panelarrow

CR Bridge

Club Activities

“Longest Day” – Alzheimers Charity Event – 2023

The money we raised from online donations, sanctioned game fees, raffle tickets, and other donations.was very close to $3000. I’m pretty sure that was an all time record breaker for The Longest Day for BBB.  We are overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity! 

We had a sign out to thank our sponsors who donated , but there was so much going on that I want to mention them again. Tommy’s Restaurant was the biggest donor. Please go there and tell Steve that you are there because of his generosity to The Longest Day. These.restaurants also donated: Applebees, Pizza Ranch, Cheddars, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, HuHot Mongolian Grill, Scott’s Family Restaurant, Subway(half price subs!) and Mary Boyd (who donated a convention card book).

Thank you to so many of you who donated labor by bringing food, helping clean up, and giving gift cards. A huge thank you to all of the people who helped get the party bridge crowd to come. Six tables!! Several of the regular duplicate players played with the  group. That was a huge bridge community builder, not to mention all the donations collected from the 9:00 free game. 

Nancy and Paul and Jan and Duane helped in many ways. Bob Buckheister helped spread the word through our web site and was there for all three games, also.

The raffle winners were Joe Rinas, Mary Day, and Carolyn Wadsworth. Mike and Wyn donated a plant that was won by Judy Vopava. 

Someone left a phone at the playing site. We have it here at home and are waiting to hear who lost it. There has only been one call that we have caught and it was an IC number, but we couldn’t answer. 

We were especially pleased that so many out of town people came. Thank you to Vickki who cancelled her Q Cities evening game and encouraged players to come to CR instead. 

We had record breaking number of tables for the games, 6 at the 9:00 game, 12 at the noon game, and 7 at the 6:00 game. Wow! 

Meagan Wagner gave a very informative presentation about Alzheimer’s. She brought her helper, Jonah, who efficiently passed out materials. 

There were several players who played in all three games or were there to help during all three.Nancy Klein directed the 9:00 game. Thank you!

We can’t figure out why the results for the 7:00 game did not come to us automatically through Live for Clubs. You can find the results for that game here: https://my.acbl.org/club-results/details/808087

Thanks again everyone! Way to go Bridge Players!

Jim and MaryAnn

The Longest Day 2023

BBB is having The Longest Day celebration again this year. The ACBL sponsors this event and we will be participating. We will be having all day activities (Details) on June 19. Doors will open at 9 for free bagels and coffee and social bridge. At 11 there will be a free Subway lunch and a speaker from Alzheimer’s. There will be two sanctioned enhanced-point games at noon and 6:00.

There will be raffle prizes. The entry fees for the sanctioned games and the raffle ticket money will go to Alzheimer’s.  Snacks and coffee will be provided all day. 

The event will be held at the Family Life Center at Westminster Presbyterian Church. 

We are so pleased to be able to do this for a worthy cause. So many lives have been touched by this horrible disease. We’d like to do what we can to help and use our favorite game to enable it.

If you would like to donate at the site, use this link Build Better Bridge Team Page

Jim and MaryAnn Boardman 319 540 4206

New Diamond Life Masters — Tom and John

The Build Better Bridge Club of Cedar Rapids honored both John Morano and Tom Flanders as new Diamond Life Masters.

Four other Diamond Life Masters attended the event:  Beth Kelly, Rich Bailie, Mark Patton, and Joyce Dodson-Anderson.

The achievement was celebrated 3/27/23 at an 11-table Grand National Teams Qualifying game.

 

LTR: Beth, Rich, Mark, Joyce, Tom, John

 

 

 

 

 

Honoring Mary Ann

On September 26th, 2022, the Unit 163 Board honored MaryAnn Boardman for her many years of tireless service to our bridge unit.  Carol Panzer has written a nice article , complete with pictures, about the surprise celebration and the many things for which MaryAnn was honored.

The Longest Day 2022

We are very excited to get back to celebrating The Longest Day for Alzheimer’s. We will be having all day activities on June 20. Doors will open at 9 for free bagels and coffee and social bridge. At 11 there will be a free Subway lunch and a speaker from Alzheimer’s. There will be two sanctioned enhanced-point games at noon and 6:30

There will be three raffle prizes worth over $100 each. The entry fees for the sanctioned games and the raffle ticket money will go to Alzheimer’s.  Snacks and coffee will be provided all day. 

The event will be held at the Family Life Center at Westminster Presbyterian Church. 

We are so pleased to be able to do this for a worthy cause. So many lives have been touched by this horrible disease. We’d like to do what we can to help and use our favorite game to enable it.

