Bridge Blog 474: Brighter day

There’s always another hand, another round, another day at the tables. So I usually don’t let myself get too discouraged when things go bad. But our abject wipeout in the Swiss teams game Sunday at the Airport Bridge Club left me shaken. There was no joy to be found when it was over. Mike Silverman and Art Matthies quickly disappeared. Usha and I bid rueful goodbyes and didn’t stick around to see which of the two teams finishing late would come in second.
          Come Monday, I was sitting across from Usha once again while at the next table Mike was paired with Frank Kidd, who’s a Life Master also. This time we get off to a good start and, aside from a couple slips (see Blog 473), we have a much better time. Better than we think. The partial results after the game show us in first place North-South (Mike and Frank, alas, are last and already have disappeared).

When the final results are announced, we’re still first North-South with a 58.58% game and, since we’re in the A strat this time, we need to finish high. Being a double-point occasion, it’s also good for 1.04 master points. My club total for the month rises to 12.55. What a pleasant surprise.

Bridge Blog 473: Too much = not enough

One fine day when I’m a really good player I’ll know what to do when I pick up a 29-point hand. I didn’t on Monday when I surveyed this little gem nestled in Board 15. I’m North, North-South is vulnerable, South is dealer.
          Spades: A-K-7. Hearts: A-K-8-6-5.

Diamonds: A-Q-6. Clubs: A-K.

The problem with a hand this good is that my partner could have absolutely nothing. She passes. So does West. Do I bid 2 Clubs, 3 No Trump or something else entirely? I do a 4 Heart pre-empt, figuring that if nothing else, it’s probably makeable. When I see the dummy, however, I realize that someone much better is makeable.

Spades: 9-6-5-3. Hearts: Q-9.

Diamonds: 5-2. Clubs: Q-J-8-6-5.

I wind up losing the last two tricks – a Spade and King of Diamonds, the problem being that I can’t throw off my losers on dummy’s Clubs because I can’t reach them – but in No Trump, that’s not an issue.

East

Spades: 10-4-2. Hearts: 10-4-2.

Diamonds: 9-7-4. Clubs: 9-7-4-3.

West

Spades: Q-J-8. Hearts: J-7-3.

Diamonds: K-J-10-8-3. Clubs: 10-2.

My 650 score gets us only two of a possible six game points. Worse than me are the people who bid 6 Hearts (down three) and the ones who don’t make an overtrick at 4 Hearts. The winners are in No Trump. Two of them are at 3 NT making 6. One is at 3 NT making 7. And then there’s the brilliant pair (I believe it was Mike Kisiel) that went to 6 NT. Making 7.

How do I get there, I ask club manager Bill Finkelstein when I lay out the hand after the game. The opening bid, he says, is 2 Clubs. The second bid, after partner comes up with a 2 Diamond waiting bid, is 5 No Trump, showing those 29 points. Then she should bid 6 NT. Trouble is, Bill noted, partner may not understand the bid and either bid a suit or leave me there at 5 NT.

Bridge Blog 472: Swiss miss

          Did I mention a while back how I love Swiss team games? I do. There’s the camaraderie, the frequent score checking, the thrill of trying to improve your team’s standing from round to round. Plus there’s almost certainly the prospect of earning master points, no matter how fractionally small.
          It was in this spirit that I forsook Saturday’s double session triple point pairs game at the Airport Bridge Club and opted for the Sunday triple point Swiss teams. Plus I needed to rake up all my leaves and do all my laundry – chores that had been neglected since the beginning of the Niagara Falls, Ont., Regional Tournament nearly two weeks ago.
          We seemed to have a competitive foursome – me and Mike Silverman, both Life Masters now, paired up with Art Mathies, who’s a better player than his point count indicates after two years of competition, and Usha Khurana, who’s progressing well these days.

          It turned out to be a four-team Swiss, which meant that we faced each of the other three teams twice. With triple points, first overall and first in the B strat were worth more than three points each. So half the field would score big. Even if we washed out, we’d get a quarter point for each round we won. So at least we’d win something. Or would we?

