Fall 2015 Pro-Am | bridgeclub

A Tournament of Smiles -- The Fall 2015 Pro-Am

The Common Game Begins on Fridays

The Pro-Am marked the start of using hands from The Common Game for our club play on Fridays. Shortly after play is finished, the results are available along with expert analysis of six of the particularly interesting hands. Our players can measure their results against results from 300 other clubs around the U.S. and Canada and can get hints on how they might have wanted to bid and play the hands. By entering your ACBL number in the signup area on the Common Game site, you can get the results emailed to you directly.

Partnerships came out of a random drawing. Above,Tim Clagett, at 93 our oldest player, draws Carole Vial as his Pro partner while Barb Clagett looks on and LaVonne Reed holds the basket containing slips with the names of the expert partners

At right, newcomer Anna Saddison drew Tom Kennedy as her partner. Behind Anna is another newcomer, Michelle Robbins, who, like Anna, is a student in Lynne Parker's Wednesday afternoon classes. Michelle was partnered with Betsy Howe.

Bridge competitions are usually an intense search for victory and masterpoints. Not our Oct.2 Pro-Am event, where the empasis was on fun and learning.

Of course, points were won -- top scorers Pandy Huff and Lee Culhane added 3.65 to their previous totals, LaVonne Reed and Juris Brants 2.74.

But the 30 amateurs -- with as many as 125 points and as few as zero -- took away something more valuable: lessons in bidding and play from their Pro partners.

For the day smiles frequently replaced the intense grimaces that often mark conventional play.

(On hand to record those smiles was photographer Gilbert Robinson, of San Francisco, whose work appears on the home page. He is the brother-in-law of Jonathan Friendly. If you want an electronic copy of your photo, contact Jonathan -- jfriendly39@hotmail.com )

Pam Ziegel gets full marks for persuading so many of the club's top players to spend the afternoon as mentors to the less-experienced.

Credit for the snacks and the dusty chrysanthemums in their pumpkin vase goes to LaVonne and Gareth Reed.

Above, Tom Kennedy and first-time player Anna Saddison go over the conventions they would play during the tournament. Below, Linda Roberts discussed bidding styles with Carol Stroud.