Bridge Blog 1159-A: Way Overdue

A week ago, at the Buffalo Summer Sectional Tournament, none other than one of my bridge idols, Saleh Fetouh, remarked that I hadn't posted anything here on the Bridge Blog in a long time. 

I had to concede that he's right, though not from a lack of bridge thoughts bouncing around my brain. There just hasn't been enough of a break in the parade of other obligations to write them out. 

By maybe here, having taken off from work for the past seven days for my Birthday Week, there's a window of opportunity. Let's start with the one that's the longest overdue and most nagging.

Bridge Blog 1159-B: A sure thing

It's the Longest Day game on Saturday, June 21, at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont. Board 12. The opponents are our old friends Chandi Jayawardena and Wybren "Weeb" Hoogland. We manage to drive Chandi, sitting West, up to 4 Diamonds, thanks to a Heart bid by my partner, Selina, which I boosted to the 3-level.

I have a flat and mediocre hand, three three-card suits topped by Jacks, but my Diamonds are sparkling: K-Q-J-10. I've got three tricks in Diamonds. Partner surely has one more somewhere for that bid of hers. I double. Hearts are led, but the Ace belongs to Weeb and it's a singleton. 

We get nothing more than my three Diamonds. Plus 510 for the opponents. Bottom board for us. When I mention it to Saleh Fetouh, he shrugs. "It happens," he says.

Bridge Blog 1159-C: Busted bonanza

That Longest Day game would have paid off handsomely in master points if we had been on the ball. We're in the B strat, so all we needed to collect 2.30 points for the top of B was 55%, which is well within our wheelhouse on our good days. 

Not this time. Even if we'd succeeded in the busted double, we wouldn't have come close to scratching. As it was, we were next to last North-South with 38.19%, one of our most wretched recent results.

Bridge Blog 1159-D: No regrets? Well, not too many

Despite our sorry showing on The Longest Day, club play on shorter days has given Selina and me a string of successes lately. Since the beginning of June, our record looks like this:

June 6. 61.25%. First N/S at Niagara-on-the-Lake Bridge Club. Also notable as one of the rare occasions where we managed to beat genial game director Claude Tremblay and his wife Muriel. They almost always win.

June 13. 56.97%. Second N/S at NOTL, behind Claude and Muriel.

June 27. 45% with Lynn Hale, 11th out of 15 pairs in a Howell game at NOTL.

July 4. 48.50%. Fifth N/S at NOTL.

July 16. 55.21%. Second N/S at Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines. Missed first by 0.52%.

July 18. 55%. Third N/S at NOTL. 

Bridge Blog 1159-E: Let there be cake!

This year I revived my annual gift of paying the day's entry fees for fellow players at bridge clubs for the first time since the pandemic. And since I took the entire week off from work, I was free to treat the players to a free game at St. Catharines on Wednesday, July 16, which ordinarily would be a work day, and the folks at Niagara-on-the-Lake on my actual birthday, Friday, July 18. 

On Wednesday, there were 9 1/2 tables and the director presented me with a slip that said $342. For Friday's 7 1/2-table game, where due to a late start from home and an unexpectedly long line into Canada at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, I arrived a minute before play was supposed to start, the tariff was just $140. That's Canadian bucks. 

So in St. Catharines, that was about $250 US, less than I anted up for some of those birthday games in Buffalo before the pandemic. At NOTL, it was $102. To my mind, not a bad price for a pair of happy afternoons.

Bridge Blog 1159-F: Do the Bridge Gods give birthday presents? Yes, they do.

On the very first board we played on Wednesday, July 16, at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, I was dealt this hand.

Spades K 9 3

Hearts A J 9 4

Diamonds A K Q 8 7 6

Clubs ----- (void)

It's Board 7. All vulnerable. I'm sitting South, as usual, and I'm the dealer. I open 1 Diamond, although a 2 Club bid, signaling a killer hand, might be more appropriate. Mary House, sitting West, passes. Selina may or may not have bid 1 Spade with this hand.

Spades Q 6 5 2

Hearts Q 8 3

Diamonds J 10 9 5

Clubs 10 5

Don Pratt, sitting East, does not hesitate to bid 2 Clubs. He's got six of them and 13 high card points. I rebid my Diamonds. Mary raises Don's Clubs. Selina raises my Diamonds. Don plunges ahead to 5 Clubs. I go 5 Diamonds. Don doubles. Feisty and full of myself on this occasion, I do not hesitate for a second. Redouble!

Mary leads the Ace of Clubs and I nail it with a trump. I draw Diamonds in two rounds. I lose the Ace of Spades (Don obligingly playing his Ace the first time they go around) and one Heart. The score? A nice round 1,000. Top board to start the day. 

In the rest of the room, three other North-Souths bid 5 Diamonds. One of them made an overtrick. They must have double-finessed East's Hearts. Another was down one trick. I'll bet West held up on the Ace of Spades, which I was fearing. At one unfortunate table, North-South wound up at 3 No Trump by North. East-West ran their Clubs. Down three. 

Bridge Blog 1159-G: Do the Bridge Gods give birthday presents? No, they don't.

No birthday bonanzas on my actual birthday on Friday, July 18, at Niagara-on-the-Lake. Every little victory was like pulling teeth. First hand I played, Board 6, was a 4 Diamond sacrifice. Down one versus Jean and John Roynon, an aimable but tough pair who could have made 5 Clubs vulnerable if they'd pushed it, or sent me down two doubled if I dared 5 Diamonds. It didn't feel good, but it was second-best board. 

Then Board 11 found me going for 3 Hearts doubled, not vulnerable, against two lovely senior ladies, Donna Williams and Marguerite Luczay, admirable for her long, long, long white hair. Down one. Minus 100. Was that really a top board? Yes! They could have made 3 No Trump, 6 Spades, 6 Hearts or 6 Diamonds.

So how well did the gods smile on me as I was turning 83? Let's get a little wonky here and count up the match points on all the hands I played. OK, I was declarer on 10 of the 24 boards. A top board was worth 5 match points. I won 30 out of a possible 50 points, in other words, 60%. Our final totals? 66 match points, 55%, third North-South. Not nearly enough juice to beat Claude and Muriel Tremblay, though. They finished first with 67.25%.