Bridge Blog 783: Juillet retrouve

Shall we thank the Airport Bridge Club for submitting July’s monthly master point accumulations to the ACBL on time? Yes, we shall. Now there’s an honest reading of where all of us who play there stand in relation to the rest of the bridge universe.

So how do we stand? From the looks of it, pretty much where we stood a couple months ago. Personally, as of July 31, I have a lifetime total of 1,735.06 points, of which 43.94 are gold, 166.85 are red and 204.89 are silver. Since 20% of the points you need for Gold Life Master have to be colored, this is a good ratio. Ahead of the game, even.

The big challenge, however, is accumulate points of any kind. Since the start of the year, I’ve won 78.31 points as of July 31, which is OK, but not spectacular. At 100 points a year, it will be 2022 before I attain Gold Life Master. I’ll be 80 years old. Yikes! At 125 per year, it will take until 2020. With a little luck, maybe we could move that up to 2019.

At any rate, of those 78.31 points, 60.17 of them were earned in club play. A look at the Ace of Clubs race for players with 1,000 to 2,500 points in Western New York Unit 116 finds me in sixth place. Topping the list is John Ziemer with 106.35. Then come Ken Meier with 84.93, David Millward with 77.87, Mike Silverman with 75.86 and Fred Yellen with 75.37.

After the big step down to my 60.17, there’s Chuck Schorr with 57.79, Gene Finton with 54.22, Vince Pesce with 49.46 and the only woman in the Top 10, Barbara Pieterse with 48.80.

Only two Unit 116 Ace of Clubs players in other point divisions had surpassed 100 points by July 31 – Jerry Geiger with 128.69 and the ailing Meg Klamp with 108.20. Judi Marshall is on the threshold with 98.03. If I were back in the 500 to 1,000 section, which I dominated for two years, I’d be third now, behind Bill Boardman (72.37) and Martin Pieterse (63.06).

Going over to the Unit 116 Mini-McKenney race, which counts all the points you earn, my 78.31 puts me in eighth place. John Ziemer is the leader here, too, with 141.69, followed by David Hemmer with 114.58, Fred Yellen with 100.46, Ken Meier with 96.32, David Millward with 86.35, Mike Silverman with 84.12 and Chongmin Zhang with 83.14. Behind me are Gene Finton (63.82) and Barb Pieterse (62.85).

Player in Unit 116 with the most overall points? The Ace of Clubs leader – Jerry Geiger – with 151.95. Close behind are Dan Gerstman with 149.99, Saleh Fetouh with 146.07, John Ziemer’s 141.69 and Kathy Pollack with 139.66.

On the District 5 level, which includes Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo, plus points in between, I’m 13th on the Ace of Clubs list for players with 1,000 to 2,500 points. Unit 116 players hold down the first five spots. In all, we have eight. The 25-name list cuts off at 52.33 points. Unit 116 players also top four other point lists.

Over on the District 5 Mini-McKenney, however, Unit 116 is far less prominent. Seven of us are on the 1,000 to 2,500 list, but not me. It cuts off at 81.28 points. Leaders are Michael Creager of Brecksville, Ohio, with 292.26; Peter Merker of Mentor, Ohio, with 273.16; and Fleur Howard of Gates Mills, Ohio, with 265.27. I’m starting to think of them as the Ohio bridge trinity. John Ziemer is sixth. David Hemmer is ninth.

Going to the 500-name national Ace of Clubs list, leading 1,000 to 2,500 players is a Florida trinity – Sanford Robbins of Miami Lakes, with 267.83, followed by Larry Lazarow of Highland Beach, with 224.01, and Kenneth Wagner Jr. of Hollywood, with 215.33. John Ziemer is 107 th. Ken Meier is 312 th. David Millward is 469 th. The list cuts off at 76.76.

In the national Mini-McKenney, top dog in 1,000 to 2,500 is Vinta Gupta of Woodside, Calif., with 591.48, followed by Jay Barron of Tulsa, Okla, with 533.05, and another Californian, Robert Micone of Tustin with 524.84. Michael Creager is 31st. John Ziemer is 451st. The list cuts off at 137.40.