Bridge Blog 1149: Did we fall or were we pushed?

We fell down in our final round, partner Selina Volpatti declared this Friday  afternoon after we came in second North-South and third overall in the six-table Club Championship game at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Duplicate Bridge Club across the bridge in Ontario. Out of a possible 20 match points in the round, we only got 7.5. 

That left us four match points behind the North-South winners, Claude and Muriel Trembley, but should we really be complaining? We still had a 57.92% game. We got go to bring home 1.62 master points. 

Plus, that last round against Darlene Menhennet and Leslie Nash (daughter of the recently departed Kit Nash, who was a petite force of nature) may have been sour, but it wasn't all that bad. It started out so sweetly, with me making 3 Spades, a top board. 

But then we were all left-footed. I should have sabotaged them when I bid 4 Diamonds to deny them a sure 3 Heart contract. Leslie doubled. Down 1, plus 100 for them. No problem. When they make 3 Hearts, they get plus 140. But I didn't count on how wimpy the East-Wests would be at the other tables. They gave up and let North-South play and make 3 Diamonds. 

Nothing we could do about the third hand, either. We take our two Aces and that's that. At some tables, the suit was Diamonds. Two Wests played and made a 5 Diamond bid. At our table, East played 4 Hearts and made an overtrick. Not as bad,  though, as the table where West played 3 No Trump and ran all 13 tricks -- seven Diamonds and six Hearts. With a Club lead, the one North should have made since it was his longest and strongest suit, 3 No Trump goes down two. Here it is: 

South (dealer) 

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

West

Spades Q; Hearts K-7; Diamonds K-Q-J-9-8-7-5; Clubs J-4-2. 

North

Spades J-10-5; Hearts 10-8-4-3; Diamonds 6-2; Clubs A-9-7-3.

East

Spades K-8-7-6; Hearts A-Q-J-9-6-5; Diamonds A-3; Clubs 8. 

To complete our knee-scraping, the round finished with East-West making two overtricks on a 3 No Trump contract. Bottom board. Nobody else in No Trump got overtricks. 

Actually, Selina forgot that we tripped up just as badly in the very first round. She opened a Spade and I was holding a 17-point No Trump hand. We arrived at 6 Spades, then wound up being the only North-South who bid the slam and didn't make it. 

Bridge Blog 1148: Points, schmoints!

 

At the Buffalo Fall Sectional last year, the good Dr. Saleh Fetouh greeted me with the news that he had just reached 10,000 master points. If all of his points are properly aligned, that would make him a Platinum Life Master. Or maybe a Grand Life Master, if he's won in a high-level event like the Bermuda Bowl. 

It's highly unlikely that I will ever reach that exalted level, even at the rate of 1,000 points per year, like Saleh in 2024. Even the next ACBL level, Sapphire Life Master, will take 3,500 points. And not just any points. It would take 700 silver, red, gold or platinum points, half of them gold or platinum. That's a tall order. I have only 102.89 gold points and no platinum points whatsoever. I'd have to become a tournament rat to get those. 

However, I'll give a little cheer when I reach a little bitty milestone this year – 3,000 points. In tournaments, that's the dividing line between the A and the B stratifications. Since I usually play with partners with fewer points, I might still be in B if those games where the directors average us out. If they don't, we'll be swimming with the barracudas. 

In truth, in my current state of skill and the time I can devote to playing this best-of-all-possible games, I'll be happy to chalk up a couple points a month, like I did in 2024. Lo and behold, that's happened already. At our first two Friday games at the Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., club, my Canadian partner Selina and I finished second and third overall, 66.82% and 58.68% respectively, good for 1.21 and 0.73 points. 

Add to that our single online excursion into Okbridge, where we saw all the same folks we saw last time we played there in October. It can be a tough crowd, so we were overjoyed to finish sixth out of 33 pairs in a 12-board ACBL game with 57.21%. That got us another 0.54 of a point.

Bridge Blog 1147: Resolute

 

Can New Year's resolutions really be resolute? We'll find out here in 2025 as I try to revive my posts on this-here bridge blog. 

First, let's consider one of my other resolutions – making it to the tables, real and virtual. It's a modest goal, an average of once a week. So far, so good – three times in three weeks, once virtual and twice face-to-face. 

Nevertheless, how often that happens depends on circumstances beyond my control, like medical appointments and whether I've got a partner. Fridays should be constant. That's when I venture across the border to join my Canadian partner at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines or at the spiffy Community Centre in Niagara-on-the-Lake. But last year she had a lingering health crisis and that kept us apart for several months. 

If the fates allow, the next two weeks promise to be above par. I'm booked with my Canadian partner for all three days of the Niagara Sectional Tournament in St. Catharines on Super Bowl weekend. And next week there's Friday again at NOTL and Saturday at the monthly special game at the Buffalo Bridge Center. 

Somebody at NOTL asked me yesterday why I don't play more often in Buffalo. Alas, with nearly 3,000 master points, I can only do the open games and the Buffalo Bridge Center has just two of them – Wednesday and Friday. And Wednesday's out. I work.