No one has ever accused me of being a glass half full person, but given recent vaccine news, we might be more than half way through our time with no face-to-face bridge. Let’s hope. In the mean time, new options to enjoy the game from home are being rolled out frequently.
Below is news from the ACBL and our local units. I have also added some personal stories of bridge success.
ACBL Board Meeting Summary
The ACBL board held a full set of meetings last week.
Georgia Heth was elected for another year as ACBL president. Usually presidents serve a one year term, but the majority felt that she would provide consistent leadership during this unique period.
North American Pairs – The pairs that qualified in the Fall of 2019 for the 2020 NAP are now qualified for the NAP event to be held in March 2021 in St. Louis, or more likely on line. Amy Rhodes has information for District 24.
GNT – There will be an event next spring to determine qualifiers for the GNT to be held in July 2021. The event will likely be on line. Lee Lin is chair of the committee that is creating conditions.
District 24 is proud that Uday Ivatury was named ACBL Volunteer of the Year for all of his efforts to implement on line club bridge.
Membership numbers continue to decline during the epidemic. Management has put forward an aggressive plan for growth once we hit a normal world. We will create a new marketing face beginning with a new logo. You will see a preview the December bulletin.
2020 ACBL finances were good, but 2021 may depend on the status of hotel contracts for the NABCs.
The board adopted a new cleaner alert procedure. You will see it next year.
New events: BBO is almost ready to roll out Swiss Team scoring which should be a lot of fun for the virtual clubs and units.
The premier NAOBC teams starts this weekend and the pairs next weekend: https://nabc.acbl.org/naobc/
Cheating
Cheating remains the most discussed topic throughout our world. The ACBL needs to balance a harsh stance with due process. Please report incidents from ACBL events that may rise to the level of cheating to the director or the ACBL Recorder using this BBO Form. Discussions are under way with other bridge organizations to help counter cheating.
Online Bridge – How do you choose a Game?Online bridge is thriving. There are multiple types of games and many excellent teachers and clubs making novel use of technologies. If you wish to play in an ACBL-sanctioned game, you have a lot of options that can appear confusing. See the July Newsletterfor my take on the options.
There are many special event weeks, as well as gold and silver point events available. Clubs will be offering Swiss and more social events soon. Contact your club. .
DIstrict 24
News Ray Elias will continue to serve as NSBA and District 24 President Adam Parrish will become GNYBA president on Jan 1. Many thanks to Bonnie Gellas who served as president in 2020 after many years as an officer for the GNYBA.
2020 GNT
Our GNT event is finally over. Here are the winners:
Open Flight: Peter Trenka, Igor Savchenko, Giorgia Botto and Ahmed Soliman
Flight A; Igor Milman, Oleg Rubinchik. Albert Shekhter and Florin Neamtu
Flight B: Stefano Merlo, Christopher Moh, Jin Hu, Jordan Lampe and Robert Forster
Flight C: Aaron Liebhaber, Adam Siegel, Lee Lin and Frank Dinoff
See above for 2021 GNT and NAP plans
GNYBA Winter League
Thanks to the efforts of Katherine Todd and Lee Lin 30 teams are currently playing in the GNYBA Winter Teams. There are 5 weekly swiss matches and a KO to determine the winners that starts Dec 7. The event is “just for fun” and very popular.
See results: GNYBA LEAGUE RESULTSWe are planning a second league in January. Contact Lee or Katherine if interested.
Point RacesThe Barry Crane, Mini Mckenney’s and Ace of Clubs races are definitely active in 2020, although online play is becoming more important.
3 of the top 4 places in the Barry Crane race are currently held by GNYBA members Gilllian Miniter, Joe Grue and John Hurd. See RACES
You may be surprised at how well you are doing in the District 24 and two unit’s Mini McKenney Ace of Clubs and on line races. Check these by logging into to “My ACBL” on ACBL.org.
2021
Its obviously too early to predict tournament schedules for 2021, but hold Dec 26-Dec 30 for a possible GNYBA winter regional. The NSBA is developing contingency plans for next Fall.
Rank Changes Stories
We sent out a mail to players achieving recent rank changes to get their stories. See some below. Feel free to submit a story for the next newsletter. Congrats to all!
Peter Schaffer. I played a lot of “fraternity bridge” at Dartmouth College in the late 60s. It was very informal and usually accompanied by a keg of beer! Fast forward to the spring of 1993. I tried to swing a golf club and fell over. My multiple sclerosis had rendered it impossible for me to play golf anymore. Searching about for a way to engage my mind for a few hours a week, I decided to rediscover bridge. A friend who was an excellent player agreed to take me on as his partner in the duplicate game at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk and gave me homework assignments each week. Over the next couple of years, I managed to accumulate 3.65 ACBL master points. Unfortunately, my MS progressed and I lost the ability to physically hold playing cards. Enter COVID-19. Suddenly, I am able to play weekly games online with both the Maidstone Club and the Devon Yacht Club. It’s a godsend for a quadriplegic like myself. (If you are wondering, I use voice recognition software to do my typing!).
