In the fall of 2002 I was still working full time and was looking for people to play bridge with one evening a week. I learned about a game at Rehoboth Beach Country Club on Thursday nights and when I went there, I had the great fortune of meeting Dini Romito, ambassador extraordinaire for the game of bridge. I had never heard of the ACBL and knew nothing about conventions like transfers, negative doubles and weak two bids.  I was a “kitchen table” player, aware of Stayman and Blackwood and little else.  But Dini encouraged me, introduced me to serious duplicate play and was a fabulous mentor.  I earned a little over 5 masterpoints that year and began taking lessons.

Most importantly, I met a lot of terrific people who also liked bridge and wanted to improve their skills.  I also found experienced players who were willing to share their knowledge and expertise.  Over the years many players helped me get masterpoints and I want to thank all of them.  I’m reluctant to try to name them because I’m sure I will leave someone out–but you know who you are!  I do want to give a special shout-out to Jane Myers, the partner I’ve played with the longest and the most and the person with whom I qualified to go to NAP games at Nationals a couple of times when we were in the top 3 pairs in our District 4 flights.

I began playing bridge more frequently in retirement and I must say that during the years of the pandemic BBO online bridge had been a lifeline for me.  I got to “socialize” with my various partners and I had something to look forward to on a regular basis.  I honestly didn’t think I would ever live long enough to get 2500 masterpoints but it happened and I had a lot of fun along the way!

While I learned bridge basics while young, I never played seriously until a coworker who was an accomplished bridge player got us started playing at lunch in the early 90s. This grew into social playing, novice games with my father-in-law at the Bridge Club of Delaware County, and eventually club play at North Penn in Landsdale.

Eventually we developed a core group of players that put together to form teams. Some of us went to the Philadelphia NABC in 1996 where we won a trophy in some side contest – we thought we knew everything there was to know about bridge! 30 years later I now realize I’m a bridge imbecile with so much more to learn.

While I had limited time to play bridge in those years, our base four-person team, along Jack & Dave Willgruber and Lou Primavera, continued to play in area team events. Once I retired from full-time work, I was able to start playing more frequently. While I continue to develop my pairs play, teams remains my favorite form of play. Our team qualified for the 2023 GNT flight C in Chicago, making it to the semifinals before losing to the eventual champions.

I do my best to try to get new players involved in duplicate. I have a few advancing players I partner with regularly, and a few more just getting started. There’s fun in bridge for everyone, and we need to get new players involved to keep it going. During the covid lockdown, I was able to get my 90-year-old parents on BBO to play with my brother, who is also just beginning. Our group phone calls and playing sessions were one of the few socialization opportunities they had during that period. They are now playing live bridge in their community.

I first started playing duplicate with my mother about thirty years ago. At first we played in a weekly club game at the Knight of Columbus in Arlington, VA. Then we played a few sectionals and regionals and one national tournament in Washington, DC. We had some modest success and earned approximately 31 master points. The last time I earned any master points before this year was, I believe, 2004. and before that it was 1997. Then, for reasons I don’t remember, we stopped playing duplicate.

Then, my wife and I moved to Rehoboth Beach in the spring of 2021. I started playing regular bridge at the country club I belong to. Then, at the end of last year, someone at the club suggested I play in a non-sanctioned duplicate game he played in. So, I started playing in this duplicate game beginning in January of this year.

Then, in July, I was on the ACBL website and, on a whim, I searched to see if there were any sanctioned games in or around Rehoboth. I saw Anna Delapo had a game close to where I live on Mondays and Wednesdays. So I contacted her and have been playing regularly since July. Then, through Anna, I found out about a game on Thursdays in Ocean View run by Donna Heckscher. So I have been playing in Donna’s game since August.

Amazingly, I have earned more than 26 master points in the few months since I resumed playing in sanctioned games in July. That’s almost as many master points I earned playing with my mother over a period of several years.

I enjoy playing duplicate bridge immensely. I plan on playing as often as I can in future.