2010 Resort City Regional

Daily Bulletins

Welcome Issue, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Message from Ned Irving, Unit 161 President:

Unit 161, which covers about 3/4 of Arkansas, is a part of District 10 which covers Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Western Tennessee and Arkansas. ACBL has 29 Districts. Our unit has 1054 members. By masterpoints, this breaks down as follows: 0-5=154, 5-20= 91, 20-50=130, 50-100=116, 100-200=130, 200-Life Master=64, Life Master=74, Bronze Life Master=138, Silver Life Master=108, Gold Life Master=30, Diamond Life Master=8, Grand Life Master=3.

The membership trend in the unit is exciting! Out of 300 ACBL Units, our Unit ranked #4 in the country last year in the growth of the number of active members; in new membership gains we ranked #10 out of 300; in smallest number of membership losses we ranked #7 out of 300.

Our membership average age in the Unit is 69 years, the same as ACBL overall.

The Unit board meets early one morning at every tournament held within our unit. In response to requests from the host clubs, this year the board approved tournaments though 2012 as follows:

January Little Rock 299er, March Hot Springs Village Spring Fling, July Little Rock, August Hot Springs Village 299er, November DeGray. These 5 tournaments are double the amount we had prior to 2009; (Little Rock used to be every other year). Tournaments are a good thing even for those who don't play because they help build excitement for bridge in your club and they contribute positively to each participating clubs income.

Please communicate with your Unit 161 board representative with any suggestions or recommendations that you may have.

In addition, the District Board has previously approved future Hot Springs Regional's as follows: May 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015.

Unit Team Championship

It's time to start planning for the Unit Team Championship held each year in DeGray. Club qualifications must be held before June 30. If 1-6 teams participate in qualification, one team will compete in DeGray; if 7-12 teams participate in qualification, then two teams will compete in DeGray; with more than 12 teams participating, three teams will compete in DeGray.

To allow for more lower strata involvement and enthusiasm the 3-2-1 point spread whereby each team can have no more than 8 points will be spread as:

A=2000+ MP = 3 points, B = 500 ≤ 2000 MP = 2 points, and C = 0 ≤ 500 MP = 1 point. Each team is limited to only one A player.

Your total number of masterpoints is determined as of January 1.

Work with Russ Jones at ARKDRJ@aol.com to plan your club qualification game and coordinate your results.

The points awarded for the Unit Team Championship are generous compared to other sectional rated events because there is a qualifying round.

Looking forward to your participation!

Ned Irving, Unit 161 President

North American Pairs (NAP) - Conditions of Contest

Club level qualifications are held during June, July and August.

After qualifying at the Club level you will be eligible to play in the Qualifying Round at the Unit level . B and C players will compete together in a stratified 2 session Unit Qualifying Round where 60% of all pairs in each strata will qualify to compete in the District Qualifying round. As a special incentive to compete, Unit 161 is awarding a stipend of $100 to each B and C pair that qualifies in the Unit Round and then also competes in the District Level competition. Overall awards are 10% gold for B and 5% gold for C, with the remainder of the points being red at sectional rating.

Unit qualifying sites for flights B and C. Unit qualification is not required for Flight A:
Little Rock Card Club - Saturday October 30 at 9:30 am
The NAOP Unit Finals will begin at 9:30. Lunch will be provided between the two sessions .
Jonesboro Bridge Studio - October 16 at 10:00 am
(All unit members can play at either site but not both)
Cost for the 2-session event - $20 per pair
Points: Unit qualification awards Gold and Red points for Flights B & C.
District Qualifying for Flight A - Tunica, MS, September 2010

District Qualifying for Flight B & C - Jackson, MS, Jan 14-16, 2011
At the District level, in Districts with four qualifiers, the 1st place qualifiers will receive $700 per person and the 2nd place qualifiers will receive $300 per person. Even if you do not win at the District level you may still win the stipends to attend the Nationals. In the past few years the top Qualifiers at the District level have not been able to attend the Nationals so the next pair automatically moves up.

Flights for this exciting event are: (Masterpoints as of 2010 June masterpoint cycle.

( The June masterpoint cycle is run by ACBL data processing in May 2010. Any points won but not included in this cycle do not affect masterpoint eligibility.)

C Level 0 - 500 AND must be a Non-Life Master
B Level 0-2000
A Level Open to all Levels

National Finals: Spring 2011 NABC Louisville, Kentucky

Education Liaison

Attention Unit 161 clubs: The Education Liaison from the Unit 161 Board to your club for 2009 is Dick Heil. Please contact him at: Home Tel # 501-753-3097, Cell # 501-529-6404, E-mail heil@sbcglobal.net

The primary functions of the Educational Liaison are:

Promote Educational Programs throughout the Unit at the Unit and Club Level.

Administer the Unit’s Educational reimbursement policy, and to help coordinate with the District their Educational reimbursement policy.

Use the available resources of the ACBL to develop a cadre of accredited Bridge Teachers.

Develop and implement programs for the advancement and improvement of teaching techniques.

Assist Clubs in the development and implementation of New Player Development programs.

Preface

The Board of Directors of Unit 161 have generously provided the smaller clubs in the Unit a web presence. Each club will be provided the opportunity to upload game results. If each of the clubs would provide a representative to act as a liaison with the Unit Webmaster , it would be greatly appreciated. I am going to start each club with some general information and a game schedule. The game schedule can be used to view the weekly game results.

The liaison will check the web pages associated with his/her club, contact the webmaster with corrections, and provide any change in content that the club may desire.

Each club has access to a 'Game Upload Page' just for that club. Via this page, the game results provided by ACBLscore can be uploaded to the web site so all the players can view the results from home or any other Internet connection.

Richard Robertson, Unit Webmaster