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.