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This is from an email from an old buddy who was one of several people who taught me bridge when I was 16 attending our local town College
"You know the tournament we always play at Labor day...that's the one where every year we pile up a whole bunch of points...where
this past year, Mark, Steve, and Nancy won 4 Regional events...(I was in on 2 of them).........well....that tourney occurs on Labor
Day week-end. Sure, there'll be a couple of killer good teams lurking...but on that weekend, there's about 3-5 regionals spread out
all over this great land. This past week-end there was only one
Just take a look at everybody who showed up for this tournament. It obviously was the only one in the country....We played some
impressive teams in nearly every event we entered, which included 5 major KO events, and the Sunday Swiss.
I played throughout (except 1 session) with Hillaker and Steve and Nancy Kornegay...6 days, 16 sessions, 380 hands. 44 masterpoints coming via:
2nd Tuesday-Wednesday KO.....(and about 28 MPs)
1st Wednesday evening Late night KO (with different teammates, MJ Hillaker and Nagy Kamel)
Getting to second round of Thursday Friday KO
3/4 Thursday evening Late night KO
7th Friday evening 1 session Swiss
1st Friday evening Late night KO
Match awards on Saturday....(we won half our matches in the Compact KO, and in the Swiss)
8/9 Sunday Two Session Swiss (lost 2 matches, then swept the rest)
And we went down fighting in the first round of the Morning KO's on Wednesday, the Thursday-Friday KO, and the Friday-Sat KO.....at least two of those were split decisions in 3 way matches.
Just for fun, I'll list the top masterpoint Winners...(from Sat nights list that doesn't include the Swiss) and tell you a little about them.....and if we played them......
The number I am adding after their name is my estimate of how many boards I personally played against them.
1 97.05 Reanette Frobouck - 0
2 95.93 Dennis McGarry - 0
3 93.89 Eric Rodwell - 0
4 92.77 Jeff Meckstroth 0
5 92.77 Linda McGarry 0
There were very many pro teams at this tournament....and Rodwell/Meckstroff were two guys earning a lot of money this week.
The top five people played on the same team throughout.....They actually lost early in a couple of the earlier events, and then
Steamrolled in a win two or three events in the middle....they also won all their matches by good margins in the Swiss, but came
In second place!! We never played against this team.
6 89.05 August Plate - 9
7 84.83 John Zilic - 9
These guys won at least a couple events I think....Zilic just went over 20,000 masterpoints. We faced them in the final Swiss match Sunday and beat them 14 to 7. There teammates included Dan Morse.
8 79.48 Marc Jacobus - 12
9 79.28 Mike Passell - 45
10 79.16 Lou Ann O'Rourke - 0
12 75.04 Eddie Wold - 36
21 66.29 Geoff Hampson - 21
Now come more pro teams....
O-Rourke (Passell - Wold - Jacobus - Hampson)......We played this team in our very first match on Tuesday, and beat them by 36 IMPS.....I do promise a hand or two from this match later on)......Our finest hour of the tourney was also our first hour of the tourney!!! The same team stopped us in the second round of the Thur-Friday KO.....and we also played them the very first round on the Sunday Swiss....we lost that match by 2 imps, and my partner freely admits he blew a bunch for that to happen, sigh.....So yeah, I played 45 hands against Passell last week....pretty cool....he tells me he might add his name to the list of people who are claiming to have fathered Anna Nicole's child.
13 74.62 David Berkowitz - 34
14 74.62 Mark Lair - 34
15 74.30 Curtis Cheek - 0
16 74.30 Joe Grue - 0
17 74.30 Carolyn Lynch - 0
18 74.30 Dennis Dawson - 0
Lynch (Berkowitz-Lair-Cheek-Grue-Dawson)......As you can see, Hugh and I like to play directly against the anchor pair, and let our mates do their best against the client.....So we played a bunch of hands against these pairs: Passel - Wold, Berkowitz-Lair, and a few more against Hampson-Jacobus, and Hampson-Passell.
.....We played Lynch first on Tuesday evening in the second round of the Tue-Wed KO at 7:30....this was rather unfortunate because game time was 7:00....who knew? And as it was a three-way match, we had to spot their team AND the other team 2 boards AND 6 IMPs...each...dang it. Lucky for us, the other team was a bit over their head, and we were able to sneak by them anyway and survive to the third round of that event.
Then we faced Lynch again in the finals of that KO (after beating Said in the semis). We weren't much in the first half, fading to about 30 imps down....but we did give them a scare in the second half, especially on a hand where Hugh and I made a vul game, and our opps at the other table (Cheek/Grue) somehow misheard or missaw a bid and somehow went for 2000!!
Look that up on your IMP table!! Also at the half, Berkowitz said he had called up Cohen (his regular partner Larry Cohen as you should know) to get some emergency bridge advice.....half way through the set, I was thinking on a hand about whether to bid one more or pass, so I asked if I could call Cohen.....
