President Trump recently voiced his interest in becoming the next Supreme Pontiff. He even posted a picture of himself in papal garb. Since I know as much about the history of the papacy1 as just about anyone in the United States, I decided to write a blog entry that answers questions that people might have about the feasibility and details of a Trump pontificate.
Definition
Il Papa and Il Duce are seated.
Who is the pope? This is an easy one. The pope is—and has always been—the Bishop of Rome. He is also the ruler of the Papal State, the smallest country in the world, by virtue of a treaty signed by Pope Pius XI, Benito Mussolini, and others on February 11, 1929.
From the ninth century through 1870 the Papal States consisted of a band of land that stretched from Italy’s western coast all the way to the Adriatic Sea. The popes ruled that entire area even in the seventy years in the fourteenth century in which they resided in France.
So, the pope officially has three jobs—Bishop of Rome, monarch of the world’s smallest country, and Supreme Pontiff of the Christian Church2.
How many popes have there been? The first name on the official list is St. Peter the apostle. Francis was #266. However, only 264 men have been pope before the newly elected Leo XIV. Benedict IX, my favorite pope3, is on the list three times.
Men? I heard that there was a Pope Joan. Almost certainly not. The first stories of Pope Joan started appearing half a millennium after she supposedly had been elected pope. They are inconsistent with one another and contradicted by more reliable accounts.
Election
How is the pope elected? Since 1150 the popes have been elected by the Sacred College of Cardinals. Previously the rules were quite loose. Often the local clergy and other nobles voted for the new pope. Occasionally he was appointed by an emperor or other ruler. The method used to select most of the popes of the first few centuries is unknown. Since 1256 the elections have been held in a “conclave”, which means that they occurred in a locked room.
Up until the end of the nineteenth century powerful European monarchs were allowed to exercise unofficial veto power over the conclave. Even Hitler attempted this, but he was unable to prevent Pope Pius XII’s election.
A pope can change the rules for the next conclave. Pope John Paul II limited the right to vote to cardinals who were under 80 years old. That effectively eliminated almost everyone appointed by his predecessors.
Is the Holy Spirit involved? The cardinals pray that God (in the “person” of the Holy Spirit) will inspire them to select the best person as Supreme Pontiff. Since the beginning of the twentieth century the popes have been relatively competent and good-hearted. There have been crises, but they were not as serious as what faced the popes of previous centuries, and the Church adapted. No one considers most of the popes who lived from the dark ages through 1900 as saintly. Very few have been canonized.
How long does the election take? One was completed in a day. The longest conclave lasted for over two years.
Who appoints the cardinals? The pope, and there are no restrictions on the number of appointments. 133 participated in the election of Leo XIV.
What is the term of office for cardinals? No limit. Most died in office after many years. A few have been murdered, and a few have resigned.
The pope’s throne does not look comfortable.
Who is eligible for the election? In theory, anyone can be elected. However, every bishop, including the Bishop of Rome, must be ordained as a priest. President Trump, in my understanding, could be voted in as the pope, but he would then need to go through a number of ceremonies before he could sit on the Cathedra Petri. In the first place he would need to be baptized. Adult baptisms require classes to make sure that the convert understands the Church’s Creed. He would need to receive the Eucharist, and before that he would need to confess his sins (if any) and receive absolution from a priest. This could be problematic since, to my knowledge, he never has admitted a mistake or flaw of any kind, and the priest will demand both contrition and “a firm purpose of amendment”.
I don’t know if he would need to receive the sacrament of Confirmation. It entails a slap on the cheek by a bishop. He would definitely need to be ordained as a priest, a ceremony that requires a commitment to chastity and obedience to the clerical hierarchy.
Trump’s marriages should not be a problem They did not occur within the sacrament of matrimony and were therefore never sanctioned by the Church. He would be considered single.
If he had been married to Melania in the Church, it still might be all right. St Peter was married and, according to the Bible, had daughters. Pope Adrian II’s wife and daughter lived with him in the Lateran Palace. That setup may sound ideal for a situation comedy, but in fact both his wife and daughter were abducted and murdered. All of this happened in the ninth century, and it barely made the top ten list of bizarre happenings in the pontificates of that era.
As far as I know, the thirty-four felony convictions will not be held against him. Several popes had impressive rap sheets.
Powers
What would his powers be? Almost unlimited. He could appoint cardinals and other prelates. He could also direct the Church’s riches in any direction that he wanted. Pope John Paul II secretly sent tens of millions of dollars from the Vatican Bank to help finance Lech Wałęsa’s political campaign against the Communists.
The pope also has unrestricted use of the popemobile, but he does not have a sidekick, a papal utility belt, or any super powers.
Pope Urban II’s call for the First Crusade at Clermont was perhaps the most effective speech ever.
Isn’t there anything special that only the pope could do? Well, yes. He could call a crusade. That was very popular in the first few centuries of the second millennium. In those days the nobility who had standing armies could be persuaded to fight the pope’s battles, and hoi polloi were responsive to the promise of indulgences that could be transferred to relatives. Hundreds of thousands of people undertook the long journey from Europe to the Levant, mostly on foot. A high percentage never made it back. It is hard to imagine how any pontiff could pull that off again.
Nemesis of Innocent III and Robin Hood.
I thought of another power. In the thirteenth century Pope Innocent III5, who called a few of those crusades, put the entire nation of England and Wales under interdict for six years. At the time Britain was a Christian, country, but the pope’s actions meant that none of its residents were allowed to receive any sacraments during that period. They were effectively damned. The tactic did not work as hoped; King John seized seized Church property and income.
I suppose that a pope could reinstate the inquisition, but that would require a great deal of p.r. work. The historical one was somewhat effective because the civil governments agreed to enforce the sentences of the inquisition’s tribunals.
What about infallibility? Since the First Vatican Council in 1869-71 the pope has been considered infallible when he makes official statements concerning faith and morals. That authority has been used very seldom. Pope Pius IX used it to confirm the doctrine of the “immaculate conception”, which asserts that Mary the mother of Jesus was born without Original Sin. Pope Pius X used it to confirm that Mary did not die; instead she was “assumed” into heaven while still alive. So, if archeologists ever claimed to find Mary’s bones, no Catholic could believe them. Pope John XXIII said that he would never use this authority, and he never did.
