Chattanooga and Daytona Regionals

Once again, the insanity has won out and I have not updated this blog as much as I would like.

The last several of weeks have been very exciting. I played in two successful Regionals with two of my students. First, I played in Chattanooga, TN with my star "young" student from home (Tallahassee.) We did not have any prearranged teammates and just set things up as we arrived. The tournament was a wonderful experience and I was very proud of my partner -- he played well throughout the week and grew and developed each time he faced new situations. Notably, we reached the finals of a bracket 1 KO and won a bracket 2 KO -- totaling about 55 Masterpoints.

The next week, I played in the Regional in Daytona, FL with a new student out of Jacksonville, FL. The tournament was filled with top level teams and many world champions. In spite of this, my partner and I managed to have good success. My partner and I had very little experience playing together, but she did a great job adapting and learning. I attribute much of our success to partner striving not to make the same mistake twice. In a new partnership with a relatively inexperienced player there will always be many mistakes and misunderstandings, but not repeating the same mistakes is a great predictor of success. We won over 32 Masterpoints and my partner is now shortly to become a Life Master. I was also very proud of her!

I am now off to Boston for the Fall NABC. Exciting updates from the Nationals will follow shortly!

Mobile blog post

I've just installed software on my phone to update this blog from my phone. I'll now be able to take lots of pictures with my phone and upload comments and stories directly from the bridge trail to the blog. I hope this makes the stories more enjoyable and timely.

I'm headed out of LA to Denver for a few days to work with one my sponsors. Then I'm off to the Chattanooga and Daytona regionals. I'll report more from those regionals in the coming weeks.

LA Regional

The 2008 LA Regional was my first time to play in what use to be the famous LA Bridge Week.

In the distant past, this event rivaled an NABC in both size and skill of the players. It was a bit disappointing to see that this once great event is no longer even a "normal" sized regional. Additionally, the playing schedule had difficult starting times that made it awkward and exhausting to play 3 sessions per day.

In spite of the small turnout and other difficulties, the Pacific Palms Resort was a beautiful playing site, the organizers were gracious hosts, and opponents strong competitors. I hope that in the future the LA area can regrow it's bridge attraction and return to providing a truly spectacular bridge event on the west coast.
**If you have any ideas or suggests please feel free to email them to me.

The New Blog

Hi Everyone.

I've done a horrible job of keeping the www.notrump.org website up to date. With all the traveling, playing, and teaching of bridge I've been doing this year I just haven't made it a priority. But that is about to change! I've decided to start using some blogging software (www.blogger.com) to post to my website and allow me to update information easily from the road.

I hope that everyone enjoys all the bridge stories!