[lcsmw]

I started playing rubber bridge around 1960 with my best friends family. It was a friendly game with ghoulies on passed out hands.
I started playing duplicate when points were on pieces of paper and there were only black points. At some point I let my ACBL membership lapse. In 1969, I was in the air force and resumed playing in tournaments with pick up partners including a national in Atlanta. In 1978, I taught my wife to be how to play and our partnership lasted over 30 years until she developed health issues. I was less than 5 gold points from life master. I quit tournament play and started playing Bridgebase games with a robot partner for I believe 29 cents. When she quit playing online games, I let my ACBL membership lapse. I played in the first ACBL national, played my best bridge and won a fraction of a gold point.

She died in 2022. Going to bridge tournaments was our vacations. Reno was our favorite with the last game of the year on new years eve. It attracted top players from all of the country. As a memorial I went to the Reno regional in Sparks. Before then, I posted here, the tournament website and even signed up at the partnership desk. Physically, playing bridge requires some effort and I hoped to find a partnership before playing. By the time I had a partner, the tournament started and we had not completed our convention card. I asked the person at the partnership desk what was going on and the answer is almost everyone has a partner. When In Atlanta, I played in a lot of events easily finding a partner. With the internet available, I found that the partnership desk was how you found a partner. I let my ACBL membership lapse see I wasn't playing in ACBL events.

I decided that I would try to develop a partnership on Bridgebase that could migrate to live bridge. Rejoined ACBL and found that I was starting all over again. What I also learned is that tournament Bridge players are old. My wife and I were some of the younger players and in Reno at 77, I was younger than most. The other thing I learned is that older players have favorite conventions and don't like to be outside their comfort zone and our far less flexible than in the past.

Lastly, there are so many more colors of points. ACBL recently had a promotion on Bridgebase that awarded gold points on inexpensive games. I played okay in a few and won more gold than the BB national with a $40 entry fee. At this I decided I was done with bridge other than using it as brain stimulation/time wasting and generally free games.