The Drought

Partner/husband and I both exceeded 100 masterpoints last month. At 99 points, I called my dementor, Robert, and asked him to play to have the great honor of seeing his favorite (only) mentee go over 100. To my amazement, we actually did it.

It is now the 21st of the following month; a month with virtually no masterpoints for either of us. Since the Spurs season hasn’t started, I decided to blame the drought. 52 days over 100 this year and no meaningful rain for about 18 months. Area lakes are mud holes. Streams have dried up along with most of our landscape due to watering restrictions. As the drought continues, so does our point drought. We have each played with other players with similar results; low to mid 40th percentile. I even played with Biig Al the other day who is usually good for a point or two. 41 percent. He had a bad day.

Yesterday, two fellow non life masters bid and made 7 NT at our table. We were really and truly happy for them. However, not one of the other players (mostly As and Bs) in the match bid the slam. Everyone stopped at 6. Zero board for us. We have had a series of similar incidents recently and are waking up to the fact that bridge is not all skill; there is a certain amount of luck involved in which opponents arrive at your table for what boards.

I decided to shake things up yesterday and sit north/south instead of our usual east/west. Everyone who sat east/west was in the 50s. North/souths? 40s. Toward the end of the match I finally had a solid 22 point 2 club opener. Left hand opponent gleefully bid 2 spades. Partner passed. Uh oh. I bid 3 clubs, made 5 but shouldn’t have.

Tomorrow is the unit game. It’s free with free food so every bridge player in town will be there. I have some hope that the point drought will break. It is 2:00 A.M. right now and there is thunder and lightening outside along with a big (although short lived) downpour. We are going to a weatherman’s house for dinner tonight. Putting those good omens together, I think we will scratch in the morning.

To be continued.