Update from Don and Sherri
July, 2020

It feels like a life-time ago when we were all playing at the club. Clearly it is a ways off before we will all be back there. In the meantime, we have Virtual EBC. ACBL deserves a huge shout-out for the work they have done. Without the Virtual Club, we would not be able to keep the building. The contributions that folks made to the special fund set up by the Unit would eventually been exhausted. So “Thanks” to ACBL and “Thanks” to all who have been playing in the Virtual games.

We are adding a Sunday evening game at 6:30.

The Saturday morning game will be a 20 board event. There has been some call for more boards from some folks and an equally strong call from some to leave the number at 18. As a bit of a compromise, we will use the Saturday morning game for the 20-board event and see how it goes.

Please do remember to self-alert when playing in the Virtual games.

We miss seeing all of you. Stay safe…and healthy.

See Member News for an Update on Club Finances from
Carole Schmitz

Other Recent News

We have added a second limited master point game per week starting Monday, June 22. See Kibitzer below.

Another video of McKenzie Myers kibitzing hands from a recent game. See Kibitzer below.

Ever heard of the “Bath Coup” in Notrump play? Larry Cohen’s recent mini-lesson talks about that and other guidelines for when to hold up as Notrump declarer.

See Kibitzer below for details on our current game schedule. The calendar also shows the games, with scores as they come in.

Check Member News for more details.

ACBL and COVID-19

ACBL’s Bridgefeed is now posting about how COVID-19 is affecting bridge and its community.
Check out these links:

Share your lockdown experience

ACBL COVID-19 Communications

Dear Members,

We miss all of you. We suspect none of us will ever again take for granted the opportunity to get together to play bridge.

There are some folks to acknowledge.

When this all started, we were approached by several individuals offering help financially. We felt the best way to handle this was for the Unit to get involved. The Board decided to set up a separate checking account. President John Wolf, acting on behalf of the Board, sent out a notice to all the members of the Unit.

The response has been impressive indeed. Due to the phenomenal generosity of you, our members, we are able to continue the lease on our building, at least for now. Losing the building could mean we lose Bridge, and none of us wants to see that happen. So thanks to all the folks who have stepped up.

The landlord, Steven Yett, needs to be acknowledged for his willingness to lower the rent substantially during this period of shutdown. We are grateful.

Ellen McCumsey deserves a very special acknowledgment. She has taken it upon herself to get us all up to speed on how to play online on BBO. Her patience is the stuff of legend. Thanks, Ellen.

Betsy has done a great job keeping the BBO user name list up to date.

And Doug Berg has been working on updating the EBC website. It was long overdue. It will be more functional and less expensive. Thanks, Doug.

We and the board will keep you updated when we know more.

Stay safe, and thanks again for your support.

Sherri/Don

The Kibitzer

Virtual Club Game Schedule

Monday, 9:30
Monday, 6:30 499er –  New!
Tuesday, 12:30
Wednesday, 6:30
Thursday, 12:30
Friday, 9:30 299er
Saturday, 10:00

Link to scores from the Common Game

We are going to try a second Limited Master Point Game. Monday evenings at 6:30. This will be open to all players with less than 500 MPs. Please consider attending.

Here is another great video from Mac. He is playing in another club and they are playing a Big Club system so may not be of interest to all. We are certainly hoping to have more of these in the future as well as the possibility for some post-mortem sessions after some of our games. We are working on it. Stay tuned.
 
D/S
 
I found clicking on Mac’s photo was easiest way to start the video.

See Larry Cohen’s recent mini-lesson on guidelines for when to hold up as Notrump declarer.