What a wild month we have had in Unit 503 and what an amazing few weeks are ahead of us! Before I highlight how spectacular our events were in February let’s talk about the big news. We are returning to face-to-face bridge. To commemorate the return to the Palo Alto Bridge Center (PABC) we are offering the following promotions in the month of March:
· March 7-13 FREE bridge for everyone!
· March 14-20 $6 bridge
· March 21-27 Royal STAC for the cost of online bridge ($6)
o Earn 25% Gold, 25% Silver, 25% Red, and 25% Black points
Please pre-register for games whenever possible. Masks are optional, but we do ask that all players be vaccinated and boosted, if eligible. We will feature daily face-to-face games at 10:30 each day Monday thru Saturday, except Tuesdays where the games will be at 10:45 to facilitate Kathy Harper’s classes. All the morning games will feature coffee, tea and snacks. We will also have face-to-face games at 6:45PM Wednesday and 7:00PM Friday nights.
February was highlighted by the Unit hosting three major events: the PABC hosted a face-to-face Non-Life-Master (NLM) sectional, the District 21 Grand National Teams, and online we continued our “celebrity” bridge lessons with a second class by Gavin Wolpert. I want to highlight one of those events:
The NLM Sectional was a huge success under the leadership of Liz Koh and Dianne Giancarlo. We had 53 tables in total and 117 players. I am thrilled that we had 6 newcomer tables (for players with less than 5 masterpoints) on Saturday morning, to which we owe their teacher, Kathy Harper, a huge amount of thanks. I would be remiss if I did not give a shout out to Will Watson who was stellar as he managed the chaos of newcomers and those of us who forgot how to play in person after two years. Ten players earned Masterpoints for the first time and at least one or two people qualified for Life Master as a result of the tournament. The Unit also wants to thank all the authors, organizations and mentors who donated over $2,500 in goods/services to the raffle. (See the picture below featuring Kathy Harper and all the newcomers).
Because of space/time constraints, I am not highlighting the GNT event or Gavin’s second lecture. What I will point out is that the celebrity lecture series continues on April 2. Sign-up to hear Robert Todd discuss “Is it forcing? How forcing is it?” Mr. Todd is an internationally renowned bridge author, teacher and championship level player.
I would also like to congratulate the following Unit 503 members who achieve a new ACBL Rank in February:
Junior Masters : Charles Krause
Section Masters: Susan W. Schofield
Regional Masters: Dede R. Huffman, Liz Koh, Therese Kristensen, Janet D. Tornow
NABC Masters: Shankar Iyer, David E. Leaver, Michelle Tai
Advance NABC Masters: Ming Sheeng, Yuri Yatskar
Life Masters: Eva Y. Cheung
Bronze Life Masters: Gary Sheerer, Cynthia Yock
Our Next Board Meeting is March 14th at 4pm. Please contact me if you would like to attend. It continues to be a Zoom event.
We are so excited to see everybody at the PABC. As always, if you have questions, comments or concerns I can be reached at merenbach@yahoo.com.
Best regards –
David
P.S. Now would be a great time to return any books you borrowed from the library before or during the pandemic. Or if you lost one you borrowed… you can donate a new or slightly used one.