Chris Culp – Junior Master- I find the ACBL platform easy to use and active with a population of interesting and generally congenial people from all over the world. Bridge is a fraternity and a good one. I would like to play more duplicate bridge and play with multiple partners. I don’t know if there’s a junction where those like myself can go to find each other. Any guidance would be most appreciated.
Brooke Cohen – Life Master – Bridge started for me about ten years ago. It took a while to get enough courage to play duplicate. I came back slowly and started to take bridge a little more seriously, especially after my daughter left for college in 2016. The ultimate goal of achieving a 500-point count and grasping that Life Master title seemed daunting and a world away, until a little over a year ago. I decided to set a goal for myself: I was going to become a Life Master before the end of 2020.
As I worked towards my goal, I not only gained greater knowledge of the game, but also met more people to play with and had outstanding instruction from some of the best pros in the world. I found myself traveling to Nationals, Regionals and Sectionals to get my pigmented points. I was loving it all! Connecting with so many people who share a common interest was great, I’m happy to say that this day has come, and I met my goal of Life Master a few months early. I know a lot more than I did, but I still have so much more to learn. I’m looking forward to future challenges, and now have my eye on the Bronze!
Barbara DeTurk – Club Master — I am so excited to become a club master! I started playing duplicate bridge in 2013, and found I had a lot to learn compared to our informal family games! Since the pandemic began I have been playing online and find that I am playing more frequently with greater success. I would have to say that online bridge has truly saved my sanity in these difficult times! I look forward to continuing to play with the Smithtown group online and participating in some of the online tournaments.
Ruth Fleishmann – Silver LM – Once I hit the road my bridge game really took off! I enjoyed going to many regionals and nationals ; 5-10 straight days of bridge helps your confidence and your game! I am grateful to my talented coach Mustafa Cem Tokay who is endlessly patient and a great inspiration.
Aileen MacGahan The online club games have enabled me to progress more rapidly than before. I have always played online, however it was difficult to get anything besides online points. The clubs that I attended were about 1 1/2 hours away in NYC, or 45 minutes away when I was on vacation in FL. I started playing in 2016, after retiring, using the ACBL website for learning and BBO for practice.
Bill Neaton – Regional Master -Any success I have in bridge is due to Honors Bridge Club. They offer an excellent curriculum, and their teachers are outstanding. Steven Petersell – Diamond LM – Much of my recent success has been in the world of online bridge at BBO. More specifically by playing Robot Duplicate. Not many know that last year (2019) I was the Robot Duplicate ACBL Rookie of the Year and also the District 24 Online Player of the Year. This year I am on track to repeat as District 24’s Online Player of the year and I have already surpassed my last year’s total. I am currently making history in this regard while holding on to my place in the Top 10 ACBL 2020 Online Masterpoint winners. I take my representation of our District very seriously because the game of bridge has been a huge and important part of my life these past more than 50 years.
Eva Steiner – Life Master – I started playing when I retired and played as much as I could, taking lessons and playing with pros whenever I had time to improve my skills.
Rica Tarnoff – Gold LM – It’s always exciting to reach a new level. Jacqui Mitchell has been my teacher for over 40 years so a good part of my success is due to her good teaching. I am proud to say that at least 90% of my points I have won at the club level. I would like to add that I hardly played bridge for 21 years as I was working .and have never like playing nights. Aren’t we lucky to have online bridge during these trying times. I think the ACBL has and is doing a wonderful job
Renee Wagenberg – Life Master I began to play bridge in college socially. I didn’t begin to play duplicate bridge again until I retired in 2005 and even then not on a regular basis. Although, in those days, life master was so far from my imagination. It wasn’t until the last three years that I had the goal to become a Life Master and even then I never thought it would happen. Of course, nobody thought we would be faced with a pandemic either. Prior to the pandemic, I played with friends in various LI clubs and tournaments and enjoyed earning gold and red points. During the pandemic, I was playing bridge online almost every day and sometimes twice a day – As I continued to earn points, silver and gold points were still difficult to obtain, basically because tournaments were limited other than the Regional twice a year, unless you traveled. However, when the ACBL began to include online tournaments where you could earn silver points and then two week-ends for gold points – I saw that I may be able to achieve my Life Master, although it was close until the last day of the Virtual Gold Weekend the end of August that I did earn the additional gold point needed. And that’s my story!
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Like all of us, I very much look forward to the return of face to face bridge in our area and seeing you all again.
Thanks,
David Moss
ACBL District 24 Director
davidcmoss@aol.com