Bridge report
Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:25 pm
Today was our District Final for the North American Pairs competition, with the top three finishers eligible to continue at the national finals in Philadelphia in March. This is the first year I've been able to play the Flight A District Final with the partner I planned to play with. I "aged out" of Flight B after the 2015 competition. In 2016, the partner I planned to play with told me a week before the finals that he couldn't make it. In 2017, scheduling issues forced my partner (Joe) and me to play in separate Unit Finals to qualify for the District Finals. I qualified, but Joe didn't. I was able to find another "orphan" to play the District Final with me, and we finished 4th.
This year was perilously close to being a mirror image of last year. Again, my partner (not the same partner as last year) and I couldn't play the same Unit Final. This year, though, I played the Unit Final with Joe and after the first session, we were dead last, a long way out of the money. Fortunately, we had a nice second session and squeaked into the last qualifying position. In contrast, this year's partner (Mark) won his Unit Final.
In the District Final, Mark and I were sitting fourth (out of seven) after the first session, with three pairs qualifying to move on. After we finished play, I checked the printout with our scores with one round to go, and we'd had a monster. We did have a bad last round, but it was still good enough to finish second in the District. So for the first time ever, I'm eligible to play the national finals of Flight A of the North American Pairs. Looks like I'm going to Philadelphia. --Bob
This year was perilously close to being a mirror image of last year. Again, my partner (not the same partner as last year) and I couldn't play the same Unit Final. This year, though, I played the Unit Final with Joe and after the first session, we were dead last, a long way out of the money. Fortunately, we had a nice second session and squeaked into the last qualifying position. In contrast, this year's partner (Mark) won his Unit Final.
In the District Final, Mark and I were sitting fourth (out of seven) after the first session, with three pairs qualifying to move on. After we finished play, I checked the printout with our scores with one round to go, and we'd had a monster. We did have a bad last round, but it was still good enough to finish second in the District. So for the first time ever, I'm eligible to play the national finals of Flight A of the North American Pairs. Looks like I'm going to Philadelphia. --Bob