If you would like to donate at the site, use this link BBB Team page

Jim and MaryAnn Boardman

Congratulations, Paul and Nancy!

We are pleased to announce that Paul and Nancy Klein made Life Master. Not only that, but they went over 750 at the same time to make Bronze Life Master. They have done so much for bridge, volunteering at numerous events and supporting our clubs and tournaments.  We wish we could have a big party for them now, but it will have to wait a bit.

I asked them for a blurb about their accomplishment and here is what they sent:

We are both grateful for all the help and instructions we have had during our journey towards Life Master and Bronze Life Master.  We took lessons from MaryAnn Boardman, Bob Otto, Bill Kent and Paulette Koontz.

We often teamed at 8 is Enough events with Bill and Paulette or Bob and Bill Kochneff or Tom Flanders and Gary Haddy at local sectionals.  We teamed with Phil & Karen Cummins at Regionals in Minnesota.  All helped us win Gold and Silver points.

At Regionals around the country we often sat and visited with people that gave us advice about how to play the hands better.  Peggy Kaplan, Tony Ames, Jade Barrett and Dr. Donna Lombardini were all most generous.

We would be remiss if we didn’t thank all our opponents.  When we first started playing sanctioned duplicate in June of 2013 at the local Longest Day event, we found that we had many opponents that were much better than us.  Most had been playing for many years and being new to this form of bridge the folks at the local clubs were very kind in helping us to become more efficient in our bidding and our play.  We found that every time we sat down at a table our opponents were kind and nice people.  This kept us coming back.

We have traveled with Melissa Heston and Sally Meixner.  Teamed with them and with Bonnie Stettler and Mary Wyatt.  We have made so many good friends because of duplicate bridge.  Thank you.  We look forward to seeing everyone again.  We will miss those that have departed us during this pandemic but hope that Face to Face bridge can once again be played.

 

Westminster Food Drive

Remember the fall food drives Build Better Bridge used to have? Remember Face to Face Bridge games at all?  It’s tough for Bridge players, but, of course, we realize there are much bigger needs in our community.

Westminster Presbyterian continues to serve the needy through their food pantry. We thought we could help this year, with a different type of collection.

Bring food donations the second Tuesday of Sept., October, and November between 12:30 and 2:00. At least one of the Boardman’s will be there to collect your donations. Drive through the parking lot. No need to leave your car.

We hope to see you on one or more of these dates: Sept. 8, October 13, and November 10.

If any of you club members have needs that we can assist you with, you are welcome to call or email us at 319 540 4206  or else maryann.boardman@gmail.com .

Quad Cities Online Clubs

Hello, all! We are the latest group to pool with Eastern Iowa Bridge, making it a total sweep for all out Unit clubs playing under one name!  If you have been playing in Mary Ann, Carol, and Ramesh’s games, you can now play in the QC games.

I am Vickki Shelley, Manager and BBO Director for Vacb274209.  Friend this number (VACB274209) in your “add a Friend” in BBO.  It will facilitate your registration into our three games:

Vacb274209  Eastern Iowa Pairs                 Mondays         6:30 pm

Vacb274209  Eastern Iowa Pairs                Wednesdays    6:30 pm

Vacb274209  Limited Eastern Iowa Pairs   Thursdays          6:30 pm (0 – 1000 MPs)  (ACBL number required for this game only)

Registration is from 4:30 to 6:15 (4:30 for new players to BBO where we may have issues is registering).  BUT EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE ONLINE by 6:15 and in IDLE. 

Make sure you are online and ready to go (Extremely important):  There is a new situation with BBO.  To give some relief to the servers that handle the virtual games (and others), BBO has installed additional servers that take care of “casual” games as well as “solitaire” games.  If you are in those places at game time, both you and your partner will be dropped from your game.  So, this is how to avoid this situation:  Please, after registering with your partner, be back online at least 10-15 minutes before game time.  If you are playing in the casual or solitaire areas or even kibitzing, get out of there.  Here is the guarantee (we hope).  Go to “competitive” and then ACBL Virtual Clubs and just stay there.  You will be seated in your game from there when it starts.   If one partner is not online and ready in this way before game time, the pair may be excluded from the game unless we can get them back before game time.  This is not our doing.  It is the way BBO works.  If you are waiting in the 10-15 minute window, it is also important that you watch for the big window that asks, “are you still there?”  If you don’t answer YES, you will be logged off.  Not following these conditions may be why we have lost pairs right up to the start of a game.  

NOTE: QC Slammers has lost NO ONE yet because I am calling folks not on line within 10  minutes of start time (best excuse – Vickki to the player – “you are not on line.”  Player to Vickki – “My cat jumped on the computer and my computer froze up!)

