The spring 2008 bridge Marathon has just finished. We had 12 pairs playing party bridge, keeping running totals from night to night. We finished with quite a bang, playing the last few hands in the basement during a tornado warning!
1st place with 24960 points: Bev Chamblee & Mary Jane Maslanka
2nd place with 24860 points: Carol & Larry Thomas
3rd place with 23530 points: Mary Ostrander and assorted substitute partners
Join us when we start up again in September! Call or e-mail to sign up.
The 2008 student bridge scholarship competition was held as a part of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) Unit 131 Sectional Tournament held at the firefighters Hall at 6320 Manchester Avenue in Kansas City on Friday, April 25. Unit 131 paid to bus the students from the Lee’s Summit School District so that they could play in the sectional; they could see what it was like as the adults played in another section of the tournament, starting just 1 hour after the kids; and perhaps most importantly the adults could see them play and encourage them to continue.
The 32 students ranging from 4th grade through 11th grade were all students of Kathy Rolfe who has been teaching bridge within the Lee’s Summit School District since 2002. She has taught primarily in the ASPIRE classes. All the students sat down to play at 8 tables, playing 12 boards (each board is a hand of bridge) in a standard Mitchell movement. The session was directed by Kathy Rolfe and by an ACBL tournament director, Chris Patrias, who was also busy running the adult sections of bridge.
At the end of the afternoon the top North-South pair and the top East-West pair won not only their silver masterpoints, but also a trophy provided by Unit 131, and each player also received a $50 scholarship to be used for their post-secondary education. The scholarship is funded from the Eugene J. Rolfe Memorial Education Fund administered by the Truman Heartland Community Foundation. In addition to the top places, both pairs each direction finishing second and third also received masterpoints.
Of the 32 students playing, all but 2 of them either joined ACBL this year or had previously joined ACBL last year when playing in the Scholarship Tournament. This is important because it is one step they need to take in order to be eligible to win an additional scholarship which will be given for the first time in the spring of 2008 to a graduating senior. Any graduating senior who has the required grade point average, is a member of ACBL, has at least 1 masterpoint, and is a former student of Kathy Rolfe is eligible to win a $500 scholarship which in turn is renewable for another 3 years if the student maintains their GPA and continues to add to their masterpoints each year while retaining ACBL membership.
The winners of this competition were: North-South: Trevor Houston (junior at Lee's Summit West High School) and Austin Buchanan (6th grader at Cedar Creek Elementary) with a monster game of 74.33% and East-West: Greta and Kathryn, both 6th graders at Hawthorn Hill Elementary. Trevor and Austin each received 1.11 silver masterpoints for their 1st place overall. Greta and Kathryn are well on their way to that graduating Senior Scholarship with .83 masterpoints. In addition to the top finishers, Mallory Murphy and Kayla Burns, both 7th graders at Pleasant Lea Middle School, each received .62 masterpoints for their efforts finishing 2nd East-West and 3rd overall. Taryn and Randi, both 6th graders from Woodland Elementary, each recieved .39 masterpoints for their 2nd place North-South. Brittany, 7th grader from Summit Lakes Middle School, and Jaci Herron, 5th grader from Woodland Elementary, finished 3rd for East-West, 4th overall, earning .47 masterpoints, and Matt Holecek and Elizabeth, both 6th graders from Trailridge Elemenatry, finished 3rd for North-South earning .39 masterpoints. Michael Brummett (4th grader!) and Gage Bregitzer (5th grader), both from Hawthorn Hill Elementary also received .35 masterpoints for finishing in 5th place overall!
It is worth noting that Austin Buchanan has finished 1st overall for two years in a row. Way to go Austin! Mallory, Kayla, and Brittany placed in both last year's competition and this year's competition as well, earning them enough masterpoints in those 2 years to be eligible for the graduating senior scholarship. Trevor only needed a small fraction of a masterpoint to make him eligible for that graduating scholarship coming up next year for him, as he has played duplicate at the club level and also at the Regional Tournament at Crown Center, besides playing in the sectional student tournament last year. So congratulations to him too as he appears to be a shoe-in for the scholarship when he graduates next year as there are currently no other members of his class working on earning that 1 masterpoint.
Woodland Elementary 5th and 6th grade ASPIRE students finished the Club Series course with a mini-tournament on Monday, April 14, 2008. Thirteen students were playing an individual movement tournament. Each board was played three times. Top on a board was therefore 2. After seven boards, the clear winner was David Swed with a matchpoint score of 11.5. 
Trailridge Elementary 6th grade ASPIRE students finished the Club Series course with a mini-tournament on Monday, April 7, 2008. Seven students and the classroom teacher, substituting for an absent student, were playing an individual movement tournament. Each board was played twice. Top on a board was therefore 1. After seven boards, the clear winner was Matt Holecek with a matchpoint score of 6. The lowest total, shared by several students was a total score of 2 on the seven boards.
