New Life Masters:
Three members of the same team became Life
Masters yesterday by winning Bracket 13 of the
Bracketed Knockouts. Don Doolittle of Burlingame
CA was the first to get his gold card — he got the
necessary points in the semifinal.
Teammates were
Joan and Gerry Piaget of San Jose CA got the
points they needed in the final. Doolittle’s partner,
Dan Stowell of Hillsboro CA, is hoping to earn his
gold card before the week is out.
Doolittle made the grade in only two years.
“I’ve been interested in bridge all my life, but I
couldn’t get around to duplicate until I retired after
30 years. I remember watching bridge games at
lunch, and I couldn’t figure out where they were
finding the bids they were making.”
Doolittle needed 13 points when he came to
Reno, but he already has won well more than twice
that many. “And I’m not done yet,” he said. Stowell
is not new to bridge either – over the years he
played rubber bridge with a group of his buddies.
The Piagets played bridge in college but
dropped out for many years.
One day they saw an
advertisement for a sectional tournament and they
decided to try it. They were consumed with fear and
trepidation, but they gave it a go. They were
pleased with .18 masterpoints they won. And now
three years later they’re Life Masters.
Busaba Williams of Honolulu is having a big
week. Earlier she passed the test and became a
certified club director. Yesterday her team won the
first two rounds of a Compact Knockout event, and
that was enough to earn her a gold card.
“It was my fifth try,” she said. “But I finally
made it with the help of my partner, Luke Han of
Kaneohe and Lester and Mitzi Kodama of
Honolulu.”
When she goes home, she is eager to assist at
club games for the experience in directing. She also
is on the committee for the 2006 Fall North
American Championships. She serves as club and
tournament manager for Unit 470.
Orban Reich of Reno finished tied for third in
the Morning Bracketed Knockouts, playing with
Evelyn Dunlop. That was worth 8.93 gold, and he
needed only 8.86, so he too is a Life Master. His
other teammates were Art Quey and Richard
Douglas
Roberta Abel of Newport Beach CA and Elinor Mattson of Huntington Beach CA wanted to play in the.
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Bracketed Knockouts, so they went to the Partnership Desk. They found Nancy Anderson of and Mary Alice Gordon of Fort Worth TX. Abel needed 14.46 points, and she got them with her new teammates She finished third in Bracket 6, good for 15.30 points.
Ann Garrett of Discovery Bay CA went over the top in the Tuesday evening Swiss Teams. Her partner was her husband Carl, and their teammates were Robert and Joanne Wegsten of San Francisco.
Paul Levine of San Carlos CA became a Life Master yesterday.
Dorothy Bracchi got her necessary points in the Compact Knockouts Consolation, Bracket 14.
Friday and Saturday).
“Hat Ladies” Coleen Palmer, of Abilene TX,
and Bette Byrd, of Sweetwater TX, display their
hat pins. The duo, partners for 18 years, have
collected a pin for every city in
which they have played.
Attendance record
is going to fall
Reno 2004 looks like a sure bet to become the
biggest Spring North American Championship in
history. The present record was set in Reno six
years ago – 13,996 tables.
With four days to go, the
total here is 9834 tables.
Yesterday there was a total of 1662.5 tables for the day.
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Kenny Scholes
tops 10,000
Kenny Scholes of Bellevue WA earned his
10,000th masterpoint here in Reno.
Scholes, the winner of several hundred regional contests, is a systems analyst for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
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“I’ve really enjoyed all the friends I’ve made
over the years. That’s the most important thing about the game,” he said.
Scholes also wanted to thank his wife, Sandy Jenkins, for her support.
‘Giant of bridge’
inspires Gerstman
One of the questions in the Trivia Quiz Contest
sponsored by the ACBL is: “In his latter years, this
giant of bridge concentrated on promoting world
peace.” The contest is part of the celebration of
Bridge Week in North America – March 18-28.
Many valuable prizes are being offered. Click here to enter contest.
Dan Gerstman was working out the answers to
the 10 problems when he came to No.6, the one
about world peace. Gerstman has very strong antiwar
feelings, and he was very interested in who this
giant of bridge who shared his views might be.
He
was surprised to discover that it was Ely
Culbertson, a member of the ACBL Hall of Fame,
a top-flight player back in the old days, and the
author of many authoritative bridge books.
Gerstman decided to find out more about this
man who was strong on world peace. He
discovered that Culbertson gave up bridge in his
later years to concentrate on his goal of achieving
world peace. He found out about this when he
managed to buy “The Strange Lives of One Man”,
Culbertson’s autobiography, on the Internet.
He was astounded when he opened the cover.
There was a dedication to Sofia Michailovna
saying, “Who, too, has lived and wondered. . .” And
there was Culbertson’s signature — written in
Russian — in February 1941.
New York is Next
ACBL President Bruce Reeve congratulates
the second-place pair in the NABC 49er Pairs,
Kay and Cary Jennings of Fort Worth TX.
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