Welcome to Eric's Corner. This feature of our website will be my chance to give you an inside view of the workings of the bridge club and the bridge world as a whole.
May 12-18, the Oklahoma City regional tournament will return to the Bricktown Hotel and Convention Center (much closer to Norman than the hotels off Northwest Highway) which is your only local chance this year to get your red and gold points for Life Master. Tuesday, May 13, will be Norman Day at the regional so please wear your blue Norman Bridge T-shirt on that Tuesday (we will probably be placing another order for anyone who wants one) and plan to come out and support us on our day! NCBC and Friday DBC will be responsible for staffing the registration desk and hospitality suite as well as being greeters for the tournament on Norman Day.
Beginning lessons for the summer will start on Thursday nights, June 12th at 7:00 p.m. in the Union. Word of mouth is always our most effective tool for advertising so tell anyone you think might be interested in lessons about NCBC.
I have been asked by several people if NCBC (and by extension, Eric's DBC in the city) will be participating in the unit's offer to produce hand records for club games but the short answer is no, we will not. At tournaments, the tournament director who produces all of the hand records--even if they are not involved in actual duplication of the boards--cannot play in any of the games that use those hand records, even if they aren't used until weeks or months later. There is no way that producing 50-60 sets of hand records that any director could ever memorize (or would ever try) all of the hands, but we just don't do it. It would look really, really bad. The person who is producing the hand records for the unit, however, plays in the games using the records. Although the unit board insists the hand records are secure, I feel that even though I do not know of any impropriety by the player(s) involved in duplication, this is not compatible with ACBL club policy as I understand it (last year the ACBL Club Managers Newsletter stated explicitly that directors involved in production of hand records or duplication of boards could not play in those games under any circumstances). As such, I cannot in good conscience involve our club in a program like this. This is one reason why, when we play in games involving hand records like the WBF Charity Pairs earlier this year, I make a special point of telling people that they must find a partner or let me know in advance--I can't play. (This is also why I don't duplicate my own hands or make my own records for Wednesday nights, as I feel that it is much more important to guarantee people a partner--which would often be impossible if I did hand records and eliminated myself from playing.)
See you at the table,
Eric