Monta Vista High School wins 2015 Bay Area High School Bridge Championship

Team Event

The Monta Vista Matadors were the winners of the first annual Bay Area High School Bridge Championship winning the 20 board final 72 - 32.5. The Matadors team were Dan Zhukov (captain), grade 11, Cameron Wheeler, grade 9, Sophie Lian, grade 9, and Aidan Gottlieb, grade 10. Members of the team had learned to play bridge in the past year through the Silicon Valley Youth Bridge summer camp, and then through a bridge club and teaching program initiated by US Bridge Federation youth team member Kevin Rosenberg, a grade 12 student at the school, and Silicon Valley Youth Bridge volunteer Cheryl Mandala. The Monta Vista bridge club has more members than this core team, but for the team the ability to compete against other schools and win both individual and team trophies and $800 in gift cards for their team was a source of motivation that led to the team members making time for bridge, much like other serious hobbies such as chess or school sports.

The runners up were the very dedicated Paly Vikings who convincingly won the 24-board round robin with 53.77 VP out of 60 possible. The Vikings were captained by Max Krawczyk, grade 12, and also made up of Olivia d'Arezzo, grade 9, Claire Duffie, grade 9, and Cornelius Duffie, grade 9. Olivia, Claire, and Cornelius have been active in Silicon Valley Youth Bridge for the past couple of years. Knowing that this championship needed 4 students from Palo Alto High School, they were active in recruiting friends to play bridge. Max had never played duplicate or any formal bridge until January, but practiced with the rest of this team for this competition. With the help of their Silicon Valley Youth Bridge mentor and coach Lynn Bartz (author of Perfecting Your Partnerships: It's Not About the Cards!) in addition to playing at Silicon Valley Youth Bridge casual Friday events the members of the Paly team participated in ACBL unit games and sectional swiss team events. While playing against more experienced players in these ACBL events is good practice, the team was excited to be able to play in an event with just teams made up of their peers. The Paly team won individual trophies and $400 in gift cards for their team.

Also playing in the team event were the Gunn Titans who were captained by Kevin Huang, grade 9, with Mathew Shi, grade 10, Hugo LaBoisse, grade 10, and William Park, grade 9 and the Galileo Lions a team of grade 11 students who were captained by Marcus Hong with Steve Jiang, Daniel Han, and David Fang. Several of the Gunn team members recruited their friends to learn bridge and practiced to make sure they had a full good team for this event. The Galileo team was coached by USA bridge junior team member Edmund Wu as part of the Center for Bridge Education program at the school. In addition to coaching the Galileo team, Edmund helped ensure their participation in the event. When it looked like this group of Juniors would need to withdraw to take a Saturday test, Edmund convinced their teacher to arrange a special testing date so that the team could take part in this event for which they'd been preparing.

Another San Francisco high school with an active bridge program through CBE is Lowell. Most of the current players in the club are seniors, and, most unfortunately, their senior prom was moved to the date of the bridge championship, so they were unable to compete. Lowell was represented in the pair event by freshman Melinda Li. We are confident that Melinda, along with CBE Lowell bridge teacher Marion Robertson, will recruit and train a new crop of Lowell players for next year's event!

Pair Event

There was a inter-school High School pairs competition for the players on the teams that did not advance to the finals plus any high school players who could not attend the full day or could not get a full team together from their school. This 4 table event played 21 boards with first place winners being Matthew Shi and Kevin Huang of Gunn. They won individual trophies and $250 as a pair in gift cards. The runners up were Brent Xiao, a freshman at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, and Samuel Perlow, a junior at Fusion Academy in Marin County. They also won individual trophies and $120 as a pair in gift cards. Brent is determined to teach friends to play, so that he can enter a MSJ team in the 2016 competition.

Acknowledgements

The Bay Area High School Bridge Championship would not have been a success without the support of Silicon Valley Youth Bridge, our extraordinary volunteer tournament director Will Watson, the Center for Bridge Education, District 21 of the American Contract Bridge League and the Bayshore Bridge Club. With the majority of the participants non-seniors, and Silicon Valley Youth bridge players in middle school poised to enter high school, we have great hope that next year's championship will be a success as well.