♣  Greater St. Louis Bridge News  ♣

News from Greater St. Louis Unit 143

Editor:  Debbie Romero    dcromero@sbcglobal.net
 

Unit 143 Tournaments

Open Regional:

 The recent St. Louis August 2023 Regional was a great success and had a significantly improved turnout with 831 tables. This attendance was a 22% improvement over the attendance of the August 2022 Regional, which had 683 tables, but was still only 63% of the attendance of the pre-pandemic August 2019 Regional with 1324 tables. Attendance trends are encouraging and moving in the right UPWARD direction. Unit 143 extends a hearty THANK YOU to all the players who came out and supported the tournament and a special thank you to Dennis Abeln who did an outstanding job in his first year as Tournament Coordinator for Unit 143!

 I/N 499er Sectional:

The next Unit 143 I/N 499er Sectional Tournament is scheduled for September 9-10, 2023 at the St. Louis Bridge Center, located at 1270 North Price Road, Olivette, MO 63132. This tournament is open to all bridge players with less than 500 masterpoints.

Game times for single-session Pairs games are 10 am & 2 pm on Saturday. There is also a one-session Swiss Team event on Sunday at 12 pm with a free and optional Introduction to Swiss Team games discussion from 11:30 am - 11:50 am before the game. This tournament is a great opportunity to earn silver points, improve your bridge play, and have fun playing against other players at your level.

BRAND NEW EVENT -- Non-Life Master Regional combined with an Open Sectional

Unit 143 is holding a new type of tournament scheduled for October 20-22, 2023. It combines a Non Life Master (NLM) Regional for NLM players with 0-750 mps with an Open Sectional Tournament.
A 2-Session Gold Rush Pairs for 0-750 NLM players will be offered Friday and Saturday of the tournament and a single-session Gold Rush Swiss Team event for 0-750 NLM players will be held on Sunday. This NLM Regional gives players an opportunity to earn gold and red points. As a special case for this first Unit 143 NLM Regional tournament only: ALL ENTRIES to NLM Regional events are FREE.

Open Sectional events will run concurrently with the NLM Regional at the same location and will continue to offer silver-point opportunities for players. The Open Sectional schedule has been modified by the addition of a single-session Swiss Team event Friday evening at 7 pm due to popular demand.

Unit 143 Board

The Unit 143 Annual Membership Meeting is scheduled for October 20, 2023 at 9:45 am at the October Sectional/NLM Regional being held at the St. Louis Bridge Center. Members present at the meeting will vote on revised Unit 143 Bylaws. These revised Bylaws can be viewed via a link in the meeting notice on the Unit 143 website: www.unit143.org .

Unit 143 Officers for 2023 are:

   President: Mark Boswell

   Vice President: Mark Zellmer

   Treasurer: Steve Russell

   Secretary: Sandy Bigg

    Unit 143 Tournament Coordinator: Dennis Abeln

 Club Game Schedules

Face-to-Face bridge games are available within Unit 143 for players of all skill levels. Currently, there are no regular online club games in the St. Louis area except in the case of inclement weather conditions. Please check the table below for schedules and availability.

For the latest schedule of Face-to-Face Bridge games, please visit these websites:

Unit 143 www.unit143.org

Bridge Haven bridgeatbridgehaven.com

St. Louis Bridge Center stlouisbridge.org