It’s always diamonds isn’t it?

Last century I found myself playing in a club championship game in Georgetown ON, a week after a team game at the same club. My partner and I had the rare unopposed 1D-3D-5D auction and as my partner tabled her cards, I remarked that that rare auction had now occurred to me two weeks running. When I saw the cards, I knew why. It was the same hand from the week before. A packed club had resulted in boards 29-32 being put into play, and whoever started the night with them, never shuffled.

I called the director over and informed him of the situation. He more or less hedged and my rude opponent to the right snarled to play on. He didn’t believe me. So I proceeded to drop two off-side singleton kings, making six. The week before I had nabbed only one of the two majesties to make my contract on the nose. Thank goodness for safety plays. But this was pairs and playing like he’d shown me the cards gave me a brief moment of feel-good payback.

Having CALLED for the drop of the kings demonstrated to the director I knew what I knew and he handed out adjusted scores. Oddly, this was the only board of the round that wasn’t shuffled. The other one was … or at least it think it was [G].

Have a merry one Judy. Best to you, Bobby and all of yours this festive season. GM

Diamonds ARE a girl’s best friend but revering the integrity of the game is far more precious.

Thanks for sharing that apropos story, Gary, and so aptly proving your point to the director and your snarling RHO. Excuses can be offered for convenient forgetfulness and as we grow older, the memory is one of the first things to ‘go.’ In fact, where I come from, it is joshingly referred to as “Half-heimers” (as your condition is not yet full blown). However. even I would remember a 1/4/7/1 pattern I played the day before as you did your uncontested 1D/3D/5D auction from two weeks past. To most, these are just tales that bring smiles to their slips. To me, it is gratifying to know that there are still upstanding people out there like Gary Mugford.

Happy Holidays!

Years ago directing at a local club I had a similar event. It was a barometer game and we were using one of the early board duplicating machines which had a memory issue resulting in Board #1 being the same hand in both the Tuesday morning game and Wednesday eveing game. Only Board #1 was duplicated. Having not played in either game the situation was brought to my attention by a player after round #1 so I checked the hand records and sure enough it was true. I then checked the game records and found 7 players that had played in both games. Of the 7 players 5 had a worse result the second time!

It occurs to me that this game is so intriguing that even mechanical errors are topics of discussion George Rosenkranz once said: “For as much as you think you know about the game, volumes could be written about the things that you ignore.”

A-men!

I see I missed a period last post. Do you suppose I’m pregnant?