Louisiana Bridge Center

New EZ Bridge classes starting Thursday, Sept 14th-- the week after  Labor Day.

Classes from 9:-11:30  First 4 classes are FREE!!!!

Tell all of your social bridge player friends, and those interested in learning our favorite game, to " come on down".

EZ Bridge is the best way to insure that we won't go the way of the dinosaurs.

Click HERE to see the flyer.

Please look around your car/dwelling/purse, etc. We have lost a very important binder that contain names and emails of potential new members.

If you find it, please return it to the club ASAP.

The Louisiana Bridge Association has been awarded a sanction to hold a Non-Life Master Regional (NLMR) at our facilities in Metairie.  The dates selected are May 29 – June 1, 2019.  The field will be limited to players who are both Non-Life Masters and have less than 750 master points.  Master point awards will be ¼ Gold for overall and section top places at all of the two session events. Red points will be awarded for the remaining high finishers under ACBL regulations.  As you can see, while Gold points will be awarded, they will be only a small portion of the awarded points.  If you are looking for a large payout of Gold, regular ACBL Regional tournaments without the “Non-Life Master” restriction should remain on your schedule. 

As this is the first NLMR we have ever hosted, our learning curve is steep.  Importantly, we have no experience in the expected size of the field but hopefully we can both fill up our club and provide all the players with a fun week of bridge.  Some of the decisions that will be made over the next year (and for which we solicit input from those of you who have experience in these events) are: (1) the exact schedule of events and starting times.  (2) Do we want to have a two session team event?  (3) Do we want to provide registration gifts to attendees and/or prizes for winners or would you prefer solicitation of gift cards from local merchants and restaurants for door prizes instead of the registration gifts and prizes?  (4)  What should we charge?  (5) What sort of food and snacks should we provide? (6) Will we need an alternate playing space for our regular games? If so where? As you can see a lot of decisions must be made and as we move closer to the event, a lot of volunteer time will be needed.

 A small team has been started to coordinate and oversee the start up of this operation.  I will serve as Chairman and Larry Federico, Sue Himel, Jackie Madden Steve Plotkin, Diana Powell, and Mike Russell have all agreed to serve as co-chairs. If you have not met these fine folks please introduce yourself as soon as possible.  Please also communicate with any of us on the above issues as you feel fit. Please also remember to volunteer, as numerous hours helping with the partnership desk, food service and hospitality will be needed. Our goal is to get everyone a lot of points while having fun and hopefully making a small profit for the Louisiana Bridge Association.

 Jim Thornton

President

A Few Statistics to Share

From the ACBL Membership Report as of 6/30/17, our Unit reflected a gain of 88 new members for the year (number one Unit in the District out of 14 and number 17 in the entire ACBL out of 297).  We now have 809 members (an 11% gain over 6/30/16) and the Average Age of our membership has dropped from 73 to only 72.6.  WE ARE GETTING YOUNGER!!!

These results are of course due to the hard work of our beginning bridge instructors who recruit, retain and teach these wonderful new players.  THANKS!!

Jim Thornton

The Louisiana Bridge Association (LBA) is the largest bridge club in the greater New Orleans area. It is also the oldest, dating back to 1941. The LBA is part of ACBL Unit 134, District 10 which has over 1,300 members, ranging from new players with a few master points to Grand Life Masters with over 25,000.