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.