Still under development.

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Bob Bertoni knew how to run Pro-Am events from his experience with them on Friday evenings at the sectionals sponsored by the Eastern Mass Bridge Association. District 25’s first one was held in Nashua, NH, in 2015. It was moderately successful. The last one before the pandemic, held at the same site in June of 2018 was a huge success—21 tables! I attended the first Pro-Am, the last one, and all in between.

The last thing discussed at the district’s Executive Committee meeting at the 2023 Gala in Marlborough, MA. was how to attract people to the evening games. At the last minute I, remembering that we had attracted two sections worth of players before the pandemic, suggested trying a Pro-Am pairs game in which each pair must have at least one non-Life Master. Susan Miguel, the district’s vice-president at the time, asked if I would volunteer to host it. Thinking that she meant at the next tournament in February in Southbridge, I agreed.

Well, the tournament was not in Southbridge in February; it was in Mansfield. Furthermore, the Pros would need to be part of the sectional. There was a tournament in April in Southbridge, but Susan, who by this point the president, wanted to have the Pro-Am at the third tournament, the Granite State Getaway, in Nashua, NH. She let me choose between holding the event on Friday and on Saturday. My wife Sue, who agreed to help with the project, and I selected Friday. The first promotional mailing was sent on Saturday, April 6. It is posted here.

While researching the event in 2016 I discovered that one of the big attractions was the half-price entry fee for the event. I emailed Sue Miguel to ask whether we could offer a similar incentive in 2024. Here was her incongruous reply.

This time we’ll charge the full amount BUT we’re going to make sure we have LOTS of things making it fun and are will be [sic]great to advertise.

For starters we’ll have special food. We can also offer raffles, prizes and a little trinket everyone can receive just for playing.

As soon as we wrap Southbridge, we’ll put our minds on it.

 Let’s see if we can find a theme to run with…

This sounded horrible to me. It was followed almost immediately by this email with “Luau Night” as the subject:

That’s the theme!!!

I’ll make an ad but I need a couple of days to regroup and recover.

Directors in Hawaiian shirts, themed party food and gifts. Everyone gets a lai [sic] at the door.

Can’t wait….

I wondered if they had ever been to a luau. Most people who vacation in Hawaii for a few days attend one, but no one ever goes a second time. They are rather spectacular, but no one ever goes twice.

Hawaii, not surprisingly, has good fish, but the rest of the food is expensive and of questionable quality. When I told the other Sue about this scheme, she had the same reaction that I did: “Are they going to make people eat poi?”

At any rate, I could not imagine any way to connect luaus to Pro-Am events except that professional hula dancers in grass skirts often tried to train unsuspecting (and usually intoxicated) amateur tourists in the art of hip swiveling. I doubted that we could persuade many people at a bridge tournament to participate in anything similar, except perhaps the drinking.

So, I decided to keep promoting it as an interesting bridge event without emphasizing the luau angle.

Several people responded to the email. Two volunteered as pros. I was able to match Curtis Barton up with the only amateur who responded, Daniel Sheinen. So, counting Sue and me, we now had one full table and one extra pro.