I had not played in a Regional since 2017 and was not planning on playing in the Finger Lakes Regional this past August as I had really scaled back on my playing. In April of this year I got a call from an ex co-worker that now lives in Virginia, who I had introduced to Duplicate back in the 1990’s – guess you could say he was my protégé. He was wondering if I would be interested in playing the Finger Lakes Regional because he was coming up this way for a couple days anyways. I told him that I was not “tournament sharp” but if he wanted to do it I would commit to two days. So I started ramping up my local bridge dates to get more practice and we spent time via email discussing our convention card and treatments. Jumping to the end of the story, we had the good fortune of finishing first overall in the Mid Flight our first day and missed by three points repeating the following day. It certainly exceeded my expectations!
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Jack & Dave Willgruber – Life Master
Written by Jack WillgruberBridge has always been a family affair for my brother Dave and me. Over 50 years ago, our parents would invite some of their friends over for a Saturday evening of drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and some friendly contract bridge. As the evening wore on, the cigar smoke got more pungent, the hand post mortems intensified, and the adults became much less focused on how many snacks us kids were stealing from the table.
My mom learned early on raising 7 kids (6 of us being boys), that it was better to teach us games rather than leave us to our own devices, which would usually lead to some sort of mischief or household destruction. So, my Mom bought a Charles Goren bridge bidding tablecloth and soon was conducting bridge lessons for her card playing children. That was it. We were hooked. For the next 20+ years or so contract bridge became the family card game of choice and was good enough for my brother Dave and me until we started to get a more competitive itch that needed to be scratched.
So, sometime in the late 1990’s Dave and I made our first foray into the duplicate bridge world at the Raffles Bridge Club off City Line Avenue. For the past 20+ years, Dave and I have not gotten to play as much bridge as we would have liked (due to work and life commitments), but we kept at it and played enough over the years to slowly but steadily accumulate masterpoints.
Fast-forward to this year when Dave and I qualified for the Flight C GNT in Chicago with our long-time teammates Jeff & Lou. Entering the tournament, Dave had over 290 master points but I had only 277.67 points. That said, by making it to the semi-finals of our Flight C GNT tournament, we ended up receiving 22.5 masterpoints. That meant I just made the Life Master ranking by a fraction of a point! Whew!!!! But even more gratifying was to be able to cross that Life Master ranking threshold at the same time as my brother Dave. Our Mom & Dad died a year and a half ago, but somehow I felt them both with Dave and me while we played in Chicago.
The picture shown is of Dave and me in front of Buckingham Fountain on the shores of Lake Michigan. As I said, bridge has always been a family affair to me.
Roger Woodin – Platinum Life Master
If I may, I’d like to go back to the beginning 1969 at Virginia Tech. in Blacksburg VA. I was walking down a dorm hall when I peeked in an open dorm room where 4 guys had 1 suitcase standing on end and another on top playing a card game. Being from New York but going to college in Virginia, I said “what are y’all doing?” They responded, playing bridge, whereupon I responded “may I watch” and they said yes. It wasn’t long before I asked “can I join” and again they said yes, and again it wasn’t long before the game spilled out into the floor study lounge and became almost a 24 hr game.
We had a small duplicate game at the student union and played against some professors. One was a math prof., Dick Barnett. I basically had 3 partners Jim Adkins and I played S. A. Mark Bregman Precision Jannerstan style and K-S with Bill Covey. We would travel to Pearisburg and play against a Congressman, Jeff Stafford or travel to Roanoke and play against The Smoots.
We decided to go to Richmond to play in a sectional, played against Kit Woolsey and Steve Robinson, I cashed 2 aces against a slam and Kit turned to me and said nice defense kid but alas we didn’t win a match, and drove back to Tech with our tails between our legs… but not deterred.
I moved back to Delmar NY, was married, and eventually had 3 wonderful daughters. I worked long hard hours but played some bridge when I could. My wife Joan was understanding, well at least I think she was. I had some good partners there Albert Ross, Tony Prindle and Rhoda Kratenstein to name a few. I also had the privilege, at the Fireside Tavern over some white wine and popcorn or pizza, of listening to Lynne Deas as she held court. She truly was a class person.
Eventually I moved to Rochester (my wife had passed away too early) to be closer to my daughter Ashley. I searched out the local games. The directors Cheryl and Duncan Doug, and Bruce were very welcoming. I have played with many players from Rochester and won’t list them all for fear of leaving someone out (after all I still see most of them except for Doug Ross). All the people in RABA, Unit 112, and District 4 over the past 9 years have been exceptional in providing a great bridge experience. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Cole Seidl – Junior Master
I thought it would be fun to learn to play bridge in August of 2022, after learning about Buster Keaton’s lifelong commitment to the game. I tried to teach myself, which did not go well. And so I sought out a teacher and was eventually led to Nick Nelson via Mary Miller. I attended his classes and searched for a partner, and played on BBO constantly. I had several people who were kind enough to let me drag them down for several in-person club games, and I took advantage of BBO’s daylong tournaments just to keep practicing.
I eventually found another novice player to play in club games with, who was a much faster learner than I was. The combination of regular online and semi-regular club games led to me logging on to MYACBL and being pleasantly surprised that I had advanced in rank.
Lianger Gong – Junior Master
I started to play the pair game in my club – the Bridge Studio of Delaware in this January, where the manager, my partners and the members all help me to achieve my bridge goal – happiness in my life journey.
My playing bridge history went back to the early 1980s since I was a graduate student in Beijing, China. My roommate taught me to play the bridge with the precision bidding system. Four of us played together for a year during our lunch break time.
A few years ago I started to play online at Bridge Base Online. Now I live in Claymont, DE with my wife and enjoy to play in our club.
Below is a lesson for me missing a prospective grand slam:
The result： W (Mikaela) starts bidding 1S, N passes, E (Lianger) bids 2 D(2/1 Gaming Force), S passes; W bids 2S, N passes, E bids 3 D, All passes. N leads DJ; EW won 7 Tks.
The optimum: EW 5 NT. The biddings might be : 1s / 2D /; 2S / 4C (asking Aces) /; 4H (1 Ace) X 5C (asking Kings) /; 5H / 5NT /; all passes
The prospective game is 7D W if South leads anything except for a heart.
Gerry Kean – NABC Master
I learned to play bridge when I was 10 years old. I played social bridge through my high school and college years, and continued into my early adult life. I never played duplicate. I then stopped playing for many years, but always kept up with the bridge columns. After I retired in 2011, a friend asked me to substitute for him at a club in center city Philadelphia. I typically played one day a week, then switched clubs to the Jenkintown club. I moved to the King of Prussia arwea and also play at the Valley Forge club , but still only one day a week on average.
I have played in regional tournaments on 4 occasions, but only one day of the tournament.