Minnesota Bridge

TWO Smiles!

 

 

TWO reasons to smile today!  

First, this news from Sue Jackson as to how you can help our bridge community:

AmazonSmile has donated over $100 million to charities thanks to customers shopping at smile.amazon.com.

To celebrate, AmazonSmile is donating 5% (ten times the usual amount!!) to Minnesota Bridge Education when you shop at smile.amazon.com/ch/37-1745323 through Nov 2.

AmazoSmile #StartWithaSmile  

 

And.......  another great reason to smile is the Minnesota Autumn Sectional begins tomorrow!  Head to 526 Inwood Avenue N, Oakdale, the Oak Marsh Golf Club and enjoy a great THREE days of sectional competition!

The flyer is on the left; we look forward to seeing you there with a big SMILE!

Minnesota Autumn Sectional - November 1-3

 

The Minnesota Autumn Sectional will be here before you know it!  Enjoy a great schedule of events Thursday through Saturday in a fine venue.  Loads of great eating spots nearby to visit with friends and go over the hands.

Start planning your games now - and - see you soon in Oakdale!

The details for the sectional and flyer are here.

Non Functioning Links to Clubs

Many of you have contacted me to let me know that the links at MN Bridge for clubs are not functioning.  Thank you for letting me know.

I will search for solutions and get this repaired as soon as I am able.  BUT - I just arrived at the Nebraska Regional and may not be able to get this accomplished immediately!

In the meantime, if you go to this link at ACBL, you can search for your club and get results and other club information there.

Thank you for your forbearance; we hope for all links to be up and running as soon as possible!

 

Carol Cummings - 1938-2018

 

Sharing the sad news that we have lost a long time member of our Minnesota bridge community remains a most difficult and painful task for me.  Today I must let Carol Cummings' many friends, partners and teammates in our bridge world know that on Friday, October 19th, Carol was reunited with her beloved John.

Carol's son, Bill, shared that Carol passed away at the Rochester Methodist Hospital after a several week battle with the complications of multiple myeloma.

As you can see above, Carol always had a smile on her face, always was a welcome addition as a partner, a teammate - and yes, as an opponent.  For over fifty years, she and John were a fearsome duo at the bridge table. And Carol continued her winning ways with son Bill and other partners, like Greg Caucutt, so frequently doing well.

Sue Greenberg shared these thoughts with us about Carol:

Carol will be sorely missed at Rochester bridge tables.  Besides being a genuinely nice person, she always had time to listen, smile, and be involved.  Her acumen at the bridge table was top-notch, but she was always patient and kind with beginner/intermediate players. 

 

Carol personified what it means to be a world-class player - always dressed for the occasion and was ready to compete. Yet, she always took time to socialize with all, and, most importantly, Carol enjoyed herself and helped others to have fun, too!

 

        Sue Greenberg, Rochester DBC Club Manager

 

Bill shares his mother's obituary with us here.  Such a wonderful legacy of family, faith, work in her community - and - of course - success and joy in the bridge world.  

Our deepest condolences to Bill and all of Carol's family.

 

 

A few more photos of this special lady.  Carol; we are going to miss you so very much.

 

 

 

Two mom and son duos at the Gopher Regional!  Audrey & Brian Weilke; Bill and Carol.

 

 

 

Carol and Bill relaxing after a successful session.

 

District 14 NAP Finals - 2018-2019

 

 

This past weekend, players from Flights A, B and C competed at the Edina Senior Center to become one of the (3 in Flight A, 4 in Flights B and C) to represent District 14 at the Spring NABC in Memphis.

While most winners were Twin Citians, we did have some qualifiers from other locales. In the fledgling Northfield Club, which meets twice per month, we had C qualifiers and also our first place C winners were from Avon, just outside of St. Cloud.  We also had a St. Cloud qualifier in Flight A.  Two of our B qualifiers hoofed it to Edina from Omaha, Nebraska, with 1 B qualifier from Morehead and another from Preston, outside of Rochester.

Another highlight was that our U of MN student pair qualified second place in C!

Flight A had 7.5 tables; Flight B had 8 tables and an impressive 11.5 tables showed up for Flight C!

Something your webmaster has never seen before occurred in Flight A. A District 14 player from Iowa was perusing the results in Flight A, and noticed an anomaly in the scoring.  He contacted a friend about it, and the friend (one of our players) realized that the score could not be accurate.  He got in touch with our fine Tournament Director, Tony Ames, and places were adjusted.  Because of the correction, places 2, 3 and 4 were separated by a total of .14 of a masterpoint!

While this surely was a quirk, we are glad that the proper scores were posted.

Here are results:  Flight A - Flight B - Flight C.  And those who will be representing our District in each flight are as below.

Flight A

Ron DeHarpporte - Peg Waller

Terry Beckman - John Koch

Richard Lawson - Andy Caranicas

 

Flight B

 Diane Henson - Larry Henson

Judy Hansen - Grant Broadwine

Gary Knippenberg - Erwin Heisler

Keith Thompson - Gerald Burdeski 

 

Flight C 

James Schnepf - Connie Nelson

 Sean McNally - Morgan Johnstone

Rodney Anderson - Martin Mueller

James Finholt - David Finholt

 

Big thanks to both Diane Henson (winner, winner!) and coordinator for District 14 NAP - and of course to Tony Ames, our head director and Scott Smith directing Flight C.

Additional thanks to Sue Jackson for working with Diane for pre-event publicity.  Sue also managed the playing site, ably assisted by Sandy Nelson for session goodies.  Ann House helped, too, with the luncheon on Sunday, as did Diane and her husband, Larry.

Photos of some of our qualifiers below - then more of our competitors below the line.  Apologies for not getting shots of every qualifier - but - we wish you all the best in Memphis!