Restrictions
Would he need to live in Rome? Absolutely not. He could stay in Mar-a-Lago, the White House, or anywhere else. For seventy years the popes all lived in Avignon in the Provence region of France. None of them ever set foot in Italy.
Would he need to wear a cassock, a miter, and all that other stuff? I doubt it. Who would make him do it?
Would there be a conflict of interest with his presidential responsibilities? Is this a trick question? He could probably even work the crossed keys into the presidential seal.
Removal
How can the pope be removed from office? A few councils of bishops and other high-ranking clergy have successfully declared popes as illegitimate, but that approach has not been tried for many centuries. A few popes were also violently removed from office, but that has also not been attempted in recent centuries. Basically, it’s a lifetime gig, but the movie Godfather III insisted that John Paul I, who reigned for only thirty-three days, was assassinated.
1. I even addressed the subject in a very long book entitled Stupid Pope Tricks: What Sr. Mary Immaculata Never Revealed About the Papacy. It has never been published per se, but I have posted it here.
2. The Orthodox Church has not recognized this last role since the Great Schism of 1054. Of course the various protestant sects also call themselves Christians, but they do not recognize the pope’s religious authority.
3. I also wrote a first-person historical novel that featured Benedict IX. Ben 9 is posted here.
4. Adrian V is on the current list, but he died before being ordained a priest. I have never seen an explanation of this anomaly. He only lived 38 days after being consecrated in July of 1276.
5. As far as I know, Innocent III is the only pope with an action figure. I own one.
Still under construction. The first event of 2025 was a five-day mishmash scheduled for Mansfield, MA, from Tuesday February 18 through Saturday February 22. It featured a limited regional for non-Life Masters and a contemporaneous open sectional. I was not … Continue reading →
Still under construction.
The first event of 2025 was a five-day mishmash scheduled for Mansfield, MA, from Tuesday February 18 through Saturday February 22. It featured a limited regional for non-Life Masters and a contemporaneous open sectional. I was not eligible for the former and was not interested in the latter because of the length of the drive, the cost and location of the hotel, had the lack of interesting events.
It also included qualifying tournaments for each of the four divisions of the Grand National Teams event. I definitely would have been interested in putting together a team for the GNT if I could play in Flight B, which had always been limited to players with less than 2,500 masterpoints. At the last Executive Committee meeting in the fall Mark Aquino, the Regional Director, had announced that the limit would be raised to 3,000, but he emphasized that it had not officially been changed yet, and there was some opposition. So, I used Google to find the official Conditions of Contest. That led me to this website1, which clearly stated on page 4 that the limit was still 2,500. A few weeks before the event I learned that the CofC was erroneous. Evidently whoever was responsible for posting it never bothered to fix it. When I mentioned this to Sally Kirtley, the tournament manager, she was concerned. She told me that whoever was managing the partnerships could probably find a partner for me. I said that it was too late to put a reasonably good team together. I had no intention of driving all the way to Manchester to play in a one-day Swiss2 in which I had no chance of doing well. The worst imaginable situation for me would have been to be part of a team that, even if it did well, the other members might have no interest in representing the district at the North American Bridge Championships in the summer.
So, since I was no longer on either the Executive Committee or the Board of Delegates, I had no reason to attend the event in Mansfield.
The district’s first real regional tournament was scheduled for the Wellsworth Hotel in Southbridge, MA, from Tuesday, April 22, through Sunday, April 27. The 35-mile drive was by far the easiest of all the tournaments for me, and the schedule included plenty of team games (except for on Saturday. I was therefore very interested in playing there.
I learned more than a month before the event that Jim Osofsky and Mike Heider wanted to team up with me on every day except Thursday. That sounded like an excellent plan. The endurance of the 76-year-old me was much less than it had been earlier. A day for napping in the middle would be greatly appreciated.
I quickly enlisted Eric Vogel as a partner. He committed to play on Tuesday and Wednesday, but he was not available on the weekend. He later needed to rescind his commitment. I was, fortunately, able to get Abhi Dutta to fill in. Mike Heider told me that Helen Benson3, with whom he sometimes played at the Newtown Bridge Club, might be available. I contacted her, and she agreed. She played a much simpler convention card than most that I was accustomed to, but after a fairly lengthy exchange of ideas by email, we agreed upon a very limited set of conventions.
On Monday evening I had purchased a Caesar salad and a chicken wrap at Big Y in Enfield. My recollection was that the hotel’s luncheon buffet was not that good, and I was not enthusiastic about standing in line. On Tuesday morning I left the house at about 8:10. I did not anticipate a lot of traffic, but I was ready to go, and so I left. I listened to Hector Berlioz’s epic opera, Les Troyens. As usual, I stopped at McDonald’s in West Stafford for a sausage biscuit with egg. It cost almost a dollar more than I paid in Hartford, but it was quick and tasty. I arrived at the Wellsworth a little after 9 o’clock. Jim, Mike, and Eric all arrived a few minutes later.
We were scheduled to play in the Open Swiss on both days. On Tuesday we had a very unfortunate draw in the morning. We began by playing against the wunderkinds, Eric and Jeff Xiao and their formidable partners, professional David Caprera4, and another fine player, Max Siline. We lost by 18 victory points, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Our schedule in the rest of the matches was relatively easy. We did not face any of the other top teams, and in the last two rounds we even faced teams from Flight C. In the end we as a B team finished in second place behind only the Xiao team. We were award 6.3 gold points. I was in a good mood for the drive home, but I had started well at regional tournaments before and too often had seen poor results later.
The drive to Southbridge on Wednesday was nearly identical to the drive on Tuesday. The only difference was that I listened to the part of the opera set in Carthage, and it featured Dido rather than Cassandra.
Abhi arrived only a few minutes before nine, but we had played together enough that we only had to review a few items.
