15 tables at the end of Day One (Monday), 19.7% of the 2019 total.
In 2023 in Leavenworth, there were 17 tables to this point.
In 2019 in Whistler, there were 76 tables to this point.
For full details, check out the Table Counts page!

Live bridge continues its slow post-pandemic recovery, and we will not be expecting to break pre-pandemic attendance records, but it is useful to compare with the pre-pandemic crowd sizes to see how we are prgressing. We'll hope to get a little more than last year, around 50% of the very strong Whistler 2019 attendance, making the target number 690 tables this time — but perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised!

Masterpoints for all players are updated nightly here first, with everyone's current red and gold point total listed alphabetically below the leaders, before a shorter leaderboard is added to this page. Knockouts and other events that extend over two days are not added until the entire event is over on the second day.

Brain Workout Section!

For those of you who used to like the puzzles I printed in the old bulletins, here is a link to an online version: one of the puzzles that I used to feature in the old paper Bulletins, but it is easy to play on a computer as well. Not so easy on a tablet or phone, since most of the puzzles require right-clicks, not easily done in a tablet or phone environment. Rectangles gives you a grid of cells; divide the grid into rectangles so that every cell is part of a rectangle, and each rectangle contains exactly one numbered cell that is the number of cells in its rectangle. (Don't forget, squares are also rectangles.) Strategy: The larger numbers usually have a limited set of possible rectangles they can fit in; start with the largest numbers and the smaller ones will become apparent. These puzzles come from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection (see below) and there are links there to apps for most devices. Doing these types of puzzles on a regular basis helps you train your brain to think logically, to devise plans and strategies for each different puzzle type, and to distinguish between true and false in a world where facts are increasingly hard to come by. Assembling, choosing, and combining facts to form new insights and information is the basis of thinking logically, and playing better bridge.	Easy puzzle (McBruce's time: 0min 34sec)
	Medium puzzle (McBruce's time: 0min 46sec)
	Tricky puzzle (McBruce's time: 1min 30sec)

Answer to Daily Deal Question Above

None vulnerable on Board 1 and you have this as South:

♠ 7 5   ♥ A T 8 4 3   ♦ 9 5 4   ♣ A 8 2  

Partner passes, East opens 1♣ in front of you, you decide to pass, and the response is a strong 2♠, followed by some cuebidding, but they stop in 5♣. Maybe your double of the 4♥ cuebid scared them off. On lead against 5♣, you decide to take a wild shot and underlead the A♥, hoping for both opponents to have three hearts and partner to be able to ruff the third round once you are in with the trump ace.

No dice; East wins the queen in dummy and the AK♠ allows East to pitch the K♥ from his hand. Extra overtrick, your fault. On to Board 2:

Dummy: ♠ K 9 7   ♥ J 5 3 2   ♦ 9 5 3 2   ♣ T 2  

Declarer: ♠ T 4 2   ♥ A 6 4   ♦ K 7   ♣ A K Q 4 3  

East opened 2♠ and your carefully-considered 3♣ call ended the auction and went down the drain faster than leftover water in the bathroom cup. The Q♠ was led and you counted the suit and ducked. West had a second spade (East opened with five to the AJ), but your clever falsecard of the T♠ at trick two got East to shift to a heart. Well, you have at least one loser in this suit, maybe the jack might grow up, you think as you duck to West's queen. Back comes another heart and East ruffs. The A♠ and Q♦ follow from the East hand and you lose the first nine tricks in a three-level contract. All change for the next round; here's Board 3:

Dummy: ♠ T 4 2   ♥ A T 9 3 2   ♦ J 6 5 2   ♣ J  

Declarer: ♠ K Q 6   ♥ 8 5 4   ♦ A 8   ♣ K Q T 5 3  

This time, as dealer, your big sin was to open a 14-count 1NT, adding a point for the decent five-card suit and the high honours. Partner transfer-drops you into 2♥ and the play goes 9♦ to your ace, you return a diamond to East's queen as everyone follows, East cashes the A♠ and continues with the K♦, ruffed and overruffed and back comes a spade, which East ruffs, and West then overruffs the fourth diamond to give partner a second spade ruff. Later you find out that most West players overcalled the normal 1♣ opener with 2♠ and went down.

Having fun yet?

I certainly wasn't. If I was playing live bridge instead of bridge against a computer program looking for bridge material to write about, I would be tempted to rip the cards at this point. Some of us might grumble, or maintain an angry silence. Too many of us will ignore our own preventable mistakes and look for ways partner could have bailed us out and start an argument. Others will enrage partner by making a joke about it after a start where we have 2 matchpoints out of a possible 42 so far. We've all seen this happen at the table, hopefully to opponents more often than our own partnership. And it's understandable: in just three lousy results we have gone from excitement at the start of a new event to utter terror that we're going to be stuck in last place with three more hours to play.

And the tip here is simple. When this happens, do what you need to do to get it out of your head before you burn the next board and the one after that. Every board is a new opportunity and there are many left to recover from the first three. Nobody is out of contention after three boards: even in a short team match you can recover enough to scramble a smattering of VPs and go on to the next match and recover the lost VPs in that one. But you can't do any of this if you allow a bad start to poison your mind and instill in you a belief that this session is already out the window and nothing much matters.

So many matchpoints are lost by players who can bid and play quite well because they cannot control their emotions when things go wrong. Just as important as knowing your bidding system and defending and declaring well is a strong mindset that accepts that bridge has a lot of ups and downs. It's vital to stay focused and forget the flubs that are in the past.

Substituting one S-word for another, stuff happens in all sorts of competitions and the best stay with it and move on from bad starts. It takes only a quick moment to regain your composure, say a few words to partner to acknowledge that you'll try to be better, and start the next hand without any baggage from the last. Mastering this key skill is going to help you more than any new convention or learning how to squeeze out an extra trick. Being good at recovering from disasters will get you more partners, too, since nobody wants to play with a player who quits after a poor start.

I recovered from this start to get to average by the midpoint of the 16-board set against the computer opponents, by getting out of my chair and walking around, and then telling myself I would not let the results get to me, before starting board four. Bridge consists of several dozen opportunities to score points, all independant of the past. Three disasters does not lock you in at the bottom, unless you let it happen.

The five November 4 stories hinted at above were:

• 241 years ago today, Mozart's 36th Symphony was first performed in Linz, Austria, having been written during a four-day stopover in Linz as he and his wife returned to Vienna from Salzburg.
• 172 years ago today, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, became the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expanded to become Italy.
• 100 years ago today, Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first American woman elected as a state governor, winning in the state of Wyoming.
• 46 years ago today, 90 hostages were taken from inside the American Embassy in the city of Tehran by local college students.
• 29 years ago today, an Israeli extremist assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as he left a rally celebrating the recently signed Oslo Peace Accords.