That hissing sound you hear is the ever shortening fuse to the Firecracker Sectionalwhich runs from July 6-10. The Firecracker is traditionally the largest sectional tournament in Northern California and it is held at our beautiful Palo Alto Bridge Center (PABC). The Firecracker will feature daily pair games, open games, limited games, bracketed team (Swiss) games, and beginner games. There will be food available to purchase each day and parking is free. Please contact one of our co-chairs Marc Cervellino or Gerry MacDonald if you can help by volunteering for even a small job.
May was a successful month at the PABC and for our members. Table counts continued to grow and the May Western Conference Sectional Tournament at Clubs (STaC) awarded more than 84 silver points to our members. At the Reno Nationals, Michael Rosenberg, a frequent player at the PABC and his partner won the Kay Platinum Pairs event. Michael is actually an official member of the San Jose unit, but we want to recognize his achievement here since he so often plays at the PABC. Separately, Vinita Gupta’s team took second place in the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams event. Congratulations to all the players who took home points in Reno and at the STaC.
In June, we will continue the celebrity bridge series on June 11th with Donna Compton. Donna’s topic will be “Using Dummy on Defense”. The feedback from the class she taught two years ago was outstanding, I look forward to learning from her again. Sign up here. (I told my wife that this is an important class for us, because the dummy across the table from her is her biggest handicap most times we play).
We have two Unit games this month. On June 12, we will have a pairs game at noon both at the PABC and online. On June 26, we will have another unit game, whether it will be Swiss or pairs is yet to be determined. Sign-up now for the in-person games. If you have questions you can contact Will at watsonbridge@gmail.com.
I would also like to congratulate the following Unit 503 members who achieved a new ACBL Rank in May:
Club Masters : Judith Steiner, Anthony Yano, Judy Yano
Advanced NABC Masters: Dianne Giancarlo
Life Masters: Jeanine Ardourel
Bronze Life Masters: Clive Surfleet
Ruby Life Masters: Kip Kado
Our Next Board Meeting is June 13th at 4pm. Please contact me if you would like the Zoom link to attend.
As always, if you have questions, comments or concerns I can be reached at merenbach@yahoo.com.
May the finesses ever be in your favor –
David
P.S. We love our celebrity lecturers and would like to supplement them with local speakers. To restart our local lecture series, we need a volunteer to reestablish the program. Contact me if you are willing to help.