B U L L E T I N   B O A R D

Pasadena Bridge Club 649 N. Fair Oaks Ave #201 Upstairs above the pizza shop Mojo Jones 626 247-4457 Zach Vedro 626 215-5080 Full Schedule Open Games Monday-Saturday 11:00 AM M-F 1:00 PM Saturday Regency Bridge Club   201 E. Colorado St, Glendale Adam Barron    323 318-4308 Thursday   12:30 Social Duplicate Game   Arcadia Community Center - 50¢ Marie Nimmrich        626 448-3304 Wednesday 9:30 Friday 1:00 Mojo Jones   626 247-4457 Unit Game Director 1st & 3rd Sunday 12:30 Pasadena Bridge CLub Unit Game Dates Below     Jan 19     Feb 2 Feb 16     Mar 2     Mar 16 Apr 6 ACBL Tournaments Schedule RSVP Pasadena BC Check my ACBL Masterpoints Pasadena Bridge Club     Pasadena Club Results Glendale Regency     Regency Results La Fetra Club     La Fetra Results District STaC Results     Mojo's BBO Results ACBL Tournaments     ACBL Live Results Unit Game Results     Waken Sectional Our unit games are held twice a month, usually on the first and third Sundays, and both games are held at the Pasadena Bridge Club. - Game time is 12:30 Be sure to call Miriam Harrington for a reservation:     626 232-0558 Regionals This Year NEWS - The Pasadena Bridge Club For New and Lower Ranked Players Roy Wilson 626 340-9575 -- unit559Webmaster@gmail.com If you are using your iPhone...TEXT ME!   Roy           You will learn more by losing to good players than you will by winning against poor players Stray Words of Wisdom UPSide Down Carding Since the Cave Days it has been standard to use a high card to encourage partner and a low card to discourage.  Modern players have decided that these signals are often a waste of a good high card.  It seems to be popular to reverse the meaning of those two signals and use a low card to encourage.  These signals are referred to as Attitude Signals Players also reverse the Count Signals - The old standard is to use High-Low to show an even number of cards in a suit and Low-High with an odd number, but some players reverse this agreement also. Players who reverse both agreements put UDCA on their convention cards. Not all players who agree with Upside Down Attitude see the benefit of reversing the count signal, though. There's a lot more information than I can provide on this topic at Wikipedia... Wikipedia - UDCA Roy Wilson, Emerald Life Master Our Next Unit Game - January 19 Flyer for Our Unit Game BBO Silver Points - Starts Today This week, from the 13th to the 16th, BBO is having online games that provide Silver points.  Look for the ACBL Clubhouse and sign up with your partner.  There are games for rookies to Grand Life Masters. Silver Points - Laguna Woods Do you still need silver points?  The Saddleback Sectional will be held on January 18-19 at the Laguna Woods Bridge Club. It's about an hour and a half's drive down the coast. Saddleback Sectional Flyer Our Unit's Best Players by Rank The Ace of Clubs The ACBL sponsors two masterpoint races every year for each unit.  We are Unit 559. goes to the top three players who win masterpoints, but only for points won in club games. There are also similar awards for unit players who win masterpoints in any sanctioned game. The Mini-McKenney The races for 2024 are over so the lists you will see are the final winners. There is a link below (1e) where you can see both lists for all of last year. This is a temporary link to the winners page... Ace of Clubs & Mini-McKenney An Open Letter From Zach       My dear friends, As the smoke fills the air, as the ash imitates rain, as we all stare out the window wondering what will befall us next, I want to take a moment and share something with you. A year and a half ago my life fell apart. Nothing as dramatic as fire, but to me, just as devastating. When these things happen, the future seems impossible, and the past feels like a cruel joke. Not knowing what to do, I just tried to move forward. For me, that was the Bridge Club. It was a place where I could greet you and we could do a silly thing and treat it seriously, we could laugh and gossip and get angry at each other and then forgive each other...because without each other we don't have a game. I also invested myself into the "social" bridge program we created. The new players who are just discovering how wonderful and maddening each hand of bridge is...that feeling of excitement when arranging...dread when we misplay...relief when the finesse holds. On and on and on. For hours and hours we would go through the hands and talk about what we could have done better and how we will NEXT time. Somehow, in this repetition, a new structure in me was made. One that enabled me to move a bit further, and a bit more forthrightly, into a very uncertain future. Forgive my self-indulgence. I say all that merely to say this: when it is safe again please come to the bridge club. Please be around friends and get away from turmoil (if only for a moment). Please structure your way forward around a community who cares for you and needs you. Please think of mentoring a new player. Please think of bringing a friend along. Please think of the happy days ahead and please think of the miserable ones too - I assure you those days will be made better by being in a room, playing cards, surrounded by family. Zach Vedro HIDDEN TEXT Make this agreement with your partner:   Close   Unit Historian:    Do you have an old photo or other memorbilia from our past that you can share with us?  