ACBL Unit 539 has sponsored an initiative to introduce and teach Bridge to beginners in San Diego. As part of this initiative, Unit Board member Sam Madison working with Wayne Sottosanti, who is also on the board, has started a Basic Bridge Course at North University Community Library located at 8820 Judicial Drive. The course is made up of 12 two hours lessons and is held every other Saturday. Sam and Wayne have completed three lessons already, and the course is expected to finish by the first week of December 2023.

There was a great response to the Course ad, and the class has more than 30 registered students. It is our hope that we will be able to add more education programs in San Diego in the near future. Moreover, we will be developing plans on how to keep the attendees engaged in our bridge community once the course is completed.

As the sun sets on The Longest Day, we can't say thank you enough for your generous support of our fundraising efforts. We are so grateful for your generous donation and support for our Bridge Pro Auction fundraiser. With your help, we raised an incredible $18,500 this year. That's $7000 over our goal of $11,000. Your donation helps advance the care, support, and research efforts of the Alzheimer's Association.

We hosted our Longest Day bridge game on Sunday, June 18, at 1:00 at the Soledad Club. Extra masterpoints were awarded, and the Unit matched one dollar from each player's card fees to donate to the cause.

A lineup of local and international bridge stars in our Expert Auction features 18 experts this year! David Abelow, Kitty Cooper, Paul Darin, Ish Delmonte, Mitch Dunitz, Jason Feldman, Lynne Feldman, Wirt Gilliam, Mark Itabashi, Daniel Korbel, Sam Madison, and Rick Roeder were available again to play with the highest bidder. Davis Bennett, Vlad Isporski, John Jones, Marjorie Michelin, Claude Vogel, and Rhoda Walsh were new to this illustrious group this year. At both Unit games in June, local artists Judy Rimer and Phyllis Yates offered their beautiful creations for donation-based purchases.

Plan ahead to enjoy the joint San Diego/ La Jolla sectional this summer at the Soledad Club.

Options include:

• Single Session Pair Games at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm on Friday and Saturday. Friday offers 3 games—299er, 1499er and Open. Saturday has Stratified Open Pairs.
• Two Session Team Games on Saturday at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm. Choices include Bracketed Flight B (no player over 2000 points) or Flight A/X/Y (0 – 3000, 3000 – 5000, over 5000)

Space is limited to 40 tables, so RSVP to guarantee your place. Send an email to lamya.agelidis@gmail.com stating:

• Day (Friday or Saturday)
• Session (AM, PM or both)
• Event (299/1499/ Open/Team)
• Lunch (Y/N)

See Flyer

Our unit hosts the first and third Sunday unit games at the Soledad Club, and alternate 5th Sundays. Lunch is served at 12:30, followed by bridge at 1 pm. We are thrilled to offer our 699er game, which is preceded by a mini-lesson at 12:30. If you plan on joining us at the 699er game , please contact Bridget at bridgefun1430@gmail.com.

Results for Sunday, September 17th

Game	Overall Winners	Percentage
Open Pairs (Flt A)	Marjorie O'Malley - Charles O'Malley	63.74%
Open Pairs (Flt B )	Jeremy Fields - Liliane Kirchhoff	59.35%
699ers	Jiawen Wu - Susan Wu	69.44%

For full results click on the "Calendar and Results" item on the left menu of this page.

We are thrilled to announce that Maritha Pottenger's teaching articles are now available on our Unit 539 website.

Please click on the "Teaching Library" menu item or link below, to access her abundant library of teaching articles on: Defense, Declarer play, Bidding.

Maritha Pottenger has been a beloved teacher and a very successful player in the San Diego area for many years. She became a Platinum Life Master (10,000 points) last year. When asked why she teaches bridge, she responded:

I love teaching. Teaching really helped my bridge game. I had to clarify principles that were not clear when explaining them to other people; definitely a great way to improve my own bridge logic and inferences.

Bridge is the ideal game- because you can never learn it all. Each hand has something instructional to offer. Each partner offers another point of view. Psychological principles operate at the bridge table as they do throughout life. Bridge is endlessly fascinating and I adore it!

As she was retiring from teaching, she volunteered to share her teaching notes with all. You can review any of the conventions you are considering adding to your repertoire with your partner or just choose to study to improve your defense or play of the hand.

Thank you Maritha!

Teaching Library

From the musical Bridge Confidential
Book & Lyrics: Joanne Gray, Music: Peter Mansfield

One thing we are certain of is that everybody likes a complete phone and email directory. Our goal is to have one San Diego directory shared by the five units in San Diego County. It is online, since a paper directory is not cost effective unfortunately. With your help, we can get there. Again, we can't publish your contact details without your written approval, so just send an email to info@sandiegobridge.com contact one of your Board members to share any contact changes with us.

Online Directory

Unit 539 is publishing the game results on BridgeResults.net.

To make the best of BridgeResults features we recommend that you register your email address (if you have not done so already). This will allow you to receive notifications by email when the results are published, to have your name highlighted when you look at the results, and many other features.

You can also upload your photo to BridgeResults to be added to our galleries of players.