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After posting a 72% game in the first qualifying
session, followed by a 55.5% effort, Mike Cappelletti and Larry Hicks
were surprised to find themselves in second place going into the second
day of Open Pairs I.
Taking no chances in the final, they put together a
series of "smokin' results," as Cappelletti put it, to run
away with the event. They followed a 68% game in the first final session
with 61% in the second final. Their margin of victory was 213.7
matchpoints, nearly three boards.
Their game was so dominating they would have won even
without their huge carryover from the first day.
Cappelletti, who lives in Red Bank TN (Chattanooga),
and Hicks, of Coquitlam BC (Vancouver), play only about once a year.
They met in 1988 when Hicks was touring North America playing bridge,
and they played together on the North American squad that competed in
the World Junior Bridge Championships in Nottingham, England, in 1989.
The win was the second for Cappelletti. He and fiancée
Shannon Lipscomb won the Mixed Pairs last year at the Spring NABC in
Vancouver.
Right after the game, Cappelletti got on the
telephone to Red Bank to give future mother-in-law Jere Raymond the good
news. Mindful of the ultra slim margin by which her daughter and
Cappelletti won the Mixed Pairs last year, Raymond said: "Three
boards? Is that better than point-oh-six?"
Cappelletti's answer: "Oh, yes!" |
