| Exciting news! New events at Palo Alto Bridge this month: Swiss Teams Boot Camp for newer and intermediate players; Celebrity Seminars by Michael Berkowitz; earn silver points during STaC week. Our members did well at recent national, regional and sectional tournaments.
Upcoming events for you at Palo Alto Bridge Center:
Attached is a 1-pager current list of planned events for the year, with more to come. |
| Please attend the Special Palo Alto Unit Membership meeting on Tuesday, August 12 at 10:30AM to vote upon our Board’s proposed amendments to the Unit’s Bylaws. Why not then stay and play in our regular Tuesday club game at 10:45AM? The game requires: SignUp. |
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| Team games! Calling newer and intermediate players! You should play team games – as they are a lot of fun and could help you earn those masterpoints needed for your next ACBL rank. Palo Alto Bridge is proud to offer a freeSwiss Teams Boot Camp! Get the tools you need to play team games, featuring award-winning teacher Phil Abrahamson on Wednesdays, August 13 and 20 at 10:30AM – please sign up online: Boot Camp |
| Palo Alto Bridge offers monthly Swiss teams games for you to practice in a relaxed atmosphere. Next team club game is on Monday, August 11 at 11:30AM, where the boards are already shuffled with hand records. If you need a partner, or help to be matched with another pair, let us know. Swiss Team games SignUp
At last month’s game on July 21 – congrats to the winning team:Edward Barlow – Ronald Powell – David Helmbold – Leila Sink. Honorable mention of the top strat C team: Joanne Matthews – Adolph Rosekrans – Ping Chen – Stuart Whannel. |
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| Our next celebrity lecturer Michael Berkowitz is offering two seminars on an important topic about hand evaluation: “Do I Play or Defend? How do Experts think through these decisions!” on August 16 and 23 via Zoom. Register Berkowitz seminars |
| STaC at Palo Alto Bridge
You can earn 100% silver points at our regular club games at Palo Alto Bridge during (Sectional Tournament at Clubs) STaC week of Monday August 18 – Friday August 22: SignUp |
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| Palo Alto Bridge Center will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year at a special event club game on Tuesday, September 30 at 10:45AM – Save the Date! Palo Alto Unit’s first dedicated bridge facility, the Bridge Center, opened in 1975 at Elwell Court in Palo Alto. Come and join us to celebrate this milestone and share your Bridge Center stories. |
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| Recent highlights:
Plenty of congratulations to Mid Year 2025’s top leaders of the Ace of Clubs and Mini-McKenneymasterpoints races (attached list). The Ace of Clubs race recognizes the top masterpoint earners in F2F club games only. The Mini-McKenney race tracks masterpoints earned in club games, sectionals, regionals, nationals, etc.
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| Our second Alan Cummings Free Lecture was given by Frank Smoot on July 17 about Suit Preference Signals (handouts on our website: Lecture Series). 45 players attended the lecture.
Thank-you to Stephanie Youngquist for organizing the lecture; and PBEF(Peninsula Bridge Education Foundation) for funding the lecture as well as the subsequent club game promotion ($4.99 for 499er game section). |
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| Many Palo Alto Bridge players did well in several key important tournaments in July: |
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| Thank YOU all for pre-registering and playing at Palo Alto Bridge’s annual super Firecrackertournament July 9-13 held only at the Bridge Center. The Open Sectional and Non-Life Master Regional tournament was well attended and enormously successful. We welcome a wide variety of players: for some, this was practice for the summer nationals NABC; for others, this was their first bridge tournament!; some successful matches at the Partnership Desk; some celebrated their milestone birthday.
A huge thank-you to tournament co-chairs, Marc Cervellino and Gerry MacDonald, and their team of volunteers: Allen Simon, Liz Koh, Li Zhang, Jay Wang, Dana Shelley, Phil Abrahamson, Judy Huckabay, David Merenbach, Jim Miller, H. Paul Davis, Gloria Halliday, Rob Boucher, Dianne Giancarlo, Debbie Carey, Brenda Hatton, Jian Fang, Ilya Sherman, Mike Wyman, Stephanie Youngquist, Steve Cheng. Check out our Facebook page for more photos!
Congrats to the following Palo Alto Bridge players winning the most masterpoints: NLM Regional (earning gold and red): Firecracker NLM results
Open Sectional (earning silver): Firecracker Open results
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| SiVY and Youth Bridge
Great attendance at the second annual SiVY vs. CBE ‘Battle of the Bay’ tournament on July 5 held at Palo Alto Bridge Center. SiVY won this year; CBE won last year. CBE (Center for Bridge Education) is the youth bridge organization in San Francisco. This is a great event for kids from both bridge organizations to meet each other and enjoy some friendly competition. |
Congrats to Palo Alto Bridge members and friends who represented the USA at the World Youth Teams Championships in Italy in July 12-17, and took home 2nd place finishes: results and photos in WBF Youth Championship bulletin
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Congrats to the Palo Alto Bridge who won big at the recent summer’s NABC in Philadelphia: Philadelphia NABC results
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| Kevin Rosenberg and his team won the Spingold KO Teams (biggest event of the NABC) – in the finals, Kevin faced off against his father Michael Rosenberg! Mukund Thapa and his team won the 10K Mixed Swiss Teams. Photos on pages 1 and 2 in the bulletin: NABC Bulletin 8/4 |
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| Wonderful attendance by SiVY players at the Youth NABC.
Jayson Lee and Kate Lee won the Youth NABC pairs with a big scholarship. |
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| The 70% Club at Palo Alto Bridge
Frank Xie and Yu Chang (pictured) have appeared 4 times partnered together! Ed Barlow and Ron Powell have appeared for the 2nd time partnered together. Congrats to the 8 new players joining the 70% Club in July! Photo opportunity – please share your partnership photo with us! Listed below are the players who scored 70% and above at a Palo Alto Bridge club game in July. |
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| Need an accessory to wear for your next club game or tournament? You can purchase your own customized name badge with our colorful Palo Alto Bridge logo – order yours online for $14: Custom Name Badge Order
Thank-you to our volunteers: Stephanie Youngquist for organizing the orders – please welcome Rob Boucher for taking over this volunteer job. |
| Get involved in your community! Our events and activities are put together by our volunteers, and we want your help. Any little of your time would be appreciated! We need volunteers for marketing and publicity (photo-takers, storytellers, email blaster) and help organize a bridge tournament. Please contact either our Volunteer Chair, Gerry MacDonald(geraldinem@aol.com), or me. |
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| Newer Players: we have newcomer/0-49 masterpoint games at the Bridge Center on Tuesdays at 10:45AM and Wednesday evenings at 6:45PM. Gain experience and improve your game in a relaxed environment. SignUp |
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| Congrats to the following Palo Alto Unit 503 members who achieved a new ACBL Rank in July:
Junior Master: Gwen Havern, Jack Weingart. Club Master: Jeannie Lowry. Sectional Master: David Joffe. Regional Master: Diane Feldman. Silver Life Master: Jim Hulseman. Gold Life Master: Charles Riffle, Yuri Yatskar.
A very warm welcome to our new Palo Alto Unit 503 members:
P.S. Feel free to forward this to others who play at Palo Alto Bridge but who are not members of Unit 503. |
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Play, Laugh & Learn!
Liz Koh |