 

 

 

 

 

Collegiate Bridge in Minnesota

 

 

Minnesota is doing a fine job of growing our junior bridge base!  And Stephanie Threlkeld, the ACBL Education and Communications Manager, does a superb job aiding our collegiate players.  (Thank  you, Stephanie!)

The ACBL features a number of special online tournaments. Prizes and masterpoints can be won - along with honors, of course!  As you can see, a number of our collegiate Minnesotan competitors did well.

Ben Kristensen, featured above with his dad, Curt achieved over 66% and was fourth overall.  (As you may well imagine, being a college student, Ben is a bit more grown up now - not to mention already a competitor on the world stage!)

Congrats to all our college players who placed. Good luck next time to everyone - and remember; you have to enter to win!

Big thanks, too, to all of our other teachers, professors and volunteers who are doing a superb job at teaching and training the next generation of bridge stars!

 

October 1st Special Tournament Results!

 

Congratulations! The following have all won Amazon Gift Cards!

• 1^st place, $50 GC –  sunwind from University of Chicago
• 2^nd place, $30 GC –  ardaak47 from Fanshawe College
• 3^rd place, $20 GC –  sspitze from University of Georgia
• Random drawing winner, $25 GC – fox326 from Stanford

 

Encourage your friends to play in the dailies, and don’t forget, if you attend a school without a student bridge club or team and would like help getting one started, we can help! Also, if you are no longer enrolled in a college undergrad or graduate program, or have changed schools, please let us know.

 

The following won Masterpoints in Monday’s tournament:

 

Name	College	Score (%)	Rank	Points
sunwind	U of Chicago	72.10	1	0.90
ardaak47	Fanshawe College	68.77	2	0.63
sspitze	U of Georgia	67.12	3	0.45
benjk	U of Minnesota - Duluth	66.36	4	0.32
hakanberk	U of Maryland College Park	65.19	5	0.18
RobertLii	UC Berkeley	64.55	6	0.15
Jacob04	U of Western Ontario	63.71	7	0.13
coolbeans	U of Florida	61.98	8	0.11
aj111	Purdue University	61.87	9	0.10
Ude_Osae	Columbia University	61.54	10	0.09
royalx	U of British Columbia	61.44	11	0.08
r168r	GA Tech	61.42	12	0.08
lsanderson	Georgetown University	60.81	13	0.07
Elyk25	Northwestern University	60.05	14	0.06
IHATEAPPLE	Fordham University	59.17	15	0.06
Funnel6262	GA Tech	59.11	16	0.06
fox326	Stanford	58.98	17	0.05
non_sapien	U of Iowa	58.58	18	0.05
stjacks	U of Wisconsin- Madison	58.57	19	0.05
acarl	Carleton College	58.56	20	0.05
emilyyblum	Cal State LA	58.39	21	0.04
schang4	Arizona State University	57.89	22	0.04
Sean9816	U of Minnesota	57.52	23	0.04
rajuroy	State U of NY Buffalo	57.17	24	0.04
roni57	U of Miami	57.09	25	0.04
moga321	U of Minnesota	56.98	26	0.03
cotondog	Harvard	56.38	27	0.03

 

 

Stephanie Threlkeld

Education and Communications Manager

 

North American Pairs District 14 Qualifying - October 6-7

 

Tomorrow is the day! Compete against your peers at the Edina Community Center on Saturday and Sunday - and - you and your partner might be among those earning funds to attend the 2019 NAP at the Memphis Spring NABC!

The flyer for the event can be found here.  Remember; you must have qualified for the event to compete.  And - registration starts early:  12PM through 12:50PM.

A super opportunity for all, irrespective of your experience level!

World Bridge Federation 2018 in Orlando

 

Though Steve Garner and Joe Grue have not enjoyed domiciles in Minnesota for some years now, most of us still think of both as our bridge heroes.  In Orlando during the World Championships, both Steve and Joe demonstrate that they are still on top of their game!

Big congratulations to Steve and his team for earning the gold medal in the Senior Teams!  Yet another feather in Steve's well feathered cap!

 

 

Joe Grue, with partner Brad Moss, earned silver in the Open Pairs. Another very distinguished accomplishment!

Applause for both of our home town guys; we could not be more proud!

Intermediate & Novice Regional - Results and Report

 

Some seem to think that the greatest mind game ever created - bridge - is on its last legs. It is true that in today's world, bridge is not the game that "everyone plays" as it was some decades ago.

But. If you think that people are giving up and ready to say "au revoir" to our game, you are sadly mistaken.  

 

 

Wonderful people, like Tournament Chair Amy Dutton, Partnership Chair Susan Sanger and other volunteers are bringing new life - and players - to our game!  

 

 

As you can see above, our I/N players are competing - and winning - and having a glorious time doing it! Surprised but elated by their victory, these players can't wait to show their trophies off to their grandkids!

 

 

Other players were also excited to win - and all had a marvelous time. In two days of play, the I/N Regional had 117 tables in play, and 140 people won masterpoints!

 

 

At the top of the list were Bernice Blaske and Thomas Botten.  They earned an impressive 12.66 masterpoints!  The full list of masterpoint winners is here; the results from the events are here.

 

 

As always, our thanks to Director in Charge Kim Hayward and Director Brian Weikle.  

 

 

And a huge "way to go" and thanks to all our I/N players who came to compete and enjoy!  Three of our players had never played duplicate before the regional!  Thanks for being brave and dipping your toes in the duplicate waters.

Well done, everyone! We look forward to seeing you at the clubs and more tournaments, appreciating and attempting to tame this incredible, fascinating game!

More shots of our competitors below - enjoy all!