Who'd like to play tonight? We're playing on BBO tonight at 7:15.
We'll play 12 boards in about 90 minutes, and meet in Zoom after the
game to go over the interesting hands.
I'll send an update this afternoon with a list of players and the link
to the Zoom "after party."
This week all of the "ACBL virtual club" games are raising money to
support the ACBL Charity program, providing funds for local projects in
each of the ACBL districts. It's a cool program!
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
BridgeMojo <http://bridgemojo.com>
Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers <http://otastro.org>
Mojo's Blog <http://mojo.whiteoaks.com>
I'm sending this to my players of all experience levels to open a
discussion about how things are likely to change in the coming months.
We're getting closer to summer ... bridge clubs are opening ... people
are getting shots. Jane and I are now fully vaccinated and starting to
make travel plans. Nothing exotic -- we're planning a 5-6 week US road
trip after Memorial Day, and a Hawaii trip at Labor Day. We have friends
and family scattered around the country who we'd like to visit. We love
long days in the car with music and countryside.
The San Marino Club (nee "Women's Club") is about to undergo a major
renovation. The local unit has a large quantity of "stuff" stored there,
and there's a project to evacuate and store as much as we feel needs to
be preserved. They're planning work parties on the 15th and 19th, but
I'm still awaiting details of if we can get into the building, when, and
how many people. (Want to help? Let me know.)
The renovation to the historic club building does preclude reopening the
San Marino Bridge Club for several months. :(
Meanwhile the Arcadia Bridge Center is open with a five game a week
schedule (reservations required). Tom Lill doesn't yet have a date for
opening the La Fetra club, and I haven't heard about plans to reopen
Downey Whittier.
This "temporary" project, the virtual bridge clubs, that began to keep
local bridge alive while we were all at home, is about to morph into
something different.
I expected the online club attendance to plummet when we were able to do
something better, but I believe I was mistaken. We love the ability to
join a bridge game with familiar faces without having to leave home and
find parking.
The virtual club system has to change, though. Right now it's enforcing
a walled garden that's based on 2019 club attendance. This
frozen-in-amber online club doesn't make sense as we get more distant
from that time, and the concept of a "home club" becomes ever more fluid.
One thing that has to change is the elevated masterpoint awards for the
virtual clubs, along with the awarding of black points that were
intended for in-person club play.
If the ACBL Virtual Clubs suddenly dropped the masterpoint awards to,
say 80% instead of the current 150%, and online play were strictly
"unpigmented" points, would anyone care? Some will, some won't. Open
players who are just looking for a good game are going to play in the
biggest games they can find. Newcomers will want to play with the
friends they meet and know from bridge class.
Online bridge was vigorous before 2020, but now it's massive.
Here's one thing I couldn't do in 2019: I could not in good conscience
recommend a place for my new bridge students to play and practice bridge
online. (Have you ever dropped in on a table of strangers in the Casual
side of BBO? The behavior is horrible!)
Now I can offer curated sanctioned games for bridge newcomers on BBO,
and I can offer excellent social games using RealBridge from the UK.
So what am I to do this summer? Is there a future for the Pasadena
Pomona Downey VBC?
I won't be teaching from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but players wanna play.
I've had offers from large virtual club pools in various parts of the
country to join with them while I'm away, but that doesn't appeal. There
are other directors who I can call on to help run games while I'm away.
Either way I believe that the game schedule should be trimmed come
Memorial Day. I want to find a way for the new players to get into the
"All-Western 99er Nite Club" and other available novice/intermediate
games. That has proven problematic for silly reasons.
When we make it back home, I want to start hunting for a Pasadena
location to open a part-time face-to-face teaching club with a few games
a week and a low-overhead location. I don't believe I'll have the
customer base I might have had when I was planning a full-time location
in Old Town. I'm expecting to have a hybrid in-person bridge club with
an online class and game schedule for new players: the Pasadena Bridge
Club and "BridgeMojo Online" or something like that.
Comments welcome!
Mojo
P.S. Teacher of the Year nominations close on April 15! Do you know a
great teacher? See page 33 of the April /Bridge Bulletin/. :)
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
BridgeMojo <http://bridgemojo.com>
Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers <http://otastro.org>
Mojo's Blog <http://mojo.whiteoaks.com>
Here's the list I'm expecting for the Newcomers game today:
Saturday 12:20 Newcomer Pairs
Name BBO Name BBO
Cindy Fang cindyhfang Glenn Jeanes gjeanes
Cory Brendel coryb Liza Billington lizabill
Dean Wiese doubledino Nancy Wiese vivalaslam
Drluce Uma Shrivastava umashriva
Helen Gaatz emmie10 Rebecca Thompson azilethomp
Jane Houston Jones jhjones52 Xiaoyan Zhou xyzzuz
Noel Jeffrey Silverharv Allen York puddlefolk
Mary Hayes svodette Betsy Michel bmichel62
Edna Ulasewicz ulasewicz Christine Atkinson cqatkinson
This game and the Open Pairs game at 12:30 will both be playing the same
hands. So there's a great opportunity after the game (about 3:00) to see
how the more experienced players bid and play the hands.