Because there were two Swiss events on Wednesday (Open and under 2500), I expected the number of teams in the Open event to be smaller than on Tuesday. I was wrong. There were seventeen, three more than on the previous day. The format was seven rounds of seven-board matches. We were in the lowest strat, which was labeled Y. We won our first match against an A team, but we then lost to Sheila Gabay’s team, but only by four imps. In the third round we tied a team that we had defeated on Tuesday. We had a win, a loss, and a tie, but our total victory points was above average.
We won the next three rounds. In the last round we played against two old friends of mine, Chris Apitz and Ellen Dilbert. We lost the match by 18, but it would have been a lot closer if I had not made a defensive error.on the second-to-last hand. Ellen was playing a doubled 5♦ contract. She had one trump and ♣9 on the board as well as some hearts and spades. Clubs had never been led. She led low to the 9. I had the ace and a small one. Thinking that my partner could beat the 9, I ducked, and it held the trick. We set them 500, but if it had been 800, we would have only lost the match by 4.
As it was we finished with the very respectable score of 74 victory points, which placed us third in X and second in Y. If I had played that ace, we would have finished second in X and first in Y. Still, we earned another 5.94 gold points.
The most amazing match of the event occurred in the seventh round. The Xiao team had lapped the field with an incredible total of 105 victory points (out of a possible 120) in the first six matches. However, in the last round they faced Sheila Gabay’s team. Sheila’s team won the last match by an astounding 42 imps and vaulted into second place.
On the way home I stopped at the Big Y near the McDonald’s in West Stafford to pick up a salad and a wrap for lunches on Friday and Saturday. I was shocked to discover that all of the other stores in that strip mall were unoccupied.
I stayed home on Thursday and took a few naps. I also walked four miles.
The only differences between the journey on Friday morning and the first two trips were the fact that Dido had stepped onto the pyre and I narrowly avoided having the torture of trailing a NETTS truck before it turned onto Route 83 in Somers.
Helen and her husband, who works in ecology.
I finally got to meet Helen Benson in the hotel’s ballroom. We had only a few items left to discuss before we got the horrendous news that we were in the top bracket of the knockout. Worse yet was the news that we were the lowest seeded of the seven teams, which necessitated that we play in three consecutive three-ways. We never even got to change tables. We sat at table C5 for the entire day.
In the last round we were forced to play Mark Aquino and Bill Braucher. It was more enjoyable to talk with them than to get pounded at the bridge table.
It was not a total loss. We won one match. It was against the Luo team that we had defeated once and tied once.
I went home discouraged, but I was hopeful about our chances in the Bracketed Pairs event on Friday. Surely we would not be in the top bracket. There were no other events scheduled that day.
The difference between Friday and Saturday was striking. Helen and I were East-West during both sessions, and we started at table 1 in both sessions. Our opponents on both occasion were Judy McNutt and Eli Jolley. The most amazing hand for me was Board #2 in the afternoon session.
We were bidding clubs, and they were bidding spades. We bid them all the way up to the five level before we gave up. After the hand I mentioned that the LAW of total Tricks predicted that we should be able to take ten tricks in clubs. If so, we should have bid 6♣. We would have only gone down two, and even if they doubled us, that would be better for us than the 650 that we lost for their vulnerable game.
However, it is quite obvious that East-West cannot come close to taking ten tricks with clubs as trumps. There is no way to avoid losing one spade, two hearts, and three diamonds. The LAW is off by three tricks! Eli said that the law tends to break down at the six level, but that has never been my experience. Furthermore, the East-West holdings do not seem to be exceptionally “impure”. It is true that the two honors in spades could just as well have been spot cards. Neither of South’s singletons produce any tricks on defense. Maybe the abundance of worthless shortness is the answer.
Helen did not participate in the discussion. I think that she might not be familiar with the workings of the LAW. She said that she had not read Larry Cohen’s classic book, To Bid or Not to Bid.
We were the top East-West team in the morning and second in the afternoon. That was good, but it was not as good as the performance of Pete Matthews and his partner, who won the event while sitting North-South both sessions. Still, we won over 13 masterpoints.
Jim and Mike had a bad morning, but they improved in the afternoon. We were all in pretty good spirits about the last event of the tournament, the Bracketed Swiss on Sunday.
I was the captain of our team. We were in the second bracket, as I hoped, but I was quite surprised that six of the other seven teams had more points than we did. So, we could expect a lot of tough matches. The format was six rounds of eight-board matches. We would therefore not play one of the other teams.
We actually won four of our six matches. That would ordinarily be good enough to allow us to squeak into the overall awards, but these results were unusual. One team lost all its matches. Unfortunately we were beaten badly in the last match by a team that was well behind us. I was very tired at that point, and I struggled mightily to maintain my concentration. Jim and Mike said that six days of bridge—they did not take Thursday off—had taken the toll on them as well.
We ended up with 60 victory points—exactly average. I was surprised to discover that we had defeated both the first- and second-place teams. We were mired in the next group. It was small consolation that we won a slightly larger match award than any of them.
All in all, this was one of my most successful regional tournaments. I had a pretty good time. I would play with Helen again if I had the chance.
Newton
Warwick
Norwich
1. The erroneous CofC was still available through Google as of April of 2025.
2. Prior to 2020 the GNT Flight B qualifier always was spread over two days. The second day was a four-team knockout. There was no GNT in 2020. In 2021 through 2024 it had been held online using a format that I tolerated in 2021. I planned to play in 2022, but the pair that had agreed to play with Ken Leopold and me reneged on the agreement. I was not eligible for Flight B in 2023 and 2024.
3. She went by Helen, but her real name was Elena DiBissi Benson. She was born in the Abruzzo region of Italy. I told her that I had been there. It was true, but on the South Italy bus tour that Sue and I took in 2011 we only drove through the southern part of the region on our way from Tivoli to Vieste.
4. I happened to overhear David, while he was talking with Eric and Jeff about the card that they would be playing, mention that he was born and raised in Southbridge, and his father was the town attorney.
