380½ tables at the end of Day Six (Saturday), 43.3% of the 2018 total. This does not include the 32 tables participating Saturday in the North American Pairs District Finals in Flight A and Flight C.
In April 2022, there were 374 tables to this point.
In 2018, there were 878 tables to this point.
For full details, check out the Table Counts page!

Bridge clubs and tournaments throughout the ACBL are struggling with returning to live play, so comparing this tournament's attendance to one before the pandemic is not really fair. We'll hope to get a little more than last year, around 60% of the 2018 attendance, making the target number 549 tables this time — but perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised!

Brain Warmups

What WAS His/Her Name Again?

Below is a short description of six famous people, five of whom were born on October 28, in alphabetical order by (unrevealed) surname. One was NOT born on this day, but rather on the day at the opposite end of the calendar, April 28. The imposter will always be either the first or last born of the six by more of a gap than the two at the other end of the list. Your job is to name the five people and place them in order of their birth years, leaving the imposter out. Answers are below, with the more tricky puzzles from that site that McBruce is addicted to...

• American businessman and philanthropist (and occasional tournament bridge player) who founded Microsoft.
• German-American musician, a pioneer of electronic music and early Moog synthesizers who wrote and recorded the instrumental hit Popcorn.
• American lawyer and businessman, the fifth Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
• Dutch astronomer and academic for whom the cloud separating the solar system from the rest of the galaxy is named.
• American actor, producer and screenwriter best known for being the sidekick to Conan O'Brien in talk shows on NBC and TBS.
• American actor and singer best known for playing Detective Nick Yemana on the sitcom Barney Miller.

Masterpoints for all players are updated nightly here first, with everyone's current red and gold point total listed alphabetically below the leaders, before a shorter leaderboard is added to this page.

North American Pairs!

In addition to the pairs games, the North American Pairs District 19 final in strats A (open) and C (non-LMs under 500 in June 2023) were held on Saturday. The ACBL Live Link is here. Winners in Flight A were: Alexander Woo and Nelson Davis, with Jenni and Tom Carmichael the runners up. In Flight C the winners were Lorne Burns and Susan Craven (photo at the right), and the runners-up were Patti Hulvershorn and Merrie Lee Soules. Today, the Flight B event (under 2500 in June 2023) will be held at 10am and 3pm. These events are run at the Leavenworth Regional but are not part of the official table count or the masterpoint lists.

Brain Workout Section!

For those of you who used to like the puzzles I printed in the old bulletins, here is a link to an online version: one of the puzzles that I used to feature in the old paper Bulletins, but it is easy to play on a computer as well. Not so easy on a tablet or phone, since most of the puzzles require right-clicks, not easily done in a tablet or phone environment. Signpost challenges you to find the path from #1 at the top left to the highest number at the bottom right, following the arrows from number to number: 1 points to 2, 2 points to 3, etc., but the distance between consecutive numbers may be one cell, or many, in the indicated direction. Strategy: Check the instructions provided with the game for how to use several useful tools to help you solve these without guesswork. You can, for example, mark a sequence of cells that connect together with a letter and connect a number later, or you can right-click on a cell to see which other cells point to it. Click on the puzzle you want to try at the right (or the caption below) to go to the page with all the instructions you'll need. These puzzles come from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection (see below) and there are links there to apps for most devices.	Easy puzzle (McBruce's time: 1min 42sec)
	Medium puzzle (McBruce's time: 2min 33sec)
	Tricky puzzle (McBruce's time: 3min 55sec)

Answers to the trivia questions at the top of the page...

(Click here to go back to the questions!)

October 28 birthdays:

• 1917 — Jack Soo, American actor and singer best known for playing Detective Nick Yemana on the sitcom Barney Miller.
• 1922 — Gershon Kingsley, German-American musician, a pioneer of electronic music and early Moog synthesizers who wrote and recorded the instrumental hit Popcorn.
• 1926 — Bowie Kuhn, American lawyer and businessman, the fifth Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
• 1955 — Bill Gates, American businessman and philanthropist (and occasional tournament bridge player) who founded Microsoft.
• 1966 — Andy Richter, American actor, producer and screenwriter best known for being the sidekick to Conan O'Brien in talk shows on NBC and TBS.
• ...and...
• April 28, 1900 — Jan Oort, Dutch astronomer and academic for whom the cloud separating the solar system from the rest of the galaxy is named.