July was a spectacular month at the Palo Alto Bridge Center (PABC) and August is shaping up to be something special as well.
I want to start by again thanking Gerry MacDonald and Marc Cervellino for their outstanding leadership of the Firecracker. Whether measured by participation, Non-Life-Master (NLM) engagement, quality of play, fun or finances the Firecracker was a sparkling success.
I also want to thank Stephanie Youngquist who organized Ed Barlow’s 90th birthday party. We had over 30 tables the day after the Firecracker to commemorate Ed’s birthday and while everybody there had fun, nobody seemed happier than Ed.
July also featured the return of the Saturday Samplers with Anna Ravenscroft and the return or Saturday face-to-face (F2F) bridge… see more below.
But enough about the past… let’s talk about August and beyond:
North American Pairs qualifying games are being played twice a month each day of the week during August. Check the club owner’s emails for specific dates of qualifying games, which award 50% red points. 216 members have qualified for the next level of the competition, check here to see if you have qualified already.
Unit 498 from San Mateo is hosting a sectional at the PABC on August 12th and 13th. The details can be found on their website.
August 18th – (Note the date change). Prepare for the All Western Silicon Valley Regional by participating in our second face-to-face warm-up swiss game which will have an NLM section. A Team game strategy lecture at 9:30 will be followed by a stratified Swiss game. Our June game was a huge success and we anticipate this one will be even better. The pregame lecture will focus more about the difference between playing team games and traditional master point pairs games.
There will be a Sectional Tournament at Clubs (STaC) held from August 21st to 27th. All F2F games will award Silver Masterpoints.
Our Free Lecture series is set for August 22nd at 9:30 featuring Frank Smoot! Frank’s topic will be the “Opener’s Rebid” including strong shapely rebids, raising responder with only 3-card support & off-shape 1NT rebids. The game following at 10:45 will be part of the STaC and will feature silver points and a NLM section.
Saturday Bridge has returned! Saturday games will be held monthly at 1:00 PM following Anna Ravenscroft’s Saturday Sampler lesson. One need not participate in one to take part in the other. A special 0-20 masterpoint section will be held if there are enough registrants. There is a STaC eligible game on August 26th which follows the Sampler. The Saturday game will both be held again September 23rd.
District 21 is hosting the All Western Regional from August 29th to September 4th. Win Gold points and Norther California’s biggest fall event. Learn more.
Kathy Harper’s in-person classes: “Beginning Bridge”, “Deadly Defense”, and “Supervised Play” return in September. Find the details of Kathy’s classes and all our educational offerings on the PABC site.
The Celebrity Lecture Series returns September 23rd & September 30th featuring Adam Parish. Adam is AMAZING… sign up here.
The next Unit 503 Open + NLM Sectional is October 6th – 8th.
On behalf of the Unit 503 membership, I would like to congratulate all Unit 503 members who achieved a new ACBL Rank in July:
Junior Masters: Sandra Chen, Kavi Gollamudi, Carla Hindie, Anna Ivanovskaya
Life Master: Hilary Charlton
That’s it. I hope I didn’t miss anything… in case I did, keep reading the emails from the Unit and check the website for coming events.
If you have questions, comments or concerns, I can be reached at merenbach@yahoo.com.
See you at the tables –
David
P.S. If you know someone who is not a member of Unit 503, but who plays often at the PABC and would enjoy this newsletter please feel free to forward it.
P.P.S. You can also find us of Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PABC503