The first year of my three-year term on the Hartford Bridge Club’s Board of Trustees has been posted here.
Ben Bishop.
The officers for fiscal 2023 were John Willoughby (president), Ben Bishop (vice-president), Eric Vogel (treasurer), and Ann Lohrand (secretary). The first three were new. The new trustees were Rob Stillman and Diane Tracy. The returning trustees were Nancy Calderbank, Carole Amaio, Bill Wininger, and myself.
I was unable to attend the first meeting on November 15, 2022, because I had committed to play in the first Spectacle Regional in Southbridge, MA, with Sally Kirtley. It was a pretty big mistake to schedule the meeting for the first day of the nearest regional tournament.
A new computer was purchased for the office. Ben installed it.
The mentoring program was again active. The Sunday High-Low game has been a successful adjunct to it.
The club decided to investigate holding a limited sectional in the Spring. Linda Starr was running it. I told her that I would help with publicity. The board also approved her idea for a game with a celebratory aspect on the afternoon of December 31.
December
1. My adventures at this tournament have been recorded here.
The first tournament of the year was held in Johnston, RI, on the weekend of February1-2. I had no interest in playing in the pairs game on Saturday. Abhi Dutta asked me to team up with him and his partner, Vipin Mayar. I was pretty certain that Eric Vogel would not want to play on Sunday, and so I asked John Lloyd again. The four of us had played in a sectional at the same location in September 2024. That adventure has been described here.
John and I again agreed to meet at the Park and Ride lot on Route 32 near I-84, this time at 8:45. Since John had driven from there to Johnston in September, I volunteered to drive this time. I was a little worried about the return trip. My cataracts had recently been diagnosed, and some kind of precipitation was expected.
I arrived at the lot seven minutes late. It was completely my fault, and I apologized. I left a minute or two after I planned. I planned on stopping at the McDonald’s in the Scitico shopping center, but I missed the turn from Taylor Rd., and when I passed it on Route 190 there was a line. So, I decided to keep going and stop at the one in West Stafford.
A feared sight in Somers and Enfield.
Unfortunately, I found myself two cars behind a NETTTS truck2. We only followed it as far as Somers, but its still cost us another five minutes or so as it poked along at 25-30 mph on Route 190.
There was also a slow-moving line at the West Stafford McDonald’s as well. I lost at least another five or ten minutes there.
No, thanks.
The worse news was that they messed up my order. Instead of the sausage biscuit with egg that I always ordered, they gave me a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit. The bacon was tasteless, I don’t like McD’s cheese, and the biscuit had been hardened by time under the heat lamp.
I drove as fast as I reasonably could the rest of the way, but I did not arrive at the parking lot until 8:52. The rest of the trip was uneventful, but it was 9:55 by the time that we reached the Johnston Senior Center. I gave my credit card to John and parked the car. I then got my materials from the back seat. The lunch that I had prepared was there, but I could not find my convention card holder, which contained our convention card, old scoresheets, and my mechanical pencil. I was almost certain that I had remembered to place it there, but I could not find it, and I had no time to spend searching.
We were, of course, the last of the twenty-four teams to register. After a fair amount of effort I found our table, which was U12. John gave me back my credit card, and I then went back to the registration area to obtain a scoresheet and little golf pencil.
One opponent informed us that he had only played in one or two previous team games. His partner did not even know how to keep score. We were scheduled to play eight rounds of six boards. In the first round they bid and made several games that seemed unremarkable to me. Afterwards I told John to compare without me; I intended to search for my convention card holder. My scoresheet was unreadable anyway. I could not write legibly with that tiny pencil on bare paper.
I could not find the convention card holder. Our second assignment was at the same table. I was shocked to learn that we had decisively lost the first round. Usually I am a good judge of our performance. We did, however, win the second round in a close match.
I could not believe the team that we drew for our third round—a team of A players from the Hartford Bridge Club. John and I played against Tom Gerchman and Lesley Myers. Our teammates faced Doug Deacon and Bob Hughes. I did not think that we played well enough to win. I was shocked that our teammates had scored +1700 on the first hand. Evidently Doug and Bob had a disastrous misunderstanding that got doubled. So, after three of eight rounds we had two wins.
We lost the fourth match. I made a serious error in the play. I then ate lunch by myself.
We won only one match in the afternoon. We played against two ladies. John was late getting to the table, and I had painfully shuffled at least one deck at every table. I refused to shuffle again and left the deck for John. He arrived a minute or two later, during which time I had to listen to my LHO declaim about shuffling in spite of the fact that she had arthritis.
That one victory was taken away from us by the director, Tim Hill. On the crucial hand John opened 1♥. The lady to my right bid 2♣. I doubled. When the arthritic opponent asked what my double meant, John hemmed and hawed and then said, “I think that that was a support double for my hearts.”
They ended up playing in a notrump contract. After the play ended, I announced that they had received erroneous information. I had made a negative double showing at least four spades, not a support double showing three hearts. I told them that they could call the director if they felt damaged. They did. Tim took the board to see if their claim as being damaged was legitimate. This took such a long time that we ended up playing on five of the six boards. The ladies complained loudly about this.
Tim later explained to me that there were so many ways that the hand could have gone that he could not determine whether they were damaged. He said that the law said that in that case the party that gave the wrong information gets an average minus. We ended up losing three imps and the match.
At the end of the last frustrating mach I was just ready to hit the road immediately. Fortunately there was no bad weather for the drive back. I had no difficulty whatsoever.
Connecticut’s first tournament was scheduled for the last weekend in March, beginning on Friday the 28th, in Orange. I was on the tournament committee, chaired by Cindy Lyall, that planned and marketed this event. The marketing part was previously handled by the communications director, Ken Steele, who had resigned. Bill Segraves, the president of the Connecticut Bridge Association, said in an email that the communications committee, of which I was a member, was no longer functioning. That was news to me.
