On any particular day, bridge can be played at differing levels of sophistication depending on the skill level of the players. Whether they be World Class experts or home game social players, a "World Class" level of satisfaction and pride can derived from success at each. June 14, 2004 was such a day, as are many.

June 14, 2004 3:15 PM Memphis, Tennessee
Meckstroth, of course, is Jeff Meckstroth, many time World Champion and the ACBL’s 3rd ranked player in terms of masterpoints. Jeff and his partner Eric Rodwell are in the process of anchoring the winning team of the US Team Trials, the grueling selection process by which the US selects the team that will represent the US in the World Championships, this time being held in Istanbul Turkey in November. Some hours later they will have completed the 120 board final against a team captained by Roy Welland and including Bjorn Fellanious, Zia Mamood and Michael Rosenberg. After 90 of the scheduled 120 boards Welland/Fellanious were up by 3 but Meckstroth et. al. have a huge last 2 segments to win by 100 imps! All this after winning the semifinal by 6 imps by gaining 11 on a slam swing on the 119th board!

June 14th 5:00 PM: 87th Street, Manhattan, NY
My wife Janet and I arrive in Manhattan for the delayed final of the Reisinger KO Championships, the most prestigious event on the local calendar in the NY area. It has been played consecutively since 1929 and draws one of the strongest fields of any regional KOs in the country. The Team Trials early-than-usual start this year caused a conflict with the Reisinger’s usual schedule of all-day matches on Monday, Memorial Day, then night matches up through the weekend for a full-day final. So this year, the organizers had to be inventive; they devise a round-robin all-day format for the first day, dividing the 16 flight-A teams into 2 8-team brackets with the top two teams from each bracket surviving the 8 swiss short matches across the day.

Besides Janet, my team consists of Alan Kahn, David Rosenberg and Jeff Rothstein, a top poker player and known inappropriately since long ago as Mothra, the monster from a 1950s Japanese science fiction movie. Well, things go shakily and we are odds-on not to qualify, but we win our last two matches big and make the cut by .56 of a victory point. In the other bracket, the Welland-Fallenius collection fail to make the cut (I told you it was a tough field) and they lick their wounds and head off three days later to the Team Trials. Janet and I do also, but our foursome there fails to make the first cut and disappointingly we trudge home. At least we have the delayed Reisinger Final to play, because prior to our short-lived trip to the Trials, we had come back from a 36-imp halftime deficit to win the Reisinger semifinals.

That’s how we earned the right to fight the traffic on the Long Island Expressway to Manhattan that Sunday, and when we arrived, we asked Cathy, the proprietor of the club where the final was to be played: How are things going in Memphis? You see, Cathy is Cathy Fallenius, the wife of Bjorn Fallenius, still in the Team Trials Final. She has a computer at the club and the Final is being shown on Bridge Base so she says, not so good. The boys are down 63 with 15 to go. The boys being Bjorn and his teammates. We start our match.

June 14th 7:00 PM: Franklin Square, LI, New York
Twenty miles east of 87th street on Long Island, halfway between where Tiger Woods won the US Open at Bethpage Black in 2002 and where Smarty Jones didn’t win the Triple Crown at Belmont Racetrack in 2004, lies the Franklin Bridge Club, my home local club since 1964. It is in its fourth location and third ownership but it still thrives. On that Sunday evening it was running a one-session STAC swiss team event which drew nine teams, the strong favorite consisting of a large man with a deep voice who I have dubbed "Big Wayne"(for obvious reasons) and who I refer to as BW. The rest of the team consists of Chuck and Mitch (a very talented local player) who form the anchor pair, and Paul, better known to his friends as Mongo, because at 6 feet 4 inches and 320 pounds he long ago reminded us of Mongo, the famous Alex Karras character who punched out a horse in Mel Brooks’ 1974 comedy, "Blazing Saddles." Our real life Mongo — a Damon Runyon horseplayer-type character (and one of the few people in the world I would trust my life to) — is an erratic player. Sometimes (his teammates say too often) he bids like he bets the ponies: "All In," to use the growing popular poker catch-phrase. But recently he has been trying hard to control his impulses, both at the bridge table and at OTB. He shows up a half hour late for the swiss and his teammates are underwhelmed. But that’s Mongo and we love him. BW and Mongo decide to play, thus forming a partnership that would win the heavyweight division, hands down. Why do you think I call him Big Wayne?

They win all four matches, two of them blitzes and come away with the top prize and 3.17 masterpoints. All is well. Mongo howls into the night as he is want to do — like Warren Zevon in his song "Werewolves of London." And it’s just as well, Mongo gets — well, let’s say a wee bit grumpy — when he loses, especially when he comes in second. "I hate to come in second" Mongo often says.

