Karen Kistler

karen.kistler@salisburypost.com 

 

SALISBURY — For the first time since the start of COVID, the Salisbury Sectional Bridge Tournament is making a comeback to the Rufty-Holmes Senior Center.

Scheduled for Feb. 7-9, the event is sponsored by American Bridge Contract League, Unit 169 and its local sanctioned clubs, said Richard Brisbin, the partnership chairperson of the tournament.

Brisbin said that the local games are held at Rufty-Holmes, 1120 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., on a regular basis and the tournament will be held using its regular room and a larger room as well because of the expected number of players coming to participate in the tournament.

Open to the public, the tournament is a walk-in possibility, said Brisbin, adding that it is for competitive-type players.

“They don’t sign up, they just come,” said Louisa Witten, the local chairperson for the event, adding that they are expecting between 100 and 140 people at each session.

There will be two sessions of play on each day with the morning session beginning at 10 a.m. and the afternoon at 2:30 p.m.

There is a fee to participate in the tournament, Witten said. Each session costs $15 per person, “and you usually have a partner, so it’s $30 per pair, each session.”

While it is a walk-in event and partners are needed, Brisbin said that if people don’t have a partner, there “may be the possibility that a partner can be found. But it’s more likely in advance.”

As partnership chairman, he said that people can contact him by calling 980-234-0373 if they are searching for a tournament partner.

They do know of teams coming, Brisbin said, as he added that they “know that the communication among the bridge community has been going on for quite a while,” he said.

Club membership had been down somewhat and that was the reason the tournament had not resumed sooner. 

However, he said, “we’ve got some enthusiastic newer players, as well as some enthusiastic older ones. So we decided we would make a go of it. It’s a fairly big undertaking with a local crowd, but we do get assistance from what’s called a unit.”

Face-to-face play couldn’t take place during COVID, said Witten. But it has been slowly building back up since that time. There are online opportunities to play against others, she said, “but the face-to-face is really the big thing.”

Brisbin said the league is nationwide and subdivides into districts and units with this local district going from Burlington to Danville, Va., and to Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

They are hoping that participants will come from all over this area as well as some from Concord and Charlotte.

Besides the local games, Brisbin said there are two levels of tournaments, the sectionals and regionals, with the sectionals being the most common and usually, like this one, held over three days.

There are two sessions of bridge each day with pairs games and team games.

Sunday will be what is called team games, he said, which is just as it says, “a team of four, competes against other teams of four. The duplicate bridge is competitive without the luck of the draw of the cards because the people you are competing against are playing the same hands that you play,” he explained.,

On Sunday, Feb. 9, it will also start at 10 a.m. with a catered lunch break, which is included in the entry fee.

The second half of play on this day will immediately follow lunch.

While he said it doesn’t happen often, people are allowed to come and watch as the tournament is taking place.

As for the winners of the tournament, their award will come in the form of master points, said Witten, which “symbolizes your achievement in various aspects of bridge.”

Brisbin, who teaches a beginner bridge class at Rufty-Holmes Senior Center, said he has been playing bridge since college and started playing duplicate here in the local games in 1995.

As for Witten, she said she is “new player in all respects” having started in March of 2022. And while she is inexperienced compared to others who will be playing in the tournament, she does hold her own and plans to participate in the event.

She took a class years ago in Ohio and loved the game and said she wanted to play because her mom and grandmother both played. But life got in the way and she never got involved with a group.  

Seeing a class advertised at the local center with Brisbin as the teacher, she signed up for it; however, COVID canceled the class, still not having learned how to play. But, she added, “he offered to mentor me starting in 2022 getting me indoctrinated to it better. I’ve been playing ever since and I’m hooked.”

For Brisbin, he said what drew him to the game is that he likes challenging games and said that he likens bridge “to chess with teamwork.”

When asked if it would return next year, Witten said that these events are planned and distributed around the state, dividing up so “one organization isn’t doing it all the time. So, not an annual event, but an occasional event,” she said.