I did not really care what was sent to the players with more than 500 masterpoints. They were probably familiar with CBA sectionals. They just needed to know the dates and where to find the flyer. I volunteered to write an email to be sent to the players with less than 500 masterpoints in February. I composed them in HTML for my MailChimp account. I sent a test version (posted here) to the other members of the committee. They all seemed to like it a lot. Well, almost everyone liked ti. John Lloyd thought that it was too long, and Cornelia Guest did not like the phrase “less than 500 masterpoints”3.
Unfortunately, Bill wrote that “Mike is not authorized to send the email.” So, I had to rework the text to use Pianola to send it. Since I never received the email itself, I was not able to post it. The text is posted here. I asked for the photo of the playing area to be included. Even with that, I think that the final version was better than nothing, but it was a poor substitute for my original submission.
Early in the year Eric Vogel agreed to play with me in both pairs sessions on Friday and Saturday. I sent emails to the usual suspects concerning a partner and teammates for the Sunday Swiss. Joan Brault agreed to play with me, but the only nibble that I had for teammates was an email from Cornelia Guest, the CBA’s tournament coordinator, that Joel Wolfe was looking for teammates. I immediately sent him an email to see if he was interested in teaming up with Joan and me, but he never responded. That was quite disappointing. Prior to the pandemic I had always played in the team game on Sunday, and nearly always I had a very enjoyable time.
On Friday morning I fixed myself a sandwich of corned beef, Swiss cheese, and lettuce and inserted it into my backpack along with a bag of Utz potato chips. I left the house at 8:15. The traffic was lighter than I expected, and the construction area south of I-84 posed no difficulty. I made my usual stop at McDonald’s in Cromwell. The price was $.11 cheaper than in Hartford and much cheaper than at any of the three stores in Enfield. I arrived at St. Barbara’s Church in Orange, CT, at a little after 9:30. Eric was already in line to purchase our entries, the cost of which had risen to $18 per person per session.
Eric and I had recently revised our approach to slam bidding when we had a fit in a major suit. Previously we had leapt to game to show a minimal holding. Instead jumps in the major suits would show Picture Bids—a high honor in the trump suit and a strong side suit. Our approach to bidding of controls was also changed slightly. This approached was recommended by Vic Quiros in a series of columns in the Bridge Bulletin.
In the morning session on Friday we sat East-West. We had two opportunities within the first six hands to put our new methods into practice. On hand #12 I opened 1♦ in the West chair. Eric bid 1♥. I bid 1NT. Eric could have put in the game force by bidding 2♦, but he elected to bid 4♣. I was not sure what it meant. I bid 4♥, and he just jumped to six. This was exactly the kind of thing that we wanted to avoid. We got 79 percent of the masterpoints, but we could have done better.
If he had bid 2♦, I would have bid 2♥, and he would have known that we had nine hearts. Then after a couple of exchanged cue bids, he could have visualized thirteen tricks and bid the granny.
On hand #16 I opened 1♥, Eric bid 2♦. I rebid hearts. He used Kickback to determine that I had the three missing key cards. He then bid 6NT.
Since we were already forced to game, I think that he should have bid the cheapest control, which was in spades. I could bid 3♦ to show the ace. He has the ♣K to show, but he must bid at the four-level. I would bid 4♥ to show a control. After he bid 5♦, it would be time to put up or shut up. I have not yet told him about my other two heart honors, had he still seemed interested in continuing. I was in a bidding mood that day. I think that I would have bid 7NT.
The other interesting hand in the morning was #22. Eric and I got am undeservedly good score on it because not only did our opponents not find the game in spades, they also took only nine tricks. Don’t ask me to name the tricks that we took.
Shekhar Rao asked me how he and his partner, Shashank Srinivasamurthy, could have bid the spade game with the North-South cards. They had been playing in the limited point game. After examining the results I told him that only one of the fifteen N-S pairs in the open section accomplished that feat with 22 points and a seven-fit, and they were not considered one of the better pairs when it came to bidding.
I took advantage of the opportunity to explain to the guys that they needed to have an agreement about what a preempt in the fourth seat would show. It cannot be strictly preemptive because both of the opponents have passed. So, it should probably show a minimum opening hand with six pieces. Bidding at the one-level and then rebidding the same suit at the two-level would show at least one trick extra. So, if responder had invitational values, he should be looking for game after that sequence.
For the morning session Eric and I scored a little above 51 percent, which was rewarded with 1.14 silver points.
Eric also had brought a sandwich for lunch. We ate together and discussed a few of the hands. Joel Wolfe came by and asked if he could have some of my potato chips. I said, “Of course.” He did not say anything about playing on Sunday.
Bill and Linda Green, the Vice President of the CBA, announced the winners of some of the awards over the last year. Linda was actually standing on the chair at which I ate lunch. I found this method of distributing awards annoying, but, then again, I have become a real curmudgeon since the pandemic and especially since the last presidential election.
Our first two hands in the afternoon session were against Bill and Paul Proulx. I knew that they played an unusual system in which the 1♣ opening had multiple meanings and could be made with only one club. The responses were transfers. Eric and I had discussed this at lunch. We decided that our interference at the one level would be transfers, at the two level DONT for two-suited hands, and natural at the three-level.
As it happened, I, sitting South, opened the bidding on both hands, but Eric had two weak hands. On the first one Paul, East, played 3♣ and made it. On hand #6 I opened 1NT and Bill overcalled 2♥, which was followed by two passes. I probably should have just passed. If Eric had a suit, he would have bid.
Bill redoubled, but I did not see it. I rarely miss a bid, but I definitely missed that one. Eric took his time, but then passed, as did Paul. I was somewhat upset that the bidding was over and picked up my cards.
Before Eric Bill led, Bill asked to see Eric’s convention card. He asked Eric whether our doubles, which the card says are negative at the three level were also negative at the two level. Eric incorrectly stated that they were negative at both levels. I began to correct him, but Bill stopped me. The whole thing was embarrassing.
In the end Bill made the bid, we received another very bad score, and I was flustered. If I had seen the redouble card, I would have bid 2♥, and the result would have been better. It took me several rounds to regain my equilibrium.
