Players get instruction from Debbie Rosenberg
With funding from the ACBL Junior Fund, the United States Bridge Federation (USBF) held a bridge camp for advanced junior players in conjunction with the Summerfest Regional in St. Charles, IL (near Chicago) the week of July 8. Eleven young bridge players from eight states (CA, IL, MD, MA, MI, MN, VA, WA) attended the four-day camp, which was organized by USBF Junior Program Coordinator Joe Stokes.
Those attending the camp played in Regional events each day at 2:00 and 7:30. In addition, they met each morning from 11:00 to 1:45 and each evening from 5:45 to 7:15 to receive instruction and to review hands from the previous session. Campers also met after the evening sessions to discuss the hands they had played and to receive feedback and suggestions from expert players.
Debbie and Michael Rosenberg, who attended camp all four days, provided much of the instruction and led the review of hands the campers had played after each session. Chicago experts Jack Oest and Ralph Katz gave talks to the campers, and many other experts kibitzed the young players and provided feedback.
USBF President George Jacobs played with a junior team one day and gave the youngsters pointers. Thanks to them all.
Rick Beye, the director in charge of the Regional, made sure everyone had hand records after each session, even when they played knockout and Swiss team matches. Rick also provided electronic versions of the deals so we could project them on a large screen to facilitate discussion among the players and their mentors. Thank you, Rick.
Thanks also to Martha Katz, a former junior champion, who helped with logistics, and to Angie Clark, chair of the Regional, and her staff, all of whom helped make the camp a success.
Juniors attending camp performed very well in the Regional events. Two junior teams contested the finals of the top bracket of the Wednesday-Thursday knockout. The winners of that KO (Greg Herman, Oren Kriegel, Ben Kristensen, and Kevin Rosenberg) also reached the finals of Bracket One in the Friday-Saturday KO but fell short of winning their second KO of the week.
Oren Kriegel, Greg Herman, Kevin Rosenberg & Ben Kristensen
Suzi Subeck took many pictures and videos at the camp, which you can see by clicking here.