About 10 years ago, give or take a few, we started playing again and found another novice pair who were interested in playing team games. So we played and had a lot of fun and some success.  We played mostly for going out to dinner together after the games.  Slowly we began to accumulate master points.  When we saw who we were playing against, we would look at each other and say, with awe, “Most of the players on that team are LIFE MASTERS.”

But we persevered, took lessons, played and went to tournaments.  Eventually we all became life masters at about the same time.  What I remember is feeling that I had reached the highest level that I was ever going to achieve.  Becoming a silver life master seemed completely out of reach.  But after we reached life master status and continued to play, the points seemed to come in almost of their own accord.  After a few more years, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could actually reach silver life master rank.  And now that I have done so, I am looking forward to reaching the next rank.

I play for fun and for dinners after team events and to travel to the places that the regional and national tournaments are held.  Reaching the next rank has never been my principal motivation but it is, nevertheless, very pleasant to do so.

I learned bridge from my parents in my early teens. I played at a local duplicate studio in high school. One of the regulars at that studio was Oswald Jacoby. A friend told me that when I play him, I should always win the bid, as he was not that good atdefense!! I did not play again for about 15 years, at which time I played for about three or four years between my two marriages.

Although I occasionally played socially over the next 40 years, I did not restart duplicate until I moved to Hershey’s Mill in 2021. At that time, I had about sixty-five masterpoints. I now play socially with my wife here at The Mill, and I play duplicate at Hershey’s Mill, Aronimink, and Waynesboro country clubs, along with an occasional sectional or regional tournament. I earn about fifty points a year. I do not plan to play any more often, as my wife assures me that I am already playing too much.

I have four different regular partners for the four regular weekly games I attend. I gladly play with others when a regular partner is not available and have played with over twenty different people in the last few years. I usually learn something from each different partner with whom I play. Finally, as a retired college professor who published multiple books and articles, I have combined my two passions of technical writing and bridge. I write a bridge column that appears in the monthly magazine that is distributed to over 1700 households here at The Mill.

I am happy with the services provided by District 4.

I took up the game while in my 30’s, am self taught and have played almost exclusively in club games for the past 50 years. I have been the Ace of Clubs many times, but have fewer than 45 gold points and have been fortunate in that rankings above Life Master have been “grandfathered.” About 3100 of my 3500 points are black points, and most of the remaining 400 points were also won at club games.

I mentioned that I am self taught and I’ll share with you a story that I still enjoy telling. I learned to play from a book by Charles Goren. The book was structured so that you were given a lesson and at the bottom of the page was a question with multiple choice answers. Each answer required you to go to a different page in the book. If you selected the right answer, the new page gave you the next lesson. If you selected a wrong answer, you were told to go back and retake the lesson. The lesson on page one was, “A bridge deck is 52 cards, 13 cards in each of 4 suits.” The question was, “What is a bridge deck?” and the there were 2 choices for answers, one of them being, “A bridge deck is 52 cards plus 2 Jokers.”  This is nonsense, I thought and turned to page 2. There in huge letters was, “YOU DID NOT FOLLOW DIRECTIONS. GO BACK TO PAGE ONE AND RETAKE THE LESSON.” From this, I learned that in bridge, expect to be criticized on occasion, but learn from your mistakes.