I found out in the evening about the redouble, and I apologized to Eric on Saturday morning about my pass.
I made one other costly miscue in my opening lead against Mike Heider and Mark Blumenthal on hand #16. They had bid 3NT.
The standard lead in this situation was fourth from longest and strongest, which in this case would have been the ♣7. However, the stronger hand would be on my right. I did not want to give away what might be the setting trick. Also I did not have a likely entry outside of the spade suit.
Instead I selected the singleton ♥10. Since East did not use Stayman he was unlikely to have four hearts. So, my partner probably had at least five. My 10 might be good enough to set up the suit for him.
As you can see, my lead allowed them to take the first ten tricks. If I had led the spade, we would have taken the first five.
We did much better on the other hands. We finished with a 55 percent game and won 1.52 silver points. It had been a long time since I had scored above 50 percent on two consecutive sessions of Open Pairs at a CBA sectional.
The drive home was uneventful. I did not sleep too soundly. I found myself awake at 3am. I got up for a while, read a chapter or so of Rain Dogs by Adrian McKinty, and went back to sleep.
On Saturday morning I fixed myself a sandwich of the remainders of a roast beef dinner before I left. I arrived at the tournament at about 9:30 and bought our entries.
Our results on Saturday were remarkably similar to what we did on Friday. In the morning our score was 51.74 percent, which left us just our of the money because the three top scores in our section were registered by B players.
We got off to an unbelievably good start on the first hand I somehow convinced myself that Eric, sitting East, had a very good hand. Since I held a six-loser hand with support for his clubs, I used Blackwood to ask for key cards. When his response indicated that he had 0 or 3, I figured that we had all the key cards and bid 6♥ without even asking about the queen of trump.
As you can see, Eric actually had a minimum opening bid. The opponents held three aces. Fortunately, South decided to lead the ♥A, which allowed him to pitch his spades on diamonds. He also led hearts from his hand, which allowed him to finesse the ten. So, we got 100 percent on this hand. Incredibly, one other pair stumbled into this horrible contract, but they were defeated by two tricks.
By our new method of bidding these hands our auction should have been 1♥-2♣; 2♥-3♥; 3NT (non-serious game try)-4♥ (very reluctant).
One of our worst hands was #8, played against two players whom I did not know, Paresh Soni and Justine Robertson. I was in the West chair declaring 4♠. The same contract was played by all of the other pairs in our section.
At trick 1 Paresh led the ♣4. I counted my losers—two possible in hearts and one in clubs. Then I thought again. What if South had four clubs? If I ducked, she could give him a ruff at trick 2, and I would be down if the hearts were poorly placed.
Then it occurred to me that North was leading fourth-best, I would still lose a trick to North’s king. The only times that playing the ace was wrong was if North began with the king and one or two others. Who would lead low from either of those holdings? No one that I played with. I would be willing to bet that no other North player selected that card to lead. Anyway, I played the ace.
Eric bought a lunch at the tournament. We ate together again. I explained why I only took ten tricks on hand #8. Bill gave out more awards.
Our best session was the last one. We scored 56.47 percent, which was good for fifth, but it was only 1.51 percentage points before the pair in first. We received 2.9 masterpoints.
The most astounding hand of the tournament occurred in the fourth round of the second session. We were sitting North-South. Eric was awarded the privilege of bidding the hand shown at the left. Our opponents were Victor Xiao and Lin Li.
After I opened 2♣ Eric bid 2♥. We played Kokish relays, and so his response indicated a bust—no aces, no kings, and at most one queen. I bid 2♠. Eric thought that his four trumps and a singleton was enough to raise to game. It wasn’t. I only made three. The field was pretty evenly divided between the game bidders and those who stopped at (and made) three.
When Eric lay down his 4-4-1-4 masterpiece I exclaimed “Wow! Eight high!” I then proceeded to count the pips in the center of of the cards: 17 (7+5+3+2) in spades, 19 in hearts, 7 in diamonds, and 16 in clubs for a total of 59. I told the table that this was the second-worst hand that I had ever seen.
After the hand Victor asked me about it. He was struggling to compute the lowest possible total. I explained that it was three sets of 2-3-4 combinations plus one 5 for a total of 41.
We bid and made one slam, but I thought that we might have bid another on hand #16. Eric, sitting north, opened 1♠. I had enough to bid Jacoby 2NT, but I was determined to take it slow. I bid 2♣. I don’t remember the details, but eventually Eric jumped to 4♠.
If he had shown his diamond singleton, I would have bid 2♠ to set trump. He could then show a club control. I would bid 2NT to show a high spade honor and no more controls. He could then bid 3♠ to show both a heart control and a club control. I would bid 4NT, and after he showed 0 or 3 key cards, I would know all fourteen of his points and have no worries about trumps. I would almost 4certainly have bid 6♠.
Afterwards, Eric asked why I did not just bid 2NT to start with. He would have shown his singleton by bidding 3♦. I would be forced to use Blackwood immediately or bid 4♦. The former is a big non-no with a worthless doubleton. The latter will probably induce him to sign off at 4♠.
I checked the results to see if this would have made a significant difference. We finished in fifth place, which was pretty good, but if we had bid 6♠, we would have vaulted past everyone in front of us, including the winners, who were the only pair that found the slam.
Cindy Lyall called for a “debriefing” meeting of the tournament committee. The only bad side to the tournament was the poor showing of the 499er group on Sunday. I volunteered to ask the director, Tim Hill, whether I could get a file of the results for specific events. He never responded, but I figured out how to “scrape” the web page that provided “recaps” of the events. I shared the information with the rest of the committee.
A big problem for the tournament in August is that no one on the committee wants to act as tournament manager. I remarked at the last meeting that I did not understand why anyone would want the position. I wonder what the other units do.
Since I was no longer on the HBC board, I tried to keep Linda Starr (who was) apprised of the board’s attempt to nail down dates for sectionals in 2025 and 2026. There were conflicts with the HBC’s annual meeting in the fall of 2024.
