News from North Fair Oaks
 

649 N Fair Oaks Ave #201
Pasadena CA 91103
(626) 247-4457
pasadenabridgeclub.com

As of this morning, for 2026, the Pasadena Bridge Club is #22 in North America for face-to-face bridge clubs, with 3,198 tables. We just passed the Mathewson Bridge Center in Reno where my friend and current ABTA president Jill Wallace does her thing. (Hi Jill!)

Ahead of us locally are the Long Beach Bridge Center at #15, and three clubs in neighboring District 22: San Juan Capistrano at #11, Laguna Woods at #7, and the Duncan Bridge Center in Palm Desert at #4. California is really a hotbed of bridge. But (of course) the top three clubs in the list are all in Florida! (#5 is Honors in Manhattan.)

How many clubs are in this list? 1,800 clubs have reported tables played in 2026.

The ACBL table counts include tables in sanctioned masterpoint games, so it doesn't include our classes, casual, or workshop games and activities.

Lulu Minter seminar on Monday

To kick off STaC week Monday, Lulu will give one of his popular talks on the theme "Rules of Numbers." This is Monday, October 19!

The talk will be at 10:00 in the Community Room down the hall from the bridge club.

Sectional Tournament at Clubs (STaC)

This week, October 19-25, all Open Pairs games at the club will be silver point STaC games. Those are the Monday-Friday 11:00 AM games and the Saturday 1:00 PM game.

Each of those games will have their results grouped with other clubs in District 23 playing at the same time to create overall awards within the district. Card fees will be $13 for these games (or a punch and $1).

We have a normal table limit in the club of 16 tables, and it's not unreasonable to expect that we might reach that point on some popular days for the STaC. If you can book your games early it's a good idea!

Classes this week

This is a good week to drop in for single classes ($25). All of our courses are doing "practice hands" this week. These are great opportunities to practice on a particular topic!

This week's classes (all "practice hands"):

• Wednesday 3:00 PM: Two Over One Game Force 
• Wednesday 7:00 PM: Bridge Basics 2 - Competitive Bidding
• Thursday 7:00 PM: Bridge Basics 4 - Play of the Deal

Saturday mornings start with a free 20-minute workshop with an interesting hand from Eddie Kantar's Thinking Bridge series. Every hand has interesting bidding, play, and defense problems to work out. Come for the workshop, stay for the 14-board game, finish by 12:15.

Other tidbits ...

New classes start soon! I'll be sending a "new class" email shortly. Courses starting next week:

• Wednesday Oct 28 7:00 PM Bridge Basics 3 - Popular Conventions
• Thursday Oct 29 7:00 PM Introduction to Defense

Register for either of these classes at this link.

The session of Bridge Basics 1 - Introduction starting October 28 is sold out with 32 students!

The courses this session will each have a two-week break from meetings for Thanksgiving and the week after, to let us all play in the NABC, to wit:

The North American Bridge Championships are coming to San Diego the week after Thanksgiving,  and all of the bridge club staff want to go play! We're planning to close the bridge club from Monday, November 30, through Wednesday, December 2. We'll take advantage of the down time to do some carpet cleaning as well. (I'm also going to empty the Lost and Found and clutter that can go away.)

We won't have games on Thanksgiving, but we will on Friday and Saturday after.

Best regards
Mojo, Jane, Zachary, Lisa, Susan