There has been nothing magical for me in attaining NABC Master status, mostly just playing enough in the past few years to accumulate the requisite number and colors of MPs. There has been no recruiting of bridge experts to play with me, and no classes or lessons either (although I do read many articles and some books). I played bridge socially somewhat in my twenties, and then casually for about five years prior to the pandemic leading up to my retirement in 2019. However, it was my COVID-isolation discovery in 2020 of BBO that launched my current trajectory. While I still very much enjoy playing face to face, both socially and competitively, BBO has enabled me to play with much enhanced flexibility (including remotely with my brother who lives too far away to conveniently play with me in most face to face events).

I also have found playing with BBO robots to be an excellent way to learn bridge, especially because of the ability to hover over bids to see their intended meanings. And more generally, BBO is much more helpful for reviewing where things went wrong on hands with poor results as opposed to verbal post-mortems after in-person play. However, I do sometimes wonder whether, as smart as the robots are, their programmers deliberately direct them to occasionally make head-scratchingly unsound bids or plays – maybe it is to inject a human element into their games!

In any event, despite being fully cognizant that an 8-year old not that long ago became a Life Master, I am under no illusions as to how much more I need to improve and persist to achieve that status myself. And that would still leave me about 99,500 MPs behind Jeff Meckstroth! But it’s the fun and challenging journey along the way that really counts, and bridge is great brain exercise too.