1. For the first time in recent memory the time for the Sunday Swiss event was moved from 9:30 to 10:00. So we arranged to meet a half-hour later than previously.
2. NETTTS is the New England Tractor Trailer Training School, which was the bane of drivers in northeastern Connecticut. Trucks driven by students are often seen struggling to reach the speed limit on heavily traveled roads. I once saw one that was in the first spot at a stoplight with its right turn signal blinking. When the light turned green the truck executed the turn successfully, but not one of the six vehicles behind it was able to enter the intersection before the crossing traffic had the green light.
3. My opinion was that the 0-500 group needed to be persuaded to attend. The other players merely needed information. Since we were essentially offering the same product as on previous recent occasions, presumably they would come if they wanted to. The phrase “less than” is stylistically appropriate for anything that is not countable, in the sense of 1, 2, 3, not in the sense that rational numbers are countable. Thus, one would say less than $50, but fewer than fifty one-dollar bills.
4. The worst was a 53-pointer that I held at the Simsbury Bridge Club back when I was playing with Dick Benedict.
In the composition of this entry I relied heavily on the minutes written by Ann Lohrand. I took my own notes at every meeting, but I did not save them.
The state of the club in 2021: Because of the pandemic the club had closed its doors in March of 2020 and did not reopen for face-to-face (F2F) play until the summer of 2021. In the interim the club had begun sponsoring online games on the website Bridge Base Online while it continued to pay rent on its headquarters near the border of Hartford and West Hartford. The revenue from the online games did not come close to covering the club’s overhead expenses.
It took several months for the attendance at the F2F games to reach a reasonable level. Only players who had been vaccinated were allowed to play, and they were also required to wear a mask. The quality of the masks was not enforced, but several players complained about being required to wear them. Some players were wary of being in close quarters with others even with the masks and vaccination requirements.
So, as of the autumn of 2021 the club was close to crisis mode. Although there was still quite a bit of money in the bank, the financial people warned that the club’s dues and game fees were bringing in about $2,000 per month less than it was paying in expenses.
John Willoughby.
During the summer of 2021 Trevor Reeves, who was the HBC’s treasurer and the most immediate past president, called me to ask if I would be willing to serve on the club’s Board of Trustees. I said that I would be happy to do so, and I did not mind committing for three years. At the club’s annual meeting, which was held via Zoom on October 24, 2021, I learned the complete list of the people on the board. The other officers besides Trevor were Felix Springer (president), John Willoughby (vice-president), and Ann Lohrand (secretary). There were three returning board members. Roger Pikor had one year remaining on his term. Carole Amaio and Bill Wininger had two years. There were only six board members at a time. Nevertheless, at the meeting Felix announced that four members had “departed” and three new ones elected, all for three-year terms.1 The other two newbies were Nancy Calderbank and Ben Bishop. I knew Felix, Trevor, John, and Nancy pretty well. I was much less familiar with the others.
Carole Amaio.
The board met once a month on a designated Tuesday afternoon. Since I played bridge at the club every Tuesday morning, this was quite convenient for me.
Bill Wininger.
Before the pandemic Felix had asked me to be on the Long-range Planning Committee. This group discussed how to prepare for the loss of any key people, especially Donna Feir, who had been the Club Manager for decades. We also discussed what could be done to improve the club in other ways. The necessity of educational programs was emphasized, and the nature of them was discussed. Use of special games available from the ACBL was a common topic, as well as the mentorship program that I had participated in every time it was offered. It no longer seemed to be flourishing.
Tom Joyce.
I have retained a few distinct memories from the first board meeting that I attended on November 9, 2021. The first concerned the report of the Policy Committee. I had not been aware of its existence. Apparently Tom Joyce and Pat Salve were the driving forces behind it. I had played against both of them countless times, but I had never worked with either one.
They proposed three motions. The first amended the by-laws to allow one board member to be a director. The second delegated authority to create the game schedule to the directors. The third reduced the number of past presidents on the nominating committee from three to two. All three items passed.
Pat Salve.
Evidently the primary focus of the committee was to negotiate a new lease for the existing property or a new one. Although many people supported the idea of finding an appropriate facility, Donna was clearly not in favor of considering the prospect of moving.
John Dinius.
The second thing that stands out in my recollection of that first meeting was the treasurer’s report. In previous years the treasurer’s report at the annual meeting basically just indicated how much cash the club had. Trevor and John Dinius had converted the club’s books to the accrual method. They had also taken the steps needed to be recognized as a 501(c)(3) exempt organization. What impressed me the most was that they had implemented a budgeting and planning system so that they could project the effect of changes in attendance and rates for both online and F2F games.
I also remember giving my own assessment of the state of bridge in general. I was convinced that Covid-19 had seriously wounded competitive bridge at all levels—club, unit, district, national, and even international. To me, however, the real enemy was online play for masterpoints. In my opinion this had broken the link carefully crafted to provide the incentives for advancement to sustain clubs, units, and districts. Trevor indicated that he agreed with me.
Roger Pikor.
I had never had any association with Roger Pikor. In this and subsequent meetings whenever any aspect of the pandemic was mentioned he made us aware of the fact that his wife had some kind of access to technical information about Covid-19 and how it spread. This only bothered me after the third or fourth time.
The Planning Committee, of which I was an original member, had not met since the pandemic closed the club. John Willoughby, as vice-president, inherited the committee and mentioned some topics that needed to be addressed. The focal one was to try to get prepared if we needed a new club manager.
A special meeting was held on December 30. The positivity rate for Covid-19 had risen to 20 percent. After a discussion that lasted for three hours and forty-five minutes. The only decision was to restore the mask mandate with an emphasis on N95 masks2.
2022 began with a Zoom meeting on January 4. Linda Starr, who had kept everyone informed of the club’s activities before, during, and after the pandemic, resigned from her post as composer and sender of emails through MailChimp. Lori Leopold took over that responsibility for a while. Eventually I sort of inherited it until Linda resumed doing it a few years later. In 2025 I was still acting as Linda’s backup.
Laurie Robbins.
