More on Dr. John from Iowa!

Courtesy of Rich Newell, Rich has shared more stories and accomplishments about Dr. John.  Much to appreciate and digest in Rich's story about his partner and friend - and we can all learn from it!  Thanks, Rich; thanks Dr. John!!

 

What can I say about the lovable Dr. John Gustafson?  He is a fierce competitor and a thoroughly knowledgeable gentleman.  You are much better having him across the table from you than as your opponent, partly because when he knows you have a problem he sometimes gives you the friendly “Dr. John stare”, which is oddly annoying.  He likes to mull over the post-mortem and discuss where he (and his partner, matter of factly) both could have done better.  And, he loves to accumulate masterpoints.  One time at the club before the game started he took me aside and pointed out that he was on track to win something like 80% of the total available points at the club one month, and followed that up with a childish smile and chuckle – if that gives you any insight into how much he loved the game.

In an earlier article I celebrated his transition to online play and his rise to 20,000 masterpoints which featured testimonials from other Des Moines bridge players.  The point of this article is to let you know that despite the physical challenges that continue to increase at 97 years of age, the man just shows hardly any signs of slowing down.  He had an insignificant amount of cancer removed from his leg a few months ago, and his vision is bad enough that he no longer plans to drive his car and relies heavily upon a magnifying glass to read.  He told me several years ago that he probably only had a few years of bridge playing left because of his vision, and accordingly to that prognosis he should not be playing now but happily he still is.  He has always tried to stay in good shape, swimming regularly, and failing that he takes multiple long walks daily throughout the facility where he lives when he is able.   

 

Dr. John plays almost exclusively plays the 18-board ACBL tournaments anytime between 11am and 9pm.  He plays nearly daily with Pete Wityk and Bud Stowe, and he also has games with Toby White, Tracey Ball, and a single 7:15pm Tuesday game with yours truly.  In the summer when Toby was free of his teaching duties at Drake University and there was no in person club game to be had, he was playing almost daily with Dr. John as well.

Any who wouldn’t want this opportunity?  Let’s compare Dr. John’s BBO stats over the past two months with his last two months at the Des Moines club before COVID shut things down:

	Des Moines Club 1/13 – 3/16	BBO Online tournaments
Number of events played in	22	174
Number of “scratches”	16	132
% of “scratches”	72.7%	75.8%
Masterpoints won	45.09	121.67
Masterpoints per entry	2.05	0.70
Hands Played	About 550	3,106
Average Matchpoint Score	57.8%	56.4%

Obviously the face-to-face club has bigger-point games.  The best you can do in a BBO tourney is a 1.50 section award unless you are in the top 4.  I did notice at least one 1^st overall (4.00) and four 2^nd overall (3.00) games while scanning his 174 events, no easy feat in games that often have 200-500 pairs!

Two of those four 2^nd overall games happened on the same day – December 4^th – a 68.54% with Toby and a 70.20% Pete.  A third session that day with Bud resulted in 3^rd in section and 6.75 masterpoints for the day – an impressive haul.  I planned to write this article a couple days ago and this seemed a good a reason as any to celebrate.  So I congratulated him and this is what he had to say:

Thank you for everything.  My partners generally play better than I do.  When I don't make mistakes we usually do well. Today an error by me cost us two first overalls and one first in section.  But I only had one [error] in each of the big ones and my partners did not have any. I really enjoy playing online but I have some problems with it.  I have never played this much before or 72 hands a day like I do 2-3 times a week.

 

John

The same man who just won 6.75 in three sessions on BBO is well aware of his own shortcomings which kept it from being 4.00 + 4.00 + 1.50 = 9.50.

But the statistic that stands out to me is the number of hands played.  Online bridge can never truly supplant the face-to-face experience, but Dr. John is now playing online more than 5x as many hands as he used to play at the club.  I know he would regularly kibitz team matches on BBO, but since he started playing online, what can I say, he’s still got it and is around 20,450 masterpoints now!