I played bridge in graduate school and for a short time after I joined Du Pont in 1963 until I was transferred from Wilmington. In 2013 my wife expressed interest in learning the game and took lessons at the Bridge Center of Delaware County. I joined her in the lessons the next year and we began playing with friends in Delaware. They mentioned their beneficial experience with the Bridge Studio of Delaware so I signed up for their Intermediate Lessons in September 2015 even though I live in Pennsylvania. Starting this year I began playing in games at the studio and to accumulate points. I am very pleased and impressed with the principals, teachers and volunteers at the Studio for the quality of the training and the friendly and open atmosphere. I also commend the District for the mentoring program that is being held this summer. I am impressed as are the other newer players at the thoughtful guidance and helpfulness of our mentors as well as their willingness to participate. I recommend that the program be continued on an as needed basis.
Category Archives: Stories
Michael Belman – Life Master
I started playing bridge in the army. I continued playing while at Penn, and occasionally play duplicate at Rhoda Gran’s’s at 21st and Walnut. I played occasionally at The Tuesday evening Calcutta at the Cavendish club when it was at the Drake. Than came about 50 years that I took a vacation from duplicate and raised a family, built a business and spent many hour volunteering for for worthwhile charitable organizations. I did continue to play rubber bridge at the Hamilton Club on Saturdays. About 4 years ago I retired and decided to start playing duplicate again. My thrill,(I am sure you don’t remember) was playing against your team in the KOs at Wilmington and winning 13 1/2 gold ,I needed 12 1/2 to make LM. This left me 1.1 silver short,which I picked up in this months STAC. I’ve made lots of new friends and enjoy playing in games and tourneys.
Roald Ramussen – Junior Master
My story is really about my family. Every year for 12 years, my dad and 2 brothers along with our families would vacation in Sea Isle City, NJ. My dad and two brothers knew how to play bridge, but I had not yet learned. I was always interested and loved to play cards, so I thought I would give it a try. We would play a few boards each night as they taught me the basics, bidding, playing, etc. My dad gave me the book ‘The Play of the Hand’ by Watson, I took an evening bridge class at our local high school and I would read up on the internet. The first couple of years were a bit hard and I am sure frustrating. By the 3rd or 4th summer, we were playing at least 24 boards a night 6 of the 7 nights. (My father owned a duplicate set of boards.) That is really how I learned to play. Dad passed away 3 years ago and as a result, we stopped going to the beach.
The oldest brother, Chris, saw the Monroeville bridge tournament and invited me only a week before it began. I just joined the ACBL that Tuesday. Well, I didn’t have any official tournament experience, but I guess you could say that I had a ton of Rasmussen tournaments.
I really enjoyed my experience. I think Chris and I will be planning to attend another tournament in the not so distant future.
Jerry Mancioci – Gold Life Master
How did I became a Gold Life Master. It was not the traditional way, I suspect. I practice law, which is all consuming. I was also married with children. I played when I could, which for a long time was exclusively nights. A tournament appearance for me and rarely involved a Sunday, as I felt a family obligation. I rarely made games in advance because work and family came first.
So how did I improve? I read bridge an average of an hour per day, 7 hours per week. I watched the experts on BBO and at national tournaments. I tried to stay in decent physical shape. I worked on my stamina and did not tolerate table talk, particularly critical talk, which was tiresome to me and keeps me from concentrating on the next hand. I sought out partners who do not offer unsolicited advise. I “kissed up” to no one. This way my way.
Lyn Widmyer – Sectional Master with Chuck Meister and partner, Lisa Younis
Linens, Libations and Lasagna
By Lyn Widmyer ACBL Bridge Bulletin July 2015
Now that I am retired, I am spending a lot more time playing bridge. I learned the game decades ago because my mother believed knowing how to play bridge was as important to succeeding in college as good SAT scores. She adored the game. I always helped Mom prepare when it was her turn to host the bridge ladies for an extravagant lunch and an afternoon of play. My job was to iron napkins and tablecloths, wash the good crystal and polish silver.
Based on my childhood experience, I came to associate bridge with liquor, linen and lasagna. Add a few glasses of wine and/or sherry and it was amazing my mother’s bridge group was coherent enough to actually play bridge.