Laurie Robbins had already enrolled thirty-six people for an introductory bridge class using an online service called Shark Bridge.
The water cooler leaked over the holidays. It was replaced. An effort to require Pure Health to reimburse the club was undertaken. A new photocopy machine was purchased.
At the next meeting on February 1 it was revealed that Pure Health paid the club $1,000, and Laurie’s lessons netted a total of $1900.
John Calderbank assumed control of the Gmail account that Linda Starr had previously managed.
John Willoughby took over as the club’s Partnership Coordinator, which basically meant that he agreed to play with people who had trouble finding partners. My wife Sue played with him a few times.
The property tax levied by West Hartford will be appealed.
2021 was the 90th anniversary of the club. A celebration that had been planned for the spring was postponed to the annual meeting.
I was unable to find the minutes for the meeting on March 15. Beware the Ides of March.
At the Zoom meeting on April 12 a lot of time was spent on Trevor’s successor as treasurer. Trevor had introduced accrual accounting, which provided the basis for reasonable budgeting. Some people expressed the opinion that it was overkill, but I could see the value.
The property tax appeal was denied, but another appeal was in the works.
Victor died his hair as a birthday tribute to his partner, Sheila Gabay.
Victor King, a Grand Life Master who had occasionally played at the club had been tragically murdered. The Board approved the idea of sponsoring an In Memoriam for him at the Nationals scheduled for Providence, RI, in the summer. . A donation jar was provided for member contributions.
One of my clearest memories of Victor was a 1NT contract that he played against Tom Gerchman and me. Tom had doubled for takeout and Victor redoubled. I passed and his partner, another very good player, also passed. I had eight hearts headed by the ace, king, and queen at the top. I took the first eight tricks, and Tom signaled to me what to lead next. We ended up writing the number 2200 in the PLUS column.
At the meeting on May 2 a good bit of time was dedicated to the subject of decreased attendance, both online and F2F. Some of the pain was offset by an anonymous donation of $5,000.
Donna announced that the membership number had reached 412 and that by table count the HBC was the 33rd largest club in the country. Two or three people had shown interest in the treasurer’s job. My Wednesday morning partner, Eric Vogel, ended up taking the job. The position of bookkeeper was maintained.
My idea of a Bracketed Swiss3 was endorsed by John Willoughby and the planning committee. Unfortunately, I later discovered that the ACBL did not authorize this event at the club level.
The meeting on June 14 was not terribly eventful. The success of Laurie’s lessons on defense was confirmed. There was no meeting in July because of the NABC in Providence4 that was attended by many members of the club.
Felix asked John Willoughby to run the meeting held on August 23. I don’t remember the precise reason for this. Perhaps Felix just wanted to give John some practice.
Even though July was, as expected because of the twelve-day NABC in Providence, a horrible month for attendance, the cash balance was still within sight of $100,000. The discrepancy between Donna’s figure and Trevor’s as to the number of members persisted.
A motion to raise membership dues to $40 for the coming fiscal year was passed. At the same time game fees would be raised from $7 to $8.
A committee was set up to negotiate the lease with Marjam, the current owners of the industrial park in which the club rented space, and to examine alternatives.
A 24-board open game was scheduled to start at 9:30 on Monday mornings.
Felix and Trevor have petitioned West Hartford for a grant to help cover the club’s Covid-19 losses.
Someone set up a Facebook page for the club.
Felix ran the meeting on September 13.
The cash account in the club’s treasury was back up to $100K. It was boosted by lesson fees and donations.
Donna’s final membership count for 2021-22 was 417. This seemed to me an incredibly high number. My gut feeling was that about half of the members from before the pandemic no longer played. That would indicate a membership of about 300. Who were all these people?
John Calderbank and Mary Sullivan, two people whom I had mentored in previous years, presented a plan to restart the mentorship program.
Since the discussion of the honoraria (money awarded by the board to individuals who did extra work for the club) was held in camera, I won’t discuss other people’s opinions. I argued that they all did superb work and were underpaid.
The last meeting of the fiscal year was held on October 18.
Trevor’s budget for the next year projected a $5,000 loss. Donna reported that 290 members had renewed at the new rate.
Fifteen mentors had committed to help the same number of newer players when the next three-month mentoring program started. I was one of the mentors.
The lease committee was operational. Felix encouraged them to be active, but Donna was clearly aghast at the idea that the board was even considering moving to a new building.
The annual meeting was scheduled for October 23. $1,000 was allocated for the luncheon items. Carole was in charge. The meeting would be held at the club, but members could also attend via Zoom.
Someone had been leaving Seventh Day Adventist literature on the table in the back room. This practice was expressly forbidden in the bylaws.
At the annual meeting on October 23 the cash account showed a year-to-year gain of a little over $1400. So, despite all of the hand-wringing, the club had actually prospered under very trying circumstances. The total donations for the year were over $26,000!
The bylaws proposed by the Policy Committee were all passed.
John Willoughby was elected as the new president. Ben Bishop took the VP slot. Eric Vogel succeeded Trevor as treasurer. The new board members were Rob Stillman and Diane Tracy.
The story of my second term on the board is recounted here.
1. Linda Erickson (introduced here) had been the vice-president. She resigned, and John Willoughby, who had been a trustee, took her place. So, three new trustees were needed.
2. Perhaps the most neglected story of the entire pandemic was the Center for Disease Control’s original position on masks. CDC statements indicated that any kind of face covering was good enough. In actuality the N95 masks were proven more effective against the type of aerosols that spread Covid-19 by a very large margin. Once I learned this I wore N95 masks any time that I was in the presence of strangers indoors.
3. A Bracketed Swiss is a team game in which the participants are divided into brackets based on the number of total masterpoints. Usually each team plays every team in its bracket and no teams in the other brackets. I envisioned two of three brackets of six teams each. Everyone would play five rounds.
4. My participation in the planning of this event is documented here. I played in ten of the eleven days. Details of that mostly miserable experience is described here. During the twelve days of the event a great many people were stricken by Covid-19, including four of my teammates and both of the co-chairs of the event.
