November 2019 - 35

out the evening, always at the team's home table, and play a
full match with each am on their team as a partner.
This type of pro-am presents the same wonderful mentoring opportunities for the non-Life Masters as traditional
pro-ams. Ams get the benefit of playing with and against
pros on every board throughout the event.
The pros like it because they get to partner with three upand-coming players and get to teach solid Swiss team tactics
to not only their three teammates, but to the six other ams
they will be playing against during the three matches as well.
If you've run pro-ams before, you know the difficulty in
organizing these games lies not in lining up ams, but pros.
There never seems to be enough to go around. This type of
pro-am triples the ratio of ams to pros without diminishing
the ams' experience.

Our pro-ams are rather festive in nature. We hold them on
Sunday evenings, include dinner, and make sure to have lots
of wine on hand (the secret ingredient). There's also cheese,
fruit, desserts, and every New Yorker's favorite, pigs in a
blanket with Gulden's mustard. Is it any wonder we average
close to 40 teams?
Once a year, we hold a "thank you" evening game for the
participating pros and the partners of their choice. Both play
as our guests during a regularly scheduled duplicate game.
Dinner, with wine (of course) and hors d'oeuvres, round out
the evening.
It is particularly gratifying when a former am, now a Life
Master in their own right, returns to captain their own team
as the pro, "paying it forward." Over the years, many have.
After all, isn't that what these events are all about?
♣

Betty Longshore

Foundation assists Indiana clubs
By Bev Nikolajewski | Evansville (IN) DBC

By Krys Gordon
Sequim DBC

The Sequim (WA)
Duplicate Bridge
Club celebrated Betty
Longshore's 100th
birthday in August. She
was born Aug. 23, 1919,
and has been playing
bridge most of her life.
Betty owes her mental
well-being and clear,
logical thinking to
playing bridge.
♣

Betty Longshore and Bobbi Spoerri

The Indiana Bridge Foundation is a public charity established in 2018 to educate Hoosiers on the mental and
physical benefits of playing bridge. In August, the group's
executive director and two board members visited the
Evansville Duplicate Bridge Club due to the success of the
club's ongoing lesson program.
The foundation is willing to assist bridge clubs with finding those who want to play, and provide support to teachers
at the club through outreach initiatives, teacher and director
training, advertising, materials, events, seminars, and making connections with the public, existing bridge clubs, retirement communities and other local groups. The EDBC plans
to work closely with the foundation to continue providing
ways in which our organizations can increase participation
by promoting the benefits of playing bridge.
For more information on the foundation please visit
indianabridgefoundation.org or contact Joyce at
jbpepple@comcast.net.
♣

Club Managers: Are You Using Live for Clubs?

Have you seen what ACBL Live for Clubs can do? This tool,
similar to ACBL Live (for tournaments only), gives your players
an improved display of their scores and email notifications when
results are posted
You can also configure Live for Clubs to share your files with
other websites, such as The Common Game or BridgeWebs, so
that you won't have to upload twice.
No internet at the club? No problem! The Live for Clubs uploader will automatically send files once you're connected online
in another location. Take your laptop home and upload the files
from there!
Get started by visiting acbl.org/club and clicking on the "Live
for Clubs Info" link. Players can view their results at acbl.org/
liveforclubs.

Indiana Bridge Foundation members Gary Thomas; Joyce Pepple,
executive director; and Pam Rhine with Evansville DBC teachers
Barbara Ahlers and Ron DeLuca.
November 2019 Bridge Bulletin

http://www.indianabridgefoundation.org http://www.acbl.org/club http://www.acbl.org/

November 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November 2019