First time around, we were skunked thoroughly. We missed games that our opponents bid and made. I mishandled a Jacoby transfer bid over interference. Silverman doubled a 5 Diamond contract that the other team made (we went down one at 3 NT). And so on. I tried to rally the troops after our pizza lunch by saying that we had just warmed up, but we really hadn’t. Closest we came was a one International Match Point loss to the Judi Marshall-Nancy Wolstoncroft team. We were shut out completely.

I had hoped that this final chance for triple points would plump up my November totals, since I’m going to miss most of next week due to Thanksgiving obligations at home. But nooooo. I’ve still got 11.51 points at the club for the month. Add my regional tournament take and it’s nearly 25. Best month of the year, to be sure, but it could be so much better.

Bridge Blog 471: Odometer check

          Overlooked by me amid all the excitement about passing the Life Master milestone was a mini-mile marker – my 1,200th master point. If I’m not mistaken, the master point odometer zipped past 1,200 during the triple-point double session at the Airport Bridge Club on Tuesday, when Marie Suprinick and I collected 4.36 points. If that didn’t do the trick, then June Feuerstein and I did it in the morning session on Wednesday, adding another 1.25 points with a 56.37% game that put us third in the B strat and fifth overall in a 13-pair match.

          Mike Kisiel, meanwhile, noted that while it was fine to become a Life Master, Bronze Life Master and Silver Life Master all at once, the next step up the ladder is a big one. No additional specially-colored points are needed for Gold Life Master, just a lot of points of any color – 2,500 of them. At the rate I’m going (200 to 250 points a year), that could take until 2017 unless I start traveling to tournaments.

Bridge Blog 470: Spikes

More congratulations on Tuesday, which keep me walking on air, but led me to observe to more than one well-wisher that actually I only had one good game. Or event, if you will. The rest of the month has been anything but Life Masterful. It’s sort of like that modern music piece I heard the Buffalo Philharmonic do many years ago (Ned Rorem?), in which the music was an ambient drone for many measures and then suddenly erupted into a single loud note.

I had no reason to expect anything more for my double session on Tuesday with Marie Suprinick, since we seem to be stuck in the low to mid 40% range. But some unusual opportunities came along in the morning session (see Blog 469) which lifted our ambitions and our spirits. We figured it was better than our average game, but it was better than better – 57.74%, first North-South, second in the A strat overall for 2.25 points.

The afternoon game didn’t feel as good and didn’t present any memorable hands that I recall. When the partial results showed us in second place, I shrugged it off. Our bad boards obviously hadn’t been registered. But no, we really did do well, fractionally better than the morning game with 57.94%. This time we were second North-South and third in the A strat overall for 2.11 points.

The two sessions gave me and Marie (who was lamenting her lack of winnings lately) a total of 4.36 points. It nearly doubled my previous total of 4.5 points at the club for the month. Another spike!

Bridge Blog 469: Doubly outrageous

In Tuesday morning’s game with Marie Suprinick, I made two outrageous bidding decisions, one which paid off and one which didn’t. The bad one came first on Board 9 against Jerry Geiger and Judi Marshall. East-West vulnerable, North (Marie) is dealer. She opens 1 No Trump. Jerry passes. I’m holding this hand.

Spades: A-7-2. Hearts: A-8-5-2.

Diamonds: A-J-9-2. Clubs: 8-5.

Well, it’s an opener opposite a 1 NT opener. We’ve got game, for sure, but where? I bid 2 Clubs for Stayman, asking for a major. Marie bids 2 Diamonds, denying a four-card major suit. Then Jerry doubles. How many tricks do we have, I wonder. Do we make 5 Diamonds? Maybe. I pass. Judi thinks long and hard before she passes. Marie passes. It’s 2 Diamonds doubled. Marie could have made 4 Diamonds if she took a marked finesse on Jerry, but she didn’t and only made 3. Unfortunately, the score for that is just 280. It was a bottom board. Everybody else is making 3, 4 and 5 No Trump. Jerry remarks that the pass was a good bid, but Marie should have redoubled. That would have given us a top score. Then again, maybe I should have redoubled. Here are the other hands.

