by: Kenny & Dee

Well finally Yahoo relented and the jinx that has struck the BigDog and Catwitch every time they try to umpire the menagerie was absent. There were14 tables, 3 of which were played live in Dallas with a hookup run by Jawall. Round 1 started amidst much snarling and hissing and the DOGS sprung into a 3-0 lead by sweeping the Dallas tables. 'Fix' cried the CATS but then came storming back to take a 5-3 lead, eventually winning the round 9-5 in an almost record time of less than 50 minutes.

Worse was to come for the DOGS in round 2 as the CATS built on their lead from round 1. Win after feline win was reported with only the occasional crumb of comfort for the DOGS, the score at the end of round 2 being 19-9. Meanwhile your directors were getting puzzled. Where were all the problems we were used to? What were we meant to do with the long list of unneeded volunteer subs? Round 2 over after an hour and 40 minutes? Almost unheard of!! It was so quiet that Catwitch decided to leave the BigDog to it as she had nothing to do.

Round 3 got underway with the DOGS urging each other on to close the gap but it was clear from the early results it was never going to happen. The first 6 results went to the CATS, giving them an unassailable 31-9 lead, with the final result being a landslide 39-19. Note: the largest margin of victory is 26 by the Cats in August of 2000

Thanks to all who participated for making the directors job easy (well fairly easy ? apologies to the 2 repeated pairings but hey ? it's the first time I made it past round 1!!).

Next week Iain is back. The following week will be OldYank. We are hoping our new director prospects jump in to test the water. Anyone else who would like to give it a try, please let any of our directors know.

News from Max's Alley Club - We have moved into the top five in the club list which means we are picking up more new members. Please encourage all your friends to join as we will be using the club to make group announcements on upcoming tournaments and chat meetings (including the popular "voice chats").

Seen skulking on the fire escape: oldyank, imdj1, puddytat, producer, smilodonkiwi, cherryrivets, dutchie, jimkat, pomfredt, seeweed, orla, incognito, roholte, felden

Supersubs: Oldyank, dianeooz, smilodonkiwi, puddytat

Slams were bid and made by: sugarmt/psspill 6NT, pakratt60/dranna 6NT, pob/aimejoue 6C

The trophy for purrrrfect 3-0 tournament goes to:

The dogs were: sugarmt/psspill, pakratt60/dranna, andy/stck_ahad, jean1998/xborsen, myrkath/lorraine, deltagayle/jamesgreywolf, kippers/pom2, rsquirrel/doc, papbud/cooper, mitchlaru/woo7nt, windstar/bear, softfire/barbm, kalinka/kalinkascoyote, puppyfinn/4paws.

The cats were: errikos/jawall, jerry/brok, rps/jeanneh, glossit/suegloss, acastofmany/sweetdreams, Pob/aimejoue, ppp_p3/koolkat, midnight/scorpiokirsten, smilodon_king_cat/roblyn(sub oldyank), bert/ernie, dittny/dpman, redbird/irish, annaskitchen/silver_wind, bbrian/i8cats(sub dianneooz)