When my mother sent me to bridge lessons, she hoped it would help me find social success in college. I found other interests in college and put bridge on hold.
Fast forward to 1990 when I started playing bridge with a small group of ladies in Charles Town. Naomi Moses, my bridge span into the modern era of bidding, invited me to join her group for an afternoon of play. I welcomed the invitation and decided to skip breakfast to save room for a lavish lunch a la my mother. I arrived at Naomi’s home and viewed the kitchen table, adorned only by two decks of cards and a score pad. No buffet. No lasagna. No silver cutlery. The only food was a bowl of cantaloupe squares pierced with toothpicks.
I could barely hear the introductions of the other players over the rumblings of my empty stomach. These ladies were far more interested in teaching me “weak two bids”, “negative doubles” and “strong artificial 2 club opening” than feeding me.
I loved it. Unfortunately, working full-time and raising a family cut into my bridge time.
Now, freed of work and young children, I am back at the bridge table. There is quite an active group of bridge players in the area, ranging from weekly bridge games among friends to more structured, duplicate games in Martinsburg, Charles Town and Shepherdstown.
I am one of the youngest players at my regular bridge game in Shepherdstown. No matter—these ladies are sharp! Recently, my 93-year old partner (who has been married longer than I have been alive) reminded me after we failed to make our bid that the Jacoby transfer convention is still on after an interference bid by the opponent.
I nodded to give the impression I knew what she was talking about.
In Charles Town, I have played with a hero of World War II, Fred Mayer. Or as he is referred to in Wikipedia, “Frederick Mayer (spy)”. During World War II Fred parachuted into Austria, then posed as a German Army officer to learn about troop movements near Innsbruck. He was captured and tortured by the Gestapo. Fred was freed in 1945 by American troops and later awarded the Legion of Merit and a Purple Heart by the United States Government. What an honor to sit at the bridge table with an American war hero.
My mother insisted bridge would help me socially in college. That never happened but her investment in lessons is paying dividends now that I am older and retired. Playing bridge has introduced me to a wonderful new group of friends and acquaintances.
Best of all, knowing an opening bid of 2 No Trump promises 20-21 points is considered far more important than knowing how to iron linen napkins or polish silver.
Jeffrey Sprowles – Life Master
My siblings and I were taught bridge in the 1950s by our parents at the kitchen table. My first sanctioned games were played in 1971 and 1972, when my younger brother Alden, our friend Dudley Hendricks and some of Alden’s college buddies learned Precision. I carried around 0.75 worth of master point slips from those games and eventually lost them not too long before I could have used them. The team broke up when Alden left for grad school. I didn’t play competitively for almost thirty years.
In 2008 we started a social duplicate game when Alden was visiting back East from his home on the left coast. That grew into a monthly event that is still held. Dudley and I started fooling around with Precision and eventually met weekly for a practice session and dinner. It took us 18 months to master the system and along the way we acknowledged that we knew about 20% of it in 1971. We started playing at Dotty Lou’s Boutique and Bridge Studio, now known as Bridge Alert, every Sunday in late 2008.
In October 2010 Fern Herman and Patty Bassman asked Dudley and me to play with them in a Swiss KO at the Philadelphia. We won our bracket and 10.87 gold points. Dudley still wonders if anybody has ever had more gold points than black.
Shortly thereafter Dudley retired and I had to learn 2 over 1. I played several times with the late Tom Sakaguchi and promiscuously with about 30 different partners before arriving at a regular Sunday game with Ralph Collins. When Barbara Patterson and Jane Ball started Ami Bridge I hooked up with Richard Perlman with whom I play Kennedy/Montreal Transfer.
In 2014 I earned all the pigmented points I needed for life master. In August I exceeded the 300 point total. Or so I thought. It turns out that I double counted my July total. Barbara had a cake and a sign on her screen congratulating me before I actually earned the points for life master in the first week in September.
For reasons I do not understand I did not appear in the October or November issues of the bulletin as a new life master. I hope my name appears in the December issue or my friends at Ami Bridge and Dotty Lou’s will think I am a liar, which I am when I play poker, but am not when I play bridge