March 2022 - 13

BARRY CRANE Top 500
King of Clubs
Mark Itabashi cashes in on virtual club
points to win Barry Crane Top 500
The second year of the pandemic was another unusual
one for the ACBL's Barry Crane Top 500 race. While it
was another relatively low winning total - in the past
30 years, there have been just three lower, including last
year - the margin of victory was massive. With 2324.09
masterpoints in 2021, Mark Itabashi claims his second
victory in the race. He finished nearly 900 points ahead of
frequent partner Mitch Dunitz.
Itabashi of Newport Beach CA is a Grand Life Master
with six NABC titles and one of the top professional
players, whose 63,000 masterpoints place him sixth for
lifetime achievement in the ACBL. He previously won the
Top 500 race in 2019, after consistently placing in the top
three for most of the decade.
Even more unusual for the 2021 race historically was
where Itabashi won the bulk of his points: in club games.
In a year when there were only a few tournaments in the
first nine months, most of them online, and much fewer
than usual when live tournaments started coming back in
the fall, there just weren't that many tournament points
to be had in 2021.
Visiting just two regionals - in Las Vegas and Palm
Springs - two local sectionals, the Fall NABC, the USBC
and all of the online regionals and NAOBCs, Itabashi
earned 986.14 masterpoints. The rest - 1337.95 - came
from club games.
That's much more than anyone has ever gotten in a
single year of club play. Even the late Helen Shanbrom, for
whom the Ace of Clubs race is named, never got to a thousand
in any of her perennial victories in the race.
But even though Shanbrom could have used her bridge
club as her permanent address, she was still limited to
playing in clubs where she could be physically present.
Itabashi had access to a much bigger source of club points:
the virtual clubs.
" Two years, ago when the pandemic started, I didn't
particularly want to play online, " Itabashi said. As 2020
progressed, some of his clients managed to coax him
online, and by 2021, with the pandemic still ongoing, he
realized he didn't have much else to do besides play online.
In a large virtual club, he found he could win 6 points
in a single game - 8 if it was a special game. " I said, 'This
is like a masterpoint ATM.' "
Four months into the year, Itabashi found he was leading
the race without trying. That's when he and Dunitz
formed their strategy: rack up as many virtual club points
as possible in May, June, July and August, and then coast
By Chip Dombrowski
the rest of the year. " We just played a lot and won a lot of
times, " Itabashi said. " That was the strategy that worked.
I knew once tournaments started up, I'm always going to
hold my own. "
Itabashi and Dunitz are both morning people who live
in Southern California. They would play in virtual clubs
in New York at 7 a.m. Pacific time and Florida at 9:30 a.m.,
and Itabashi would still have time to make it to an in-person
afternoon game in Orange County, where he plays
with clients.
Over the course of
Mark Itabashi
the year, Itabashi won
masterpoints in 420
club games - 69 of them
in May alone, when he
earned over 170 black
points and another 75.85
during Silver Linings
Week. Almost 250 club
points in a single month.
He paid attention to the
schedule and knew when
all the extra-point games
were offered, making sure to play at least twice a day
during those weeks.
" It was over by September, " he said. " None of the other
guys were playing that much. It was an easy win. "
Though the race was safely in hand at that point, Itabashi
iced his victory with two big wins in major events
in the fall. In October, Itabashi played in the USBF Team
Trials, winning the USA2 spot in the Mixed Teams
with Linda Lewis's team (Linda Lewis-Paul Lewis,
Disa Eythorsdottir-Itabashi, Ljudmila Kamenova-Ron
Smith). Then, in Austin, he won the Mitchell Open Boarda-Match
playing on a team consisting of three close
friends and regular partners: Dunitz, Ifti Baqai and Ross
Grabel.
Among the surprises of Itabashi's 2021 results is that
he ended up winning the Sectionals race. In August, he
played six afternoon games of the Western Conference
STaC held in person at his local club. In three of the
games, he scratched between 1 and 2 silver points. In the
other three, he won, scoring 17 to 19 points at a time, finishing
the week with 59.41. He played two days in the Riverside
Sectional in October, picking up 20.18, and one day
in Sun City in November for 9.39. One more STaC game
in December added 1.13, giving him a total of 90.11 points
March 2022 | Bridge Bulletin |
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March 2022

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