414½ tables at the end of Day Seven (Sunday), 43.5% of the 2018 total. Adding in 48 tables from the NAP District Finals would be 462½, 48.6% of the 2018 total.
In April 2022, there were 404 tables to this point.
In 2018, there were 952 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 hoped to get a little more than last year, and including the NAP District Finals there were 58½ more tables this time!

Brain Warmups

What WAS His/Her Name Again?

Below is a short description of six famous people, five of whom were born on October 29, 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 29. 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 actor and voice artist who is best known as the voice of Homer Simpson.
• American actor and activist who gained fame in American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, and won an Academy Award for The Goodbye Girl.
• American pianist, composer, and bandleader whose jazz orchestra was formed when he was 23 and was active for the rest of his life.
• American trumpet player and composer who wrote several jazz hits and the TV themes for Batman and The Odd Couple.
• American actress and television producer, one of the three original Charlie's Angels and the person who came up with the name for the series.
• American painter and television host whose PBS painting instructional show was popular two decades after his early death when Netflix added it to its lineup.

Daily Bulletin editor was stuck in travel limbo coming back from Courtenay BC when the files came in. 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

Eight tables of players played in the Flight B (under 2500 in June 2023) NAP District Final on Sunday, and the winners were Eric and Edward He, with Long Xie and Jennifer Hong in second place.

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. Keen is a Sudoku variant with a little math involved. Like Sudoku, you must fit numbers into the grid (from 1 to the number of cells in a row or column) so that there are no repeats in a row or column. As well, you must ensure that the numbers placed into each block (those groups of cells bounded by heavy lines) match the number and the arithmetic operation at the top left of the block. Subtraction (-) and division (÷) are always two cell blocks and the numbers can be in any order. Addition (+) and Multiplication (×) can be three or four or more cells and some of the products can be surprisingly high! In larger blocks it is permissible to have a number duplicated as long as the duplicates are not in the same row or column. Strategy: bigger numbers usually allow you to connect one bridge in each possible direction and later decide which directions have second bridges as well; check how many islands can actually be connected with up-down or left-right lines, often this will give you clues as to where the bridges must be. 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: 6min 14sec)
	Medium puzzle (McBruce's time: 6min 5sec)
	Tricky puzzle (McBruce's time: 30min 29sec)

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

(Click here to go back to the questions!)

October 29 birthdays:

• 1922 — Neal Hefti, American trumpet player and composer who wrote several jazz hits and the TV themes for Batman and The Odd Couple.
• 1942 — Bob Ross, American painter and television host whose PBS painting instructional show was popular two decades after his early death when Netflix added it to its lineup.
• 1947 — Richard Dreyfuss, American actor and activist who gained fame in American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, and won an Academy Award for The Goodbye Girl.
• 1948 — Kate Jackson, American actress and television producer, one of the three original Charlie's Angels and the person who came up with the name for the series.
• 1957 — Dan Castellaneta, American actor and voice artist who is best known as the voice of Homer Simpson.
• ...and...
• April 29, 1899 — Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, and bandleader whose jazz orchestra was formed when he was 23 and was active for the rest of his life.