Pasadena Bridge Club Logo <https://pasadenabridgeclub.com> News from North Fair Oaks Mojo ABTA Master Teacher 649 N Fair Oaks Ave #201 Pasadena CA 91103 (626) 247-4457 pasadenabridgeclub.com <https://pasadenabridgeclub.com> The scary news for me this Halloween season involves my new session of /Bridge Basics 1 /—/ Introduction/ starting on Wednesday afternoons, October 28. Normally I set the class limit with PCC Extension at 24 students (six tables). I'm willing to bump it higher, and I did so by necessity — first to 28, then to 32 (eight tables). That's going to be my limit. Every seat is spoken for. Normally about a quarter of my students wait until the week before class to sign up. This time around they're going to be turned away. This marks the first time I will have had to turn away students for any of our courses! Sectional Tournament at Clubs (STaC) Next week, October 19-25, all Open Pairs games at the club will be silver point STaC games. Those are the Monday-Friday 11:00 AM games and the Saturday 1:00 PM game. Each of those games will have their results grouped with other clubs in District 23 playing at the same time to create overall awards within the district. Card fees will be $13 for these games (or a punch and $1). Please keep in mind that we have a normal table limit in the club of 16 tables, and it's not unreasonable to expect that we might reach that point on some popular days for the STaC. If you can book your games now it's a good idea! Lulu Minter Seminar Oct 19 Lulu is going to host one of his popular bridge seminars before the Monday STaC game on October 19. We've reserved the Community Room for the seminar. No reservation required! His topic this time is "Rules of Numbers." His seminar is free, and you don't have to be playing in the Monday Open Pairs game to attend. Just drop in! Classes this week This week and next are *especially good times* to drop in for single classes ($25). All of our courses are doing "practice hands" this week. These sessions become great opportunities to focus on a particular topic! This week's classes (all "practice hands"): * Wednesday 3:00 PM: *Two Over One Game Force* * Wednesday 7:00 PM: *Bridge Basics 2 - Competitive Bidding* * Thursday 7:00 PM: *Bridge Basics 4 - Play of the Deal* Saturday mornings start with a free 20-minute workshop with an interesting hand from Eddie Kantar's Thinking Bridge series. Every hand has interesting bidding, play, and defense problems to work out. Come for the workshop, stay for the 14-board game, finish by 12:15. Rank changes for October Congratulations to the following Pasadena Bridge Club players achieving new ranks in the ACBL! *Junior Master* Angie Shapira Ching Patterson De Le Abel Eli Sorkin Jeffrey Chang Sunita Batra Tyler Slamkowski Wenwei (Vincent) Che *Club Master* Lina Sanossian Paul Chang Wenwei (Vincent) Che *Bronze Life Master* Richard Halverstadt Robert Jennings (I'm going to start adding these to the newsletter, and eventually back to the bulletin board, with a catch up for the past six months!) Other tidbits ... If you've already taken a particular course and would enjoy being of service to future classes, we're always looking for volunteers who are willing to be "seat fillers." Each class session needs a maximum of three seat fillers, to fill a seat left empty when (#students mod 4) != 0. Jane Winer <jane.b.winer@gmail.com> has been coordinating seat fillers for all of the classes. Seat filling is particularly important for my *upcoming Bridge Basics 1 course*. Note that as a seat filler you're only expected to participate in the class activities as a warm body (which is why you're not really a "T.A."). The *North American Bridge Championships* are coming to San Diego the week after Thanksgiving, and all of the bridge club staff want to go play! As a result we're planning to close the bridge club from Monday, November 30, through Wednesday, December 2. We'll take advantage of the down time to do some carpet cleaning as well. (I'm also going to empty the Lost and Found and lots of books and clutter that can rightfully go away.) Best regards Mojo, Jane, Zachary, Lisa, Susan
