[P_Marlowe]

I am a member of a university club.
The club is small, ... it grows slowly.
The main day is the play on Realbridge, but we try to have at least 1 day per month to have a F2F event,
which may only consist of 1 table, but we need to keep it, so that the peoble can meet, when they desire,
it is Summer, it is hot and there is no climate module to get the temperature done, but this is important,
otherwise you cant create a club and the club dies.

We alos need to collaborate with the other club in town, we have different target groups, but we need each
other.

[pescetom]

awm, on 2025-July-04, 02:03, said:

If anything the level of play and defense seems to have deteriorated at many clubs in recent years (as the experienced players get older and are perhaps replaced with players who learned bridge for the first time in their 60s). System is an obstacle to learning bridge, but to be honest not an obstacle to scoring well (especially at matchpoints, consistently not making stupid mistakes on defense can win you more than all the conventions in the world).

I agree with your observation that the level of defence has deteriorated as experienced players are replace with players (like me) who learned bridge for the first time in their 50s or 60s, but not your implication that this will outweigh system advances: on the contrary, I find it amusing that the remaining experienced players are still struggling to compete against the "youngsters"
The truth is that bidding is much easier to learn than defence, and bidding has made huge steps forwards and is increasingly well documented.
Defence seems to me a classic "10k hours to master" issue, not made easier by the unwillingness of experienced players to discuss with lesser partners.
Bridge would not risk anything if the only issue was that the current generation are not yet good at defence... alas there is worse.

[jillybean]

hrothgar, on 2025-July-04, 04:13, said:

One thing that folks might want to think about are the second order effects of the EDGAR prosecutions.

I am hearing claims that in some areas at least, significant numbers of ACBL club games are dropping their sanctions rather than giving cheats the boot.

Some people are claiming that this impacts roughly a third of the games in locations such as Cincinnati, Dallas, and parts of Florida.

From what I can tell, this typically involves situations in which a popular local figure or teacher gets the boot

In the case of Cincinnati the individual who was running the games was the one who was convicted of cheating.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that these games are already on their last legs and there is no one to take over.

Single points of failure are bad...

You may well be right that F2F sanctioned games are dead, the unsanctioned games are gaining from that decline.

Being unable to sustain club, tournament and NABC bridge in North America is alarming. Given the financial and political climate, Canada needs to step up and do something here, take a leadership position and redesign that structure. What a fabulous opportunity.

Which NBO would you copy?