Please contact Mike and let him make a copy. Mike Marcucci 818 903-2471 nstarmgm@att.net Pasadena-San Gabriel Unit 559 Unit Board Announcements Our unit is one of nine in District 23 and we are sanctioned by the American Contract Bridge League. We have an elected board of 12 members that meets monthly and is responsible for unit games, our Holiday party and the annual John Waken sectional. Unit Board Members     Unit 559     Bylaws Zero Tolerance Standing Rules Unit Board Policies Unit Membership Roster How to Find Our Virtual Club on the BBO Website Our unit members can play in a virtual club game set up by Mojo and Paula... When you log on, you are at the Home screen.  Click on Competitive and then click on All Tournaments. There's a Search Box at the top, on the right.  Simply type in a few letters or numbers that will help identify what you are looking for:  23 is sufficient for District 23, and 559 is enough for Unit 559. You can use either the abbreviated Pasa or 559 for our virtual club. Use this link if you would like to see the convention card used by the BBO robots. BBO Robots Card BBO:   BudWilson WEB PAGES AND WEB SITES     BBO Login Our Virtual Club bridgemojo.com Our Friends on BBO       1 2 3 4 a      Memorial to Lost Friends    Gallery of Players    A Scrapbook of Photos Bridge Cartoons b   Tips From Our Top Players Interesting Bridge Articles Double Dummy Problems Problems and Solutions c   Card Play Technique Stuff Everybody Knows Bridge Utilities Standard Bidding d   Ask the Coach: -  JJ Members Page History of Our Unit Ask the Director:   e   Ace of Clubs - Mini-McKenney ACBL Convention Chart Information Links Maps f    Frank Stewart's Daily Hand Bridge Stories and Tales D22 - Daily Bulletins D23 - Daily Bulletins      ACBL District and Unit Websites      The ACBL Alert Chart Conventions Chart Duplicate Decisions The Laws of Duplicate Bridge      The Montreal Relay The Big Club The Polish Club Extended Precision      Keycard Asking Problem Bids Bridge Tales Losing Trick Count Bridge Probabilities 52 Bridge Tips - Kantar Pavlicek's Bridge Tools     Looking for a certified bridge teacher?       Morris Jones     mojo@mojobridge.com   Claudia Elms     elmsclaudia@gmail.com   Zach Vedro     zvedro@hotmail.com   Lisa Walker     lisawalkerlac@gmail.com   Roy Wilson Precision System   unit559webmaster@gmail.com   American Bridge Teachers Association   ABTA   Unit 559 Membership Report Ranks are updated quarterly after the 7th of the month. Rank Requirements The link on the left will take you to the ACBL website where you will find the official requirements for each rank. Unit 559 Active Members Click the rank below for a list Master Points     Top 30 Players - Unit 559 Rookie 0-5 No color points needed Junior Master 5-20 No color points needed Club Master 20-50+ No color points needed Sectional Master 50+ 5+ silver points Regional Master 100+ 15+ silver points and 5+ gold points NABC Master 200+ 25+ silver and 20+ red/gold/platinum (5 must be gold or platinum) Advanced NABC Master 300+ 50+ silver and 50+ red/gold/platinum (25 must be gold or platinum) Life Master 500+ 75+ silver and 100+ red/gold/platinum (50 must be gold or platinum) Bronze Life Master 750+ Life Master with at least 750 points Silver Life Master 1000+ Life Master with at least 1000 points (200+ must be silver/red/gold/platinum) Ruby Life Master 1500+ Life Master with at least 1500 points (300+ must be silver/red/gold/platinum) Gold Life Master 2500+ Life Master with at least 2500 points (500+ must be silver/red/gold/platinum) Sapphire Life Master 3500+ Life Master with at least 3500 points 700+ silver/red/gold/platinum (350+ must be gold or platinum) Diamond Life Master 5000+ Life Master with at least 5000 points 1000+ silver/red/gold/platinum (500+ must be gold or platinum) Emerald Life Master 7500+ Life Master with at least 7500 points 1500+ silver/red/gold/platinum (750+ must be gold or platinum) Platinum Life Master 10,000+ Life Master with at least 10,000 points 2000+ silver/red/gold/platinum (1000+ must be gold or platinum) Grand Life Master 10,000+ Life Master with at least 10,000 points 2000+ silver/red/gold/platinum (1000+ must be gold or platinum) Must have a victory in an eligble event January Total Membership  349 Go to the top of the page January Advanced in Rank - 7   Jonathan Penzer  Junior Master   Carol Grosz  Club Master   Derald Brackmann  Sectional Master   Leslie Klein  Sectional Master   John Barrow  NABC Master   Jeanette Deverian  Sapphire Life Master   Roy Wilson  Emerald Life Master                   Since June 16, 2016 -- You are Visitor Number   660472 This website was established in 1999 by Roy Wilson Linux version 1.0.0 was introduced March 14, 1994 The First Web Site was established at CERN in 1992 by Tim Berners-Lee. 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