North

Spades: K-10-8. Hearts: K-Q.
Diamonds: Q-7-6-4. Clubs: A-J-9-2.

East

Spades: Q-6-3. Hearts: 10-9-4.

Diamonds: K-10-8-5. Clubs; 10-7-4. He led a Diamond.

West

Spades: J-9-5-4. Hearts: J-7-6-3.

Diamonds: 4. Clubs: K-Q-6-3.

The second outrage was more successful. It rescued us from a bottom board on the losing side of a slam by Art Schumacher and Barb Multerer and gave us an average score. It was Board 19. East-West is vulnerable. I’m South and I’m the dealer. I pass with the hand:

Spades: None. Hearts: 9-8-6-5-2.

Diamonds: 10-9-7-3. Clubs: J-6-4-2.

West (Barb) opens a Spade and Marie jumps in with 2 Diamonds. East supports the Spades – was it with a Jacoby 2 NT bid, I don’t remember – and I look at my hand again. Worthless, but I have ruffing values. If we play Diamonds, they don’t take any Spade tricks. I bid 3 Diamonds.

Eventually, after Art and Barb check for Aces and settle for 6 Spades, I reach for the bidding box and pull out the card for 7 Diamonds. Astounding! But, of course, the vulnerability is in our favor. If they make 6 Spades, which is likely, they get 1430 points. If we manage to go down only six doubled, they get only 1400 points. They doubled and indeed that’s what happened. Here are the other hands.

North

Spades: 9-7-3. Hearts: 10-3.

Diamonds: K-Q-8-6-2. Clubs: K-Q-10.

East

Spades: K-8-6-4. Hearts: A-K-J-4.

Diamonds: 4. Clubs: A-9-7-3.

West

Spades: A-Q-J-10-5-2. Hearts: Q-7.

Diamonds: A-J-5. Clubs: 8-5.

Of course, not everyone bid 6 Spades (which made an overtrick). Four of them did and got 1460. Three of them stopped at 4 Spades and took all 13 tricks anyway, scoring 710. We were in the middle, capturing four out of a possible seven game points.

Bridge Blog 468: Regional reflexions

Results are up on the ACBL website for the Niagara Falls, Ont., Regional Tournament and there we are, me and Selina Volpatti, tied for 109th with 13.67 points. Best Buffalo player in the tournament is the same one who was best Buffalo player in the Buffalo Spooktacular Regional on Grand Island, Christine Urbanek. She had 36.61 points, which placed her 17th. Leader of the pack, or rather co-leaders, are William Woodcock of Sarnia, Ont., and Dwight Bender of London, Ont., with 73.56.

Second-best Buffalo player is Saleh Fetouh (28.45, 24th), followed by Chongmin Zhang (22.13, 38th), Bert Feasley (18.90, 56th), Jay Levy (18.57, 58th), John Sinclair (16.54, 69th), our knock-out teammates Mike Silverman and Helen Panza (14.63, tied for 95th – they got bonus points in Sunday’s Swiss team game), Dian Petrov (14.55, 97th) and John Toy (12.79, tied for 121st). That’s it for Buffalo players in the double digits. Not very well represented, our unit.

Meanwhile, I’m still getting congratulations. There was a round of applause when I arrived (a couple minutes late) for the morning session at the Airport Bridge Club. And numerous individual plaudits, often with the comment that it’s been a long time coming. Yes, indeed. Six years. Longer than some. Not as long as some others. Let’s just say it’s nothing special.

       Judging by what’s happened since I made Life Master on Thursday, it really hasn’t been transformational at all. I collected only a point and a half for the remainder of the tournament and struck out entirely on Monday with partner Usha Khurana. We came within striking distance of scratching in the morning session with a fraction over 50%, but were fourth out of six pairs in the afternoon with a mediocre 45%. No miracle of stratification for us.