Here’s a short story from me this month. August was very quiet on the sectional front, with no unit game either. I hope everyone enjoyed the good weather outside without getting overheated.

The only event in town, at least that I know about, was the All Western regional. In the premier two-day open pair event, Shih-Ming Shih & Michael Fleisher placed 5th, just ahead of Will Watson & Sathya Bettadapura. Other unit members also had respectable finishes. I respect those who even qualified for the 2nd day.

In pair games stratification tops were earned by Ron Schwarer & Lyle Supp, Ted Richmond, Ron Siegrist, Peter Sun & K-P Cheng, William Bidermann, Tom Coleman & Ronald Baron, George Pledger & Bertrand Hsu, Dan Turkus, Leon Lee & Eric Yang, Glenn Hudson, ChingLing Jim Tseng, Tomie Sera, Derek Fiero & Teddi Fiero. Stacie Bowman and Elizabeth Strasen earned their first gold points. Remember yours?

In team events, strat tops went to the team of Michael Migdol & Daren Kuo and Wesley Woo’s team. Diane Shannon, Bill Reister & Ted Richmond won the senior Swiss, after Reister and Richmond consistently placed high in the senior pair games. In single session teams, John Hoffman, Will Watson & Gary Porter won twice, once joined by Robert Dannels.

Knockout victors were Richard Reitman, Fran Dickman & Jyme Schmeider; Ray Lubow, Maxine Lubow, Maureen Ellenberg, & Ruth Sporer; and Leon Lee & Eric Yang. As usual I don’t have the final day’s results, since they aren’t in a daily.

Here’s a cautionary tale. Make sure you get the right entry or you may end up in the wrong event. It happened.

Here’s another cautionary tale. Don’t give up in Swiss teams. You might still scratch despite earning 3 victory points in 2 rounds. And you might win a single-session victory point event with 2 wins and 2 losses.

If you want me to report more, let me know what to say. Corrections, comments and news are welcome at (408)379-7717 and rayyuenger@starband.net. Old columns appear under “old stuff” at www.sjbridge.org.