My favorite results listing (of the three available) is from The Common
Game. Results are posted there about 30 minutes after the end of the
game. All of our recent games are archived there, and you can find them
at this link:
http://tcgcloud.bridgefinesse.com/ClubWebHost/277210/
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
BridgeMojo <http://bridgemojo.com>
Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers <http://otastro.org>
Mojo's Blog <http://mojo.whiteoaks.com>
Tomorrow we're holding our Saturday afternoon game for newcomers, plus
the morning mini-lesson:
Bridge mini lesson (leading short suits in trump contracts) at 9:30:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83912578991?pwd=Y1R2UnJ1TFM2dVZzYmsyTDdzeFcydz09
Meeting ID: 839 1257 8991
Passcode: 7ntxx
If you like browsing through previous Saturday mini lessons, they're
available at this YouTube playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD5qT1hFf-OreW5_zBRHB3WwF6Ljdp-OS
Here's who I'm expecting so far for Saturday, drop me note if you'd like
to play! (I added a few "regulars" -- drop me a note if you can't make
it this week!)
Saturday 12:20 Newcomer Pairs
Name BBO Name BBO
Helen Gaatz emmie10 Rebecca Thompson azilethomp
Cindy Fang cindyhfang Glenn Jeanes gjeanes
Noel Jeffrey Silverharv Allen York puddlefolk
Jane Houston Jones jhjones52 Jean Wortman acesw1n
Mary Hayes svodette Betsy Michel bmichel62
Xiaoyan Zhou xyzzuz Julie Miller millerja
Edna Ulasewicz ulasewicz Christine Atkinson cqatkinson
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
BridgeMojo <http://bridgemojo.com>
Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers <http://otastro.org>
Mojo's Blog <http://mojo.whiteoaks.com>
We have a lovely game tonight! Would be great to have one more pair to
fill the half table. (Liza and Cory?)
Pairs 7:15 Newcomers
Name BBO Name BBO
Duke Gregory dukegreg Allen York puddlefolk
Jane Houston Jones jhjones52 Kathy Baghdassarian kathybag
Marie Hadaway mhadaway Beth Hollander blh2018
Glenn Jeanes gjeanes Julie Barbour julie bar
Ken Miller kgmbridge Julie Miller millerja
Dean Wiese doubledino Nancy Wiese vivalaslam
Edna Ulasewicz ulasewicz Christine Atkinson cqatkinson
Here's the link for the Zoom after party:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89727466652?pwd=aXhxWWQ3dkxlNmtrZUxjbFpzUGE4dz09
Meeting ID: 897 2746 6652
Passcode: 194771
See you all at the game!
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
BridgeMojo <http://bridgemojo.com>
Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers <http://otastro.org>
Mojo's Blog <http://mojo.whiteoaks.com>
We have our regular newcomer duplicate game tonight at 7:15, followed by
a Zoom "after party" to go over the interesting or problem hands!
Please let me know if you're coming to play! So far I've heard from:
Pairs 7:15 Newcomers
Name BBO Name BBO
Duke Gregory dukegreg Allen York puddlefolk
Jane Houston Jones jhjones52 Jean Wortman acesw1n
Mary Hayes svodette Betsy Michel bmichel62
Singles
Name BBO
Glenn Jeanes gjeanes
I'll update the list later this afternoon and include the Zoom link.
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
BridgeMojo <http://bridgemojo.com>
Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers <http://otastro.org>
Mojo's Blog <http://mojo.whiteoaks.com>
Here's who I'm expecting for today's newcomer game. Please send
corrections! I think I even managed to spell Kathy's last name correctly
this time. :)
Saturday 12:20 Newcomer Pairs
Name BBO Name BBO
Cindy Fang cindyhfang Glenn Jeanes gjeanes
Allen York puddlefolk Noel Jeffrey Silverharv
Julie Barbour julie bar Sandy Marsh sandybean
Jane Houston Jones jhjones52 Jean Wortman acesw1n
Rosa Gutierrez rosgut Beth Hollander blh2018
Julie Miller millerja Xiaoyan Zhou xyzzuz
Betsy Michel bmichel62 Mary Hayes svodette
Christine Atkinson cqatkinson Kathy Baghdassarian kathybag
Dean Wiese doubledino Nancy Wiese vivalaslam
Duke Gregory dukegreg Teri Unsworth teri2024
See you all at 12:20! (Try to be registered by 12:10 or so if you can!)
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
BridgeMojo <http://bridgemojo.com>
Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers <http://otastro.org>
Mojo's Blog <http://mojo.whiteoaks.com>
We have a great Saturday afternoon game shaping up! Here's who I've
already heard from for tomorrow:
Saturday 12:20 Newcomer Pairs
Name BBO Name BBO
Cindy Fang cindyhfang Glenn Jeanes gjeanes
Allen York puddlefolk Noel Jeffrey Silverharv
Julie Barbour julie bar Sandy Marsh sandybean
Jane Houston Jones jhjones52 Jean Wortman acesw1n
Rosa Gutierrez rosgut Beth Hollander blh2018
Julie Miller millerja Xiaoyan Zhou xyzzuz
At 9:30 I'll have the Zoom mini-lesson, with the first of several on
opening leads against trump contracts. Here's the Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83912578991?pwd=Y1R2UnJ1TFM2dVZzYmsyTDdzeFcydz09
Meeting ID: 839 1257 8991
Passcode: 7ntxx
You can revisit most of my Saturday mini lessons at this YouTube playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD5qT1hFf-OreW5_zBRHB3WwF6Ljdp-OS
Best regards,
Mojo
--
Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA
BridgeMojo <http://bridgemojo.com>
Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers <http://otastro.org>
Mojo's Blog <http://mojo.whiteoaks.com>
