Liz Koh

Liz Koh

Now that summer is nearing, we hope to see you at our largest tournament, the Firecracker, an Open Sectional & NLM Regional, held July 10-15.  NLM players can earn gold/red points, and Open sectional players earn silver.  Firecracker

Summer months will also bring the North American Pairs (NAP) club-qualifying games at the Bridge Center where you can win red and black points.  Come and play at our daily Monday – Saturday club games at the Bridge Center PABC club games.  We are trying to revive our Wednesday 10:30AM club game.  If you have not played in-person bridge in a while, please join us!  Sign up: Unit503 SignUp

Join us at our monthly Swiss teams game event, next held on Monday, June 10 at 11:30AM, where the boards are already shuffled and you can get hand records of the game!  If you need help for a partner, or to be matched with another pair, let us know.  11 teams played on May 13 – congrats to the winning team: Jack Verson – Lynn Yokel – Clark Millikan – Arif Janjua.

It would be lovely to see many of you at the Bridge Center on Thursday, June 13 to celebrate John Schwartz’s 90th birthday.  Sign up: Unit503 SignUp

Thank you to our tournament Chairs Gerry MacDonald and Irene Hashfield and their volunteers for running our recent Open & NLM Sectional on May 16-19.

  • Congrats to the 196 players who won 700 silver masterpoints!

  • 76% of tournament participants won silver points!

  • H Paul Davis was the top masterpoint Palo Alto Unit winner with 11mps.

  • 11 people played all 8 events in the tournament.

Many of you participated in the Royal STaC club games at the Bridge Center in the week of May 6-10 winning gold/red/silver/black masterpoints.  Congrats to our Unit’s top winner Ron Powell winning 19mps.  Royal STaC May

Thank you to Pete Moulds for agreeing to be our new Marketing Chair.  We welcome everyone to get involved in our bridge community.  Volunteer positions are open for the marketing and publicity committee, coordinating our free lecture series, and help organize a bridge tournament.  If you are interested, please contact either our Volunteer Chair, Gerry MacDonald (geraldinem@aol.com), or myself.

A reminder that we have another valuable resource at the Bridge Center – our Library – which is well maintained by our dedicated volunteers, Valerie Baldwin, Anne Gregor and Josephine Ventura.  An index of all the books is available on our website.  The check-out system requires the borrower to fill out a slip.  For those who had not completed these slips, please return the books you have borrowed.

PABC Library

Thanks to Kathy Wheeler for organizing Barbara Seagram’s webinar lecture on ‘Opening Leads’ on May 11 which was very popular with many of our players.  Stay tuned for future Celebrity Lectures during the year!

Congrats to our Susan Zhang and her team – Daniel Korbel, Janice Molson, Sylvia Shi, Eddie Wold – for winning the 2024 US Bridge Championships last month held in Schaumburg, IL.  They earned the right to represent the US in the Mixed Team Championship at the USBF World Bridge Games this October in Buenos Aires.  USBF

Highlighting some upcoming events for you:

  • Monthly Swiss Team club games at the Bridge Center: upcoming Mondays, June 10, July 1, August 12 at 11:30AM.  Swiss Team games  Sign up: Unit503 SignUp

  • NAP qualifying club games at the Bridge Center: win 50% red and 50% black points in a NAP qualifying club game this summer.  Sign up: Unit503 SignUp

  • John Schwartz’s 90th birthday celebration at the Bridge Center: on Thursday, June 13 at 10:30AM – come and help us celebrate our beloved club director and Unit Board director John’s milestone!

  • Palo Alto Unit Firecracker Open Sectional & Non Life Master Regional at the Bridge Center: Open players win silver points while NLMs win gold/red points during five days onWednesday, July 10 – Sunday, July 14.  Firecracker

  • Kathy Harper’s summer classes at the Bridge Center: Bridge classes

  • Silicon Valley Youth Bridge (SiVY): Father’s Day/family game event, Summer Camp, and Casual Fridays for youth players at the Bridge Center; also check out their Summer programs: SiVY website

Newer Players: we have novice/0-50 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 club game environment.  Sign up: Unit503 SignUp

A reminder we have a Mentor Program where we match aspiring players with more advanced players to encourage our Unit’s newer and less experienced players to develop their skills and increase their enjoyment of the game.  To apply as a mentee or to volunteer as a mentor, please contact our coordinator Sid Chen: Unit 503 Mentor Program

Some sad news: Jim Hlavka passed away recently.  He was a frequent club player, and had volunteered as mentor for our Mentor Program.  He will be sorely missed.

Congrats to the following Palo Alto Unit 503 members who achieved a new ACBL Rank in May:

Junior Master: Keith Kitani, Carol Mei.

Club Master: Bill Chow, Yuchen Jiang, Jennifer Lu.

Life Master: Gretchen Wyatt.

Silver Life Master: Reuben Israel, Donna Raynor.

Diamond Life Master: Edward Zuckerberg.

Emerald Life Master: Ron Powell.

A very warm welcome to our new Palo Alto Unit 503 members: Stanley Cai, Barbara Castro, Anantha Jain, Mangalam Jain.

Liz Koh

lizkoh4bridge@gmail.com

Palo Alto Unit 503 website

PABC Unit 503 Facebook

P.S.  Feel free to forward this to others who play at PABC but who are not members of Unit 503.

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