11 78.61 Justin Lall - 12
After already having nearly 80 points, on the last day of the tournament, Justin played in the Swiss with Bob Hamman, with teammates Hamont Lall and Ira Chorish, who may be the best player you've never heard of. They lost to Meckwell in the second round, and them Blitzed their last 4 nine board matches in this field to capture the event...Whoosh!!
Earlier, in the week, while those 3 guys weren't there, Justin played on a pro team with Chris Compton and Mildred Breed...We faced them just once in a three way match, and beat them by 15 imps in 12 boards.....
19 71.84 Georgiana Gates - 0
20 69.38 Kerr Godfrey - 0
These two are excellent area players who won a couple events playing with the likes of Zilic and Morse and others.
22 64.70 Roger Bates - 0
23 64.70 Vivian Kilstrup - 0
Roger Bates and his client did well playing in pair events.....
24 61.63 Chris Compton - 12
25 60.76 Ralda St Pierre - 0 -- not sure who these guys are...
26 60.42 Madhusudan Patel - 0
27 60.11 Mildred Breed - 0
28 60.11 Anita Cokins - 0
Cokins is Mildred's client....they had Compton-Lall earlier, and someone else later.
29 56.99 Sadhana Dalal - 0
30 56.93 Joan Jackson - 0
31 56.17 Todd Kaplan
32 56.17 Adam Kaplan
-------------more I don't remember....
33 52.05 John Russell 0
34 52.05 Chuck Said 0
40 49.11 Thomas Peters - 24
Russell is Said's client.....we played these three plus Carolyn Peters (who dumped a critical vul game) in the 3rd round of KO and we beat em by about 15 or so.....
35 49.75 Petra Hamman
36 49.55 Betty Ann Kennedy
37 49.55 Peggy Sutherlin
38 49.55 Shannon Cappelletti
39 49.40 Jenny Ryman
This was the ALL-Girl ALLSTAR squad of the tourney....I would have loved to had a chance to play them, but it never happened...
41 48.80 Nagy Kamel
Nagy played with us in the first late night game we won....I don't think we ever faced him....
From this point on, there likely are a couple people we played that I don't know or remember.....
42 45.38 Stacy Jacobs
43 45.23 Peggy Kaplan
44 44.45 Joe Nance
45 43.48 Hugh Hillaker (he snuck in a pair game with Nagy before I got there to get ahead of me)
46 43.22 Richard Helams Jr - 0
47 43.02 G S Jade Barrett - 21
Jade Barrett is my new best friend.....We talked a bunch at this tournament....the guy is quite a talker....he is also a Bridge Pro....he's playing some complex system, and he carries around a laptop, so I had him show it to me...there certainly is a lot to it....I got his card....if I ever lose my day job and have to go pro, I'll prehaps be living in a similar world....
Barrett - Barret - Helams - Dawson also played in a bunch of midnite games (like we did), but they didn't do so well).....
48 43.02 Rajesh Seth
49 42.91 Anne Dawson
50 42.68 Mike Doyle - 9
51 41.07 Donald Patterson
52 41.07 Ronald Sills
53 40.85 Bert Onstott III
54 40.85 Katherine Onstott
55 40.61 Kimmel Jones
56 39.51 Virginia Zilic
57 39.11 John Erickson
58 39.00 Miguel Reygadas - 9
59 39.00 Greg Hinze - 15
Migual of course is the greatest player of Mexico. Greg says he really loves to play with Migual. They played in the KO events with Barrett - Barret - Helams - Dawson, with some success, reaching the semi-finals a couple times.....It looks like Barrett is helping Hinze launch his career as a pro.....
60 39.00 Nelson Brown, Jr
61 38.62 Dan Morse --- Grand poobah of Texas bridge...he played a lot with the ACBL president.
62 38.00 Ira Hessel - 6 --- the Iron Monkey, playing with Mrs. monkey, Morse, the pres, and the Bramleys.
63 37.58 Nancy Kornegay -- my teammate
64 37.58 Stephen Kornegay -- my teammate
65 37.43 George Pisk
66 36.85 Karen Lee Barrett - 6
67 36.64 Buddy Hanby -- Buddy and Sally played at least one day with Barry Crane's one time partner Jan Janitschke
68 36.64 Sally Wheeler -- and Patricia Norman.....---they beat us on the way to winning one of the 1 session swisses
Other notables....
BOB HAMMAN duh.....
TOBI SOKOLOW her pro team nipped us first round of the Compact Swiss by 2 imps. I personally blew that one for us when I miscounted on a defense.
Kenny Gee.........the wheeler dealer pro was there putting together all sorts of teams that didn't make much noise....
Stephen Landen, Ellicott City MD;
Pratap Rajadhyaksha, Powell OH these guys flew in for the last three days, playing with a couple of midwesterners I had never seen before...we played 18 boards against them....and were on the short end of the stick.....
Okay.....here's your hand......1
unfavorable
Void
Axxx
AKQxxx
AJx
1S 3S 4S 5C
P ??
Here's your other hand: 2
Unfavorable......(the best quizzes are always unfavorable)
3H P ??
Kxxxx
AKx
Axx
AQ ...."
