Mine was a long road to LM. My parents played and directed a game for a charity, so I started learning by age 7. I started playing duplicate as a teen, sometimes with friends I taught and sometimes with my dad. At both Princeton and Harvard Law School, I “owned” and directed the University sanctioned weekly duplicate games. The highlight of my early career came in the late 60s at the Goldman Open Pairs at the New York Hilton. At the end of the last session the head director was running around with the paper scoresheet yelling “where are Abt and Abt” we identified ourselves and he said we had won the event! We soon realized that there was a scoring error. The N player had entered 1430 for EW instead of NS. The switch turned a top into a bottom. What’s worse is that the slam made only because I led away from a king. Dummy had the Q, declarer the A! I have never done that since!

In those days MP awards were much less generous than they are now. When I “retired” from duplicate while I started my law career and got married and started having children, I had just under 200 MPs. I played occasional rubber (Chicago) bridge in NY and then Philadelphia, but almost no duplicate for 50 years. I thought I would eventually start playing again, and read the ACBL Bulletin and Bridge World (until it ceased publication this year) cover to cover every month.

When I retired, I started playing at the nearest club, Jenkintown Bridge Club. I have partnered many of the “regulars” and made steady progress towards LM. I had enough Red and Gold from 50 years ago but needed 100 more points and about 20 Silver points. I also started playing on BBO with a friend in California. I actually got the last needed Silver point from an online game, though I didn’t know it!