DEVON FALK & CODY YAU OF SHAW MIDDLE SCHOOL WIN FIRST RYB

YOUTH TOURNAMENT

Saturday, June 6,2009: It seems entirely appropriate that the first annual Reno Youth Duplicate Bridge Tournament, at the Reno Bridge Center, would be held Saturday afternoon, June 6^th, “D” day, as members of the Country’s “Greatest Generation” came together with some of its youngest generation to test their skills competing in the World’s most popular card game, Contract Bridge.  Eight student partnership teams from five participating schools in Washoe County School District’s Pilot After-School Activity bridge teaching program assembled at the Center to play 24 duplicated hands against each other to see how well they could bid and play in contrast to their  opponents. At the same time, members of the Reno ACBL Unit, mostly seniors, were competing side by side in their regular Saturday Club game. The contrast of seniors and juniors exhibiting what they have learned in a competitive venue was striking.  Scoring is accomplished by comparing the results each partnership achieves playing the same 24 hands held by the other pairs sitting the same direction, North-South or East-West.  One “match point” is scored for each higher score and one half-point is scored for ties.  The dreaded zero or “bottom” is the result when a pair scores lower than all others playing that same hand.  At the end of the game, scores are totaled and the partnership with the highest total number of match points is declared the winner.  In Saturday’s tournament, Devon Falk and Cody Yau, of Shaw Middle School managed to score a total of 44½ match points or a whopping 61.81% game yet they finished only ½ point ahead of the second place 3 party team of Harley DeGuzman, Elijah Lyons and Soren DuPlessis of the High Desert Montessori Charter School who scored 44 points or  61.11%.  Five points behind with 39 1/2 points in third place was the team of Alex Peterson and Trevor Swetkovich of Billinghurst Middle school.  Only one point further back in fourth place was the pair of Alexis Jones and Robert Wagner, also of Shaw who finished fourth.The winner of this year’s competition, Cody Yau, said that they were able to score well by using standard bidding conventions and playing conservatively.  Good defense relies on cooperation between the players who must be efficient in keeping track of all the cards and suits played and those remaining outstanding.   The teams celebrated the completion of their first interscholastic competition after the tournament sharing some cake and beverages.  Some youths asked for  more tournaments during the summer vacation period. 

  RYB bridge teachers and teams from Billinghurst and Shaw Middle School, and High Desert Montessori Charter School  

Contract bridge is an unbelievably perfect game. It involves teamwork, problem solving, deduction, deception, reasoning, planning, bravado, communication, nuance, and luck.  It also is fun.  It provides the student with an intellectual competitive opportunity that is largely dependent on inferential reasoning and partnership communication skills based on the use of one or more of only fifteen words or phrases allowed to be used in the bidding and play of a contract.   This limitation makes it possible for people from anywhere in the world to sit down at a table together and play the game of bridge although they do not speak each other’s language.

Kathy Lane, President of Reno Youth Bridge, Inc. says the non-profit company expects to expand this fully funded after-school bridge teaching program to four or five additional Washoe County Middle Schools in the coming school year.  Ms. Lane reports the RYB budget for teacher services, text books, playing equipment and teacher material is approximately $1500 per school for the 2009-2010 school years.  Funding comes from donations by individuals and family members in the community who are interested in supporting Youth Bridge.