Result: Instead of 2 match points for the pass-out, we’d get 5.

That alone would boost our final 49.44% past the 50% mark, though it wouldn't improve on our 0.42 master point winnings. However, better performances on a couple other boards would have taken us there.

Board 19 was a defensive lapse that gave us a bottom board and cost us at least 7.5 match points. We let Myrna Mackey make an overtrick on a 3 No Trump contract, while two other 3 NTs went down. Hand analysis says E/W should only take 7 tricks in No Trump. The problem? After I lead the 9 from my Club holding of A-Q-10-9-7, Myrna, who has four Clubs, holds back on playing her King. So I take the trick and lead the 10, win again and switch to another suit. But then, when Rod gets in with his Ace of Spades, he doesn’t lead his remaining Jack of Clubs. 

Then there's Board 24. There’s a slam, 6 Clubs, 6 Diamonds or 6 NT, according to hand analysis. Rod plays it at 3 NT, making one overtrick instead of two or three. Two would win us 2 more match points, Three would reward us with 4.5 more.

Take away those fateful fluffs and we could be champs. Or at least silver medalists. We'd get at least 12 additional match points and second place overall North-South.

Nevertheless, we still can bask in our golden moment in the second round of the day on Board 23. Rod opened 2 Spades with a seven-card suit and everybody passed after Doug Newman, sitting West, doubled him, hoping his partner would show his best suit. Hand analysis says it should make 4 Spades and that's exactly what Rod did. Vulnerable. Plus 1,070. Top board.

Bridge Blog 1192: Thinking ahead

 

Partner Selina Volpatti proclaimed that it was the best hand she ever played as we shuffled our individual cards on Board 6 and put them back into the holder on Friday, April 17, at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Bridge Club.

        It was certainly our best hand of the day, a top board, one of the things that helped us do something we rarely do at NOTL, taking first place North-South away from perennial winners Claude and Muriel Tremblay, 57.44% to 56.55%.

        According to the ACBL results, Selina shouldn't have made it. Nobody else did on Friday. The analysis says that it's good for 3 Spades, but not 4. East-West has two Heart winners and a Diamond for sure. That fourth E/W trick probably comes when all the dummy's Spades are played before all of North's losing Diamonds can be trumped. Selina made sure she trumped them.

East:

Spades: 8

Hearts: K J 8

Diamonds: A Q J 9 7 6

Clubs: J 5 3

South (me):

Spades: Q J 6 2

Hearts: Q 7 5 2

Diamonds: 4

Clubs: A K 8 4

West:

Spades: 10 9 7

Hearts: A 9 4

Diamonds: K 8 2

Clubs: Q 10 9 6

North (Selina):

Spades: A K 5 4 3

Hearts: 10 6 3

Diamonds: 10 5 3

Clubs: 7 2

        How did we get to 4 Spades? East, as dealer, opened 1 Diamond. I doubled, asking for Selina to bid her best suit. She rose to the invitation with Spades. When they went to 4 Diamonds, she made the 4 Spade overcall. East led the 3 of Clubs. South's Ace won it, Selina cleared the dummy's singleton Diamond and got early ruffs on Clubs and Diamonds.

        Nobody else took more than nine tricks in Spades. At the Tremblay table, East won the auction at 4 Diamonds and made it.

Bridge Blog 1191: Buffalo Spring Sectional

 

I walked into the Buffalo Spring Sectional Tournament at the Buffalo Bridge Center on Friday morning, April 10, with a horrendous losing streak. How horrendous was it? So bad that my 37.13% in the morning pairs game was an improvement. Dead last, but still better than the 32% I had with Selina Volpatti and the 33% I had with Rod Sumner in Canada earlier that week. Also not so bad considering that partner Judy Zeckhauser (pictured) and I had played together only once before. Better attuned to each other in the afternoon round, we broke out of last place – eighth out of 11 pairs North-South with 43.19%.

        Things got even better for Judy and me on Saturday – 47.50% in the morning pairs. Two or three more good hands would have won us some master points. That raised our hopes for the afternoon game, which was interrupted after two rounds with 8½ tables by the sudden departure of one of the players to attend to his wife, who had suffered a bad fall. Instead of starting all over again, Brian Meyer showed his chops as a director by recasting it on the fly as an eight-table game and bringing it to a conclusion only a few minutes late. Meanwhile, Judy and I backslid to 42.54%. This time, though, we were only one percentage point behind the second-place North-South pair in the B strat.

         Despite four games with no master points, redemption was sure to come in the Swiss teams game on Sunday. All we had to do is win one round to win some little scrap of a point. Plus my Sunday partner, another Judy – Judie Bailey – was a more seasoned player. Our teammates, however, were unknowns, both to us and to each other. Gerry Steenberge, who had played in the tournament on Friday and Saturday, was from the Rochester area. His partner Aleksandar Ivanov, a last-minute pickup, was the Bulgarian-born brother-in-law of Diamond Life Master Dian Petrov. Aleks hadn’t gotten the details about playing in Sunday’s game and still was on his way from his home in East Aurora when things started, not arriving until after the first hand had been played.

        That didn’t hurt us, though. We romped to a 17-1 victory point win over one of the tougher teams -- Judy Graf, John Ziemer, Mike Ryan and Howard Foster. We also took the second match, 23-19, over another tough team – Kamil Bishara, Dian Petrov, Jay Levy and Fred Yellen – thanks to two of my efforts on doubled contracts, a 6-Heart sacrifice, down one vulnerable, that foiled an East-West slam, and a wildly distributional 5-Diamond-doubled overbid where I took 11 tricks in a lay-down.

        After that, our luck ran out. For the final two rounds, we were plunged into a round robin against two other low-riding teams. But as often happens in round robins, we got a worm. Beating one of the other teams gave us enough victory points to snag the bottommost rung among the stratification winners – second in B. What did we win? Brian Meyer said he couldn’t give us official scoring summaries right away because the results had to go through the ACBL first. It took until Monday to find out. 1.71 silver points.

        In all, the tournament had a total of 68 tables, with 292.48 master points earned by 67 players. The winningest – no surprise – was Saleh Fetouh with 15.10. Among his other achievements during the weekend, he was captain of the undefeated top place Swiss team. I was tied for 51st with Judie and Alexsandar. Gerry, who also had success in the pairs games, was 31st with 3.96.

        Sadly, it was further evidence of the declining state of bridge in Buffalo. It wasn't quite as well-attended as the 2025 Buffalo Spring Sectional, which had 71 tables and 74 players earning points. And it was a far cry from the 2024 Spring Sectional, which had 99 tables and 101 players earning points, and the pre-pandemic 2019 Buffalo Spring Sectional in the Main-Transit Fire Hall social hall in Amherst, which had 153 tables and 165 players earning points.