Eastern States

The Eastern States Regional is turning out as disastrously as I feared, for me. First, Agent 99 cancelled on me. We were supposed to play Thursday, and that was the only day she was available. Then I played a round-robin teams with Elwood on Friday, and that was hopeless. After the first four matches, we had a grand total of 3VPs – very discouraging. It was not just us. Elwood and I didn't produce any very good results, but our team-mates had a terrible day also. Between the four of us, we couldn't get anything right. I knew we were screwed after the first match. Not only was it a complete blitz – not even 1 IMP on our side of the sheet – but signs were there that things were wrong at both tables

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When you look at this layout double-dummy, it seems obvious that E-W is booked for a big score one way or another. 6S and 6D each have 14 winners, so whether they make 6 or 7 depends only on whether we take the HA at trick one. And if they choose to defend 5H, there are not only 4 top tricks in aces and kings, but also a couple of ruffs to make the butcher's bill 800. In practice, West started with the DAK, so I was able to draw trumps for -300. A good result? Lose 5 IMPs. Teammates also chose to defend (and misdefend) 5H, but neither one of them seemed to have a red card in the bidding box. And they actually felt OK in the post mortem – another bad sign.

Our one victory of the day was against the team that was (on paper) probably the best in the bracket, headlined by Uday Ivatury. For just one match, nobody did anything stupid, and we squeaked out a win by a couple of IMPs. Small comfort.

The next thing to go wrong was a call from Elwood this morning, cancelling our plans for the Goldman Pairs. Which is why I have time to write this post, but I would prefer to be playing. We'll go along tomorrow and see if we can find some teammates in the Goldman failed-to-qualify pool, or maybe try an A/X pairs. I'd like at least one decent result from something, so that the whole Regional doesn't feel like a waste of time.