The team of Michael Miller, Greg Lagos, David Marks, and me scored a 166 out of 210 in the Bracketed Swiss at the Clearwater Regional today, winning 6 of 7 matches.  166 is 79% of the available victory points.

The team was slotted in the middle of their bracket, so it was pretty satisfying for them. 

Claire Hulit reports that Dorothy has died.  According to an e-mail previously received by Claire from Dorothy's son, "She had a stroke on Sunday a week ago today and has been unresponsive ever since.  She had been in Hospice Care Center there on Hwy. 50 since Thursday the 12th."

She was 98 years of age and had been absent for many weeks, but was one of our better regular bridge player for many years. 

OK. Now for the revelation of the secret.

Gerry Panos and I attended the NABC in New Orleans. We wanted to bring some of the flavor home to our club members.

So today was New Orleans Day at the club. We had cornbread and jambalaya; Dixieland music, and beads, beads, beads.

Following is a speech I made to our members: A good time was had by all!

According to the July 9 minutes, published for logged in users only, the Board has enacted a final policy on strats.  Newcomers, except for NAP games, will continue to split at 20 and 100, yielding 0-19, 20-99, and 100-299.  NAP games cannot be stratified for non-life-master sections.

Open games will have floating strats, arranged as follows.  "In a Mitchell move­ment, the C strata will have a minimum of 5 pairs. The rest of the players will be divided as evenly as possible in the A or B strata. In a Howell movement, the C strata will have a minimum of 3 pairs. The rest of the players will be divided as evenly as possible in the A or B strata."

Furthermore, the Board says: "Stratification for each NCBC game will be at the discre­tion of the director after all names have been entered in the computer."

The previous strats of 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 was an interim policy until the July 9 meeting, and has now been revoked. 

By amassing over 5000 MasterPoints, Charlotte Kartsonis has been named a Diamond Life Master!

She wouldn't say how long it took.

Congrats, Charlotte.  What a Chark!

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Update:  Charlotte sent me an e-mail, as follows.  "Pat, I am so darn stupid... I have had such nice comments congratulating me. and  I've tried and tried and can't get a message to them... could you just say I'm stupid and don't know how to answer individually, but to tell them thank you so much for all their nice wishes.... thanks again, Pat... miss you guys. chark" 

President Beverly Tillberry announced recently that the Stratification for all games will be based on splitting the field in thirds.  The highest one third of the pairs actually present will be placed in the A Strat, the middle third in the B Strat, and the lowest third in the C Strat.  As always, a pair's ranking is based on the masterpoints of the highest partner.

In very small games, there may not be enough pairs to allow for all three Strats to score: in a Howell movement, for example, I think at least three pairs are required in each Strat.  The Board will presumably decide exactly what to in that case, which will allow for the fairest distribution of masterpoint awards.