If memory serves, the first tournament that I attended was Cromwell in 2008. I played one 299er session in the evening with Dick Benedict, who has since departed District 25 for the Sunshine State. I do not remember how we did, but I vividly recall that peeked into the “big room” once. I had never seen so many people with huge heads in one place.

I had been looking forward to this year’s tournament for sometime. I was scheduled to play four days with Ginny Iannini, whom I had not seen since our triumph in the most exciting event of my bridge career in Providence. As usual, we intended to try our luck in team games.

I had been following the weather forecasts for Cromwell since before Groundhog Day. They actually looked pretty good. Beach volleyball was out, but it appeared that little or no snow was expected throughout the entire period. Last year’s low attendance had been attributed by many to the extremely bad driving weather on several days. On Saturday morning even I became nonplussed when I came upon a sedan resting comfortably on its roof in the right lane of I-91 just north of exit 21.

I did not play on Wednesday, but I did check the table counts on the “High Finshers” files that Marilyn Wells sent me. They were about the same as last year’s, which I registered as a big disappointment. I later learned worse news. Neither of the scheduled two-day knockouts had been held. I had hoped that the tournament would be a good test of the effectiveness of the e-mail marketing campaign that I had undertaken during the previous months.

I rode down to Cromwell on Thursday with my wife, Sue. She was playing in the Gold Rush Swiss, and Ginny and I teamed up with Dave Landsberg and Judy Hyde in the Open Swiss. While I was working at the Partnership Desk, Mark Aquino informed me that the expert panel that was held between sessions on Saturday was both well attended and well received.

In the Swiss we maintained the tradition of getting blitzed by Sheila Gabay’s team (for the fourth consecutive Regional), and we also got blitzed by the Western Mass all-stars. However, we did well enough in the other matches to sneak into the very last spot on Marilyn’s list.

No truly memorable moments occurred at our table, but Sue’s team had one. Sue and her partner had played in Swiss events before, but one of her teammates had never played in a tournament. In one round Sue’s teammates were told by someone that they were seated at the wrong table. They dutifully complied with the request to move. The result was that they did not play the same boards that Sue and her partner did! I never learned how Tim Hill, for whom I have nothing but respect, managed to resolve this fiasco. Sue complained to me that her team got an undeserved 0. They were not in contention, but every fraction of a masterpoint is precious to many Gold Rushers.

Sue and I made the forty-minute commute again on Friday morning. Unfortunately we did not arrive early enough to attend Bob Lavin’s talk on leading the trump suit. Over the weekend I would have done better in defending a couple of hands if I had set a trump on the table.

Ginny, the Queen of the Cape,* had been monitoring the forecasts on her smart phone. Eastern Mass faced brutal conditions for Saturday night and Sunday – a mix heavy snow and ice with blizzard-level winds. The drive back on Sunday evening would no doubt have been horrendous, but I suspect that the deciding factor was that Ginny wanted to get home to care for a pair of orioles that she has been husbanding through the winter. I would need to recruit partners for Saturday and Sunday.

The worst day in the 35-year history of my small business had occurred on a Friday the 13^th. Believe it or not, we were also taking care of a midnight-black cat for one of our employees, and he certainly crossed my path that day.

Friday of the 2015 Cromwell weekend, which also fell on the 13^th, began with my own black cat, Giacomo, standing between the bedroom door and his food dish, which I heaped with three days’ worth of Cat Chow. Sue and I had already planned to stay overnight on Friday, and we also had booked a room for Saturday, which we planned to use only if the weather turned bad.

There was no triskaidekaphobia whatever in our foursome in Bracket 2 of the Compact knockout. Ginny and I teamed up with Dave and Kay Hill. Our first match was with Jeanne Striefler’s team of Hartford Bridge Club regulars. All four of us played well, and we ended up winning by thirteen IMP’s. After that we coasted through our three remaining matches, winning by 33, 24, and 46 IMP’s. It was bizarre; we never felt threatened in any of the matches.

Hallelujah! After twelve months of arduous work snapping photos of a huge array of players (including all three of my teammates), editing them, and posting them on the Winners Board pages on the website, I would finally see my own name in the index. I enlisted Susan Smith to photograph us with my Canon SX50, which has a 284-page user’s guide. I had to set it up for her and show her how to use the viewfinder. I sort of wished that I had had my point-and-shoot camera with me, but I had let my spousal unit Sue use it to shoot photos of players in the ballroom.