June 14th 8:15 PM: Great Neck NY. 10 miles north of Belmont
At the home of a woman I shall call Millie, four women get together for an evening of bridge (so I am told two days later, as they are one of the many groups I teach each week). Millie tells me of an interesting situation that occurred in the game. She was on lead versus four spades and chose to lead a club, low from A-J-7-2. Well, as the fates would have it, the dummy had Q-x and declarer had a singleton king. As Millie relayed the story to me I thought, great, a perfect entree into the 3,757th discussion of why it’s a no-no to underlead an ace against a suit contract on opening lead. But then she told me that when she got on lead later in the hand, that she led a low club again!

Did I do anything wrong she asked. Well, I explained as best I could, noting to myself that Millie may be the first recorded player to have underled an ace twice on one hand, losing both to a singleton king in one hand and a singleton queen in the other, in the same suit! She is a psychiatrist and I thought that maybe she has possessive tendencies and maybe she should make an appointment with herself. But despite her apparent inability to part with things of value and her failure on that hand, Millie was proud because she made the two hands she played that night and beamed with pride when she told me about them. Her friends say she just loves to play. I wish I could play more, she added.

June 14th 10:15 PM: 87th Street Manhattan
At the break before the final quarter of our match (we are up by 6 imps), we ask Cathy, How’s, the match (in Memphis)? She frowns, they’re (husband Bjorn) down by a lot.

The final quarter of our match has many wild hands and, to say the least, not all of them go our way: We bid a close 6 that could be made with line of play A but goes down 3 on bad splits when we try line of play B.

On the next hand I pick up AKQ10x, Kxxxxx, Qx, void. Janet opens 1 artificial and 15-21 HCP! Well, I show my 6-5, cue-bid my club void but the -ace seems to be missing so we stop in 5 — but it has no play and we’re down 3 again on a bad trump split! But only lose 2 imps as they go down also.

The very next hand my mettle is tested as I pick up Ax, J109x, AK109xx, A and Janet opens 1NT 12-14. I respond 2 Forcing Stayman and after Janet’s 2NT(no major) I bid 3. Janet’s 3 shows a heart stopper and implies weak spades.

Well, I gulp, slightly battered by our side going down 6 tricks combined in the previous two hands, and bite the bullet. I (courageously or impulsively depending on the outcome) plop out the 6 card on the table. Well, this one’s OK — cold in fact, and we win back 12 imps. But with two boards to go we are down by 10. I pick up KJ10x, Kxx, KJ7x, xx. Janet opens 1, purporting to show 15-21, and righty bids 2, showing either long hearts or spades and clubs. I bid 2NT, game forcing with a balanced hand and a heart stopper. Janet continues to 3NT and this is the hand:

	Janet C.   A x   x x   A 9 x   A Q 10 9 x x
B. Rigal Q 9 8 x x A x 8 6 x x ? x	J. Aker x x Q J 10 x x x Q 10 ? x x
	Mel C.   K J 10 x   K x x   K J 7 x   x x

Rigal figures out that Aker has hearts and leads out ace and another. I win the king. How to proceed was not exactly clear to me (in fact I take almost 20 minutes to play this one hand), but eventually I lead a diamond to the ace and back to the king. The fall of the Q-10 is good, but I’m still a trick short as my diamond tricks are tangled, making it difficult to take both my four diamond tricks and my three spade tricks. I eventually lead a diamond to the 9 and Aker makes a seemingly innocent discard, but one that helps me greatly: He pitches a spade in this position:

	Janet C.   A x   —   9   A Q 10 9 x x
B. Rigal Q 9 8 x x — 8 6 ? x	J. Aker x x Q J 10 x — ? x x
	Mel C.   K J 10 x   x   J 7   x x

When the 9 wins I continue with spade ace and spade to the king on which righty pitches a club and I can now claim! Why? Because the club discard tells me his entire shape: 2-6-2-3. I then cash the J, and if righty keeps two clubs, I exit with a heart and I get the last two club tricks no matter where the king of clubs is; and if righty pitches down to a singleton club, I play a club to the ace, not caring if the king falls or not. If it doesn’t, I play another club and Rigal has to give me my ninth trick in spades; if the king falls, the club queen is my ninth trick.

Righty does pitch a club and I do play a club to the ace and go +600 and win 12 imps. Where was the club king? I’ll never tell, but I will tell you that we won 12 imps on the board to win by 2!

It felt great to win, but I couldn’t help feeling that it would’ve felt even better to win in Memphis. Ah, well. But when I thought about this and this day later in the week, it hit me! Was Meckstroth in Memphis really any happier or more proud than Janet, me and Mothra were in NYC, or Mongo and the gang were in Franklin Square or Millie was in Great Neck?

After all, she had made her two hands that night.