Annual Meeting

I hope you went to the annual meeting on April 13th. Marilyn Croft called the meeting to order for minutes, financial report, and board election. After the business meeting, we celebrated the players who won the Mini Mckinney and Ace of Club awards. Karen Miller was awarded the Unit 239 Goodwill award; Marilyn thanked for her many services to Unit 239 and to the Crystal Lake Bridge Club.

Congratulations to Daniel Mihalcea and Gary Brigel who were the overall champs as well as first east/west. Congrats also to Jack Snyder and Steven Sinkiawic who were first north/south. You can read the minutes on the unit website www.unit239.org.Thanks to coordinator Lela Lowe, Marilyn Croft, director Will Engel, board members, and all of the players who helped with this great event.

It is time to take out the voucher that saves you money and come to our Regional tournament at the Crystal Lake Holiday Inn. Five days of challenging bridge begin on June 17th. Our regional will be in Crystal Lake at the Holiday Inn. There are games for every level. Look for the flyer and find your partners!

Put the Rockford tournament on your calendar for September 8, 9, and 10. It will again have two separate events, a regional for non-life masters under 750 and a regular sectional for all others.

Unit 239 would love to welcome new members! 

Do you have friends who should be brought to the table?  More participation means more fun.

Since the last Pairfare, we have gained some enthusiastic players: James Parker (St. Charles), Vernon Sumner (St. Charles), Robert Engel (Geneva), Philipp Ma (Carpentersville), Sophia Ma (Carpentersville), Donald Marlowe (Huntley) and Don Shie (Galena).

Rank advancements

We can all celebrate with these players who have achieved new levels.

NEW CLUB MASTERS: Hans Dekok (St. Charles,) Yvonne Harrison (Geneva,) Darryl Einhorn (Cary,) and Edward Zbacnik (Fox River Grove)

NEW SECTIONAL MASTERS: Dominique Raccah (Aurora)

NEW LIFE MASTER: Thomas Martenson (Rockford)

NEW BRONZE LIFE MASTER:  Greg Maccoubrey (Crystal Lake)

NEW RUBY LIFE MASTER: Gary Brigel (Aurora) and Burton Moore (Rockford)

Karen Miller is named Goodwill Member of the year

Karen was a Chicago lady who lived in Minnesota for years then came back to be closer to her adult children and grandchildren. She began playing duplicate bridge twelve years ago and loved it.

Karen supports what she loves and steps up to help make her club, her Unit, and her area Regional tournament run well. She is known and appreciated for her hospitality and volunteerism. She is a new member on the Unit 239 board.
 

Mike Chakoian became a Life Master

Mike was listed in the last edition without his input. Here is his message:

I find it tough to talk about myself, but I want to mention that I was grandfathered in because of about 5 mps I earned in the 70's. Later, I acquired many mps while playing with my dad, Hank, who we lost in 2019. Other than that, I don't have much to say except that I've loved all my partners and most of my opponents. I miss so many who have passed.

Thomas Martenson is a Life Master

Until recently, I thought I would never attain life master. My bridge history is broken into two sections: the 1960-70’s, and 2017 to today. I started playing duplicate bridge in the 1960’s at the Rockford Bridge Center, being run at that time by Alice Nelson. I was very into the game an read many books and studied to the point I became a pretty good player. At that time, I had two primary partners, one of which was Alice’s son Brian Nelson. We played in several major tournaments over a 3-year period.

In the mid 1970’s, my career (Sales & Marketing) required me to travel frequently, so I basically quit playing duplicate. From then until 2017, I did read bridge article in the papers, but rarely played.

I was visiting my older brother Dave in Arizona, and he suggested we play in a local duplicate game because he had started playing with a friend. I got paired up with the lady who ran the game. I remember her asking me if I played 2 over 1. I had no idea what she was talking about. I was also surprised to see that bidding boxes were used instead of speaking. Another thing I found out later was that players were more friendly to each other, especially their partner. Anyway, we played a few times and I “was bitten” again with the duplicate bridge bug.

After my visit, I reached out to the ACBL headquarters to see if they could find my previous records. After asking me several questions they found my records which was pleasantly surprising. I rejoined the ACBL and my records were reinstated. At that time, I had a little over 100 MP, with some silver and gold. LM seemed like an impossible task.

I played with a couple of long-time friends until a friend from my early bridge days, Becky Chance, (Unfortunately, Becky passed away two years ago) suggested Steve Sinkiawic and I form a partnership, which we did. Ironically, Steve’s wife Pat is my cousin. Steve told me he wanted to help get me to LM, and three years ago suggested we start playing the Precision system, which he has played for many years. He gave me two books on the system for me to study. We’ve played many casual games on BBO since then to practice and help learn the system. We also bid the hands in the Bulletin in the “Bidding Box” section to also practice. As you know, this is complicated and difficult to learn. I have finally gotten to where the bidding errors are infrequent.

We won 15 gold points in a March BBO 2-session tournament that put me over the top. Last month won 16 Gold by finishing 2^nd in our sections GNT trials.

I have lived in Rockford almost my entire lifer except for 5 years living in South Carolina in the mid 1980’s. My wife’s name is Kirsten and we have a female Shar Pei dog, named Macie. I also have a daughter, 2 grand daughters and 3 great grandchildren who live in Lansing, MI.

I belong to the Rockford Bridge Center and have served on the board as secretary for the past two years.

Burt Moore is a Ruby Life Master

I have been playing bridge from a young age. Sixty years ago, my brother and I would play for hours against our friend, Melvin and  my Dad, rubber bridge, of course. We used to enjoy Charles Goren's TV program with celebrities and Alex,  his assistant. I call Galena, Illinois my home town, but now have been in Rockford for 50 years. Deb and I will have been married 40 of those coming up next year.

I joined our local bridge club here in Rockford in 1994 and have been a member since. I am a past President and served during the difficult covid era. We transitioned from club to on-line games and back again. I taught lessons to our intermediate players for many years, but now, I just play a few times a week.

I have never been a fan of tournaments so I guess that makes me slightly  less than a hard core player. It also means master points accumulate at a slower pace. It seems I actually did get to 1500 in my lifetime after all.

I have had favorite partners for various reasons, mostly good. Just to mention a few:  Pam Eden, Doug St.John, Beverly Windorf, Flo Curry, Roy Diesner,  Shirley Dommers, Robert Erwin,  Lou Jenkins,   Phyllis Schmitt, Lucia Skurski, and Marilyn Vause. I played a lengthy time with both Cindy Musser and Don Malone. Of course, my regular partners now being Roger Deringer and Pat Benedict and occasionally, Kathy Owens.  One member who was especially helpful to me during covid was Carolin Bohlin!

I have seen all kinds of hands over the years, but I think one of the strangest occurred just recently. My  partner was declarer with  a hand of absolutely zero points. It happened that she took every trick!! Figure that one out?!