I made one big mistake. I let Susan escape without even glancing at the photo.**

While Sue was playing in the evening session, Ginny and I enjoyed a celebratory supper at the Baci Grill. We had a great time. The food was good, and the conversation was better. The best part of the evening may have been the knowledge that the pressure was off for the rest of the tournament.

I filled out cards at the Partnership Desk for Saturday and Sunday. Tom Hyde directed me to talk with a lady from New York named Estelle Margolin, who had well over 4,000 points. She agreed to play with me on Saturday, and we made a date to fill out a convention card at 8:30 a.m. I got one started in my hotel room while Estelle played in the evening side game.

The next morning she agreed to play almost everything on my card. When we were finished with the negotiation, I rushed to a meeting of the B’s Needs committee. A long discussion about the Pro-Am event that will debut at the Nashua tournament in June was followed by a short one about my idea of annually awarding the players who win the most points in each rank level in the eight D25 tournaments. Everyone seemed to like the idea, but I knew that it would require approval of someone way over my pay grade ($0).

Our teammates for the Saturday Compact Knockout were Jeanne Striefler and Sally Kirtley. Estelle’s points vaulted us into Bracket 1 for the first time in three of our lives. My mind was elsewhere when I declared the very first hand, and it almost cost us dearly. Jim Misner faked me out by leading the jack from a KJx holding in a side suit. I still could easily make the contract, but I took an unforgivable “practice finesse” in clubs. Fortunately for me the finesse worked, and we were able to advance in our three-way. We also won one of our matches in the second three-way by more than we lost the other. Against all odds, we found ourselves playing in the semifinals in the afternoon.

Our semifinal match was against some fellows from New York whom Estelle knew well. The match turned on one epic hand. The vulnerability was favorable for North-South. The auction began the same way at both tables:

I, sitting South, held ♠ K 10 x x ♥ x x ♦ J x x ♣ 6 5 3 2. I took a long time to think about my call. I was fairly certain that Estelle’s hand was devoid of spades. If I passed, declarer would know the entire layout after the first trump trick. I reluctantly set the 4♣ before me. Everyone passed. Unfortunately, Estelle had only Kxx in clubs, and I managed to score only three tricks. For the first time in my life I went down seven in a contract.

The bad news was that we lost 350. The good news was that at the other table South left the double in, and Sally not only made the contract; she also scored two overtricks. We ended up winning ten IMP’s on this hand, which was more than our eventual margin of victory.

We played well in the final, too. I managed to avoid being endplayed in an early 3NT contract by baring my off-side ♣K. If I had done it smoothly, it would have been a great play, but even my hesitant play worked. However, it was not enough, and we had to settle for second. I, for one, was thrilled. Estelle played flawlessly all day, I held up my end after the first hand, and our teammates also put in a stellar performance. I was on top of the world as I took photos of the team that defeated us and the other winners.

Sue and I celebrated Valentine’s Day in the snow and howling winds at the Cromwell Diner with Tom Hyde and Judy Cavagnaro, one of Sue’s partners. The food was reasonably good, and I had a great time recounting our adventures at the table.

Everyone was stunned to learn on Sunday morning that Sonja Smith, one of my regular partners, fell and severely broke her right arm the previous evening. Sonja was in charge of partnership and hospitality at the tournament, and she was also one of the Western Mass all-stars who vanquished us on Thursday,

The games on Sunday and Monday were anticlimactic for me. In the B/C/D Swiss on Sunday our makeshift team (Jeanne, Dave, and Felix Springer) won its first five matches and then lost to two tough teams from Boston. I had to think that we deserved better. We played the teams that finished first, second, third, fourth, and sixth. We beat three of them, and we lost to no one outside of that group. Nevertheless, we finished out of the money.

On Monday we were in the bottom bracket of the Bracketed Swiss. We never got untracked. I played with one of my regular partners, Peter Katz. Our auctions suffered from uncharacteristic misunderstandings. Our teammates also had inexplicable problems.

I can’t complain. The first few days of the tournament were so good that I will always remember Cromwell 2015 as a great occasion.

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* Ginny now claims to be “Empress of the Cape,” but I prefer the more alliterative title.

** I was horrified when I did see the picture. I had positioned myself like Bill Carpenter, Army’s lonesome end. People will probably think that I thought that Ginny had cooties. She did not; I make her get tested. Furthermore, the look on my face gives the impression that I am trying out for Dork of the Year. At least Ginny looks good. When I took her photo at last year’s tournament there was a smudge on my lens that exactly corresponded with her face.