It is a good idea to log off about 15-20 minutes before game time and then log on again.  Several players thought they were online but they were not online to the director and game setup probably for the multiple servers situation described above.  If you do this, please Go to “competitive” and then ACBL Virtual Clubs and just stay there.  You will be seated in your game from there when it starts.

Please do not wait until the last moment to register!!!!

Partnerships:   you may register with your partner.  If it is the first time, be sure and register as early as possible.  If you need a partner, and you know ahead of time, email me at gvshelley8@gmail.com with your request.

Let me know your username, bridge level, and phone number…I will try to pair you up.  You can also use the partnership table in the game.  It works seamlessly when you agree with a partner ahead of time and pre register early.  Be sure and include which day you are wanting to play.  I will reply to your email.  You may also call me at 435-669-5482.

Results:  You may get your BBO results after the game by looking in your BBO History.  However, you receive additional points from ACBL.  Those results may come about 30 – 40 minutes after the conclusion of the game. You will receive those from ACBLLIVE if you are registered with them. To find the results on the acbl website:  acbl.org/acbllive/QC Slammers (put it in your favorites).

The following is taken from Ramesh’s website, because we follow the same protocols:

Playing in Virtual Club game

Tutorials: Please look at these videos to learn about BBO: https://www.sagamorebridgeclub.com/help-everything-bbo.

BB$: You will need to purchase BB$ online. Game is set at $4 per session. We will start out with 21 boards (6min/board) sessions. There is a 30% surcharge if you purchase BB$ by APP (Must use browser to avoid this surcharge).

Keep the game moving: Claim or concede when you know. No sense in prolonging. Once the time for a round is up, it will move to the next round, even if you are not done. Open games play 6 minutes per board. Limited games play 7 minute rounds. When your name is highlighted in yellow, it is your turn to act!

Conv Card: You will be required to enter your Convention Card, else you will default to SAYC (standard American yellow card).

Register for the game: The game will be visible 2 hours before the start of the game, where you can register yourself and a partner. If you don’t have a partner, there will be others like you and pick from available players.

Self Alert: You must self alert and self announce. First click alert, write a short description of the bid (not the name of the convention), and then make your bid. To ask what a bid means click on the bid. DO NOT USE THE TABLE CHAT TO EVER SAY A THING ABOUT YOUR BIDDING. To get rid of the explain box (Do not click on EXPLAIN, because that sends it back for another explanation), click on a space in the box. It will disappear. You will be alerting anything that is blue (NT ranges, transfers, short club opening) or RED (conventions requiring an alert) on the Convention Card. Feel free to tell what your slam conventions mean, what cue bids mean – basically anything that might keep the game moving.

If you would like to be on my Eastern Iowa Bridge list, please give me your name and email. Include your username.

Vickki Shelley

gvshelley8@gmail.com

 

The Longest Day: Virtually

One of our favorite bridge days was the fund raiser for Alzheimer’s, The Longest Day. This year it will look a little different. The ACBL is dedicating all the virtual club games played on the weekend of June 20 and 21 as Longest Day games. The proceeds will go to Alzheimer’s and the games will all be point enhanced.

The Eastern Iowa Bridge club is combining to make this a great event. There will be four games on Saturday, all for Alzheimer’s. The games will be at 10, 2, and 6.  There will be two separate games at 6, an open game and an under 1000 game.

What about the prizes and the food? Well, you have to fix your own food this year, but we are giving prizes. We will have a raffle for gift cards. For every game that you play in, you will get one ticket. If you go to our Eastern Iowa Longest Day  website and donate there, you will earn two raffle tickets. Then there will be a drawing and six gift cards to popular restaurants awarded. One person from each of the six areas will win. The Boardman’s are donating the gift cards so that more money will go to Alzheimer’s.

Our whole Unit 163 has the opportunity to work and play together and make this an awesome event. Please help us support this special fundraiser!

Using Bridge Base Online (BBO)

COMPREHENSIVE Tutorial (38min) for new players Multiple Taped Tutorials by Silvana Zangri
The Basics for New BBO Users( PDF Guide) Presentation by Susan Powell
Eastern Iowa Bridge Guide Specific Instructions for playing Our local club games online at BBO
Eastern Iowa FAQ FAQ about playing Our local club games online at BBO
28 Videos about how to play on BBO Paul Gipson of the Berwick Bridge Club
ACBL Tutorials about BBO ACBL Vids and Links
BBO Tutorials Vids , BBO Howto’s — ‘Aurora S.’ Collection w. Ads