Our unit’s potluck holiday party will occur in December on a date yet to be determined. You’ll hear about it on sjbridge.org and in a postcard. Please sign up at the San Jose Bridge Club. December 17 through 23 is STAC week.

Spread the word to bridge-playing coworkers, friends, neighbors, and significant others. Judy Fisher and Faye Parsons are offering a series of lessons for beginners starting Monday, January 14, from 3 to 5 p.m. The following day the Tuesday morning game will introduce a separate section for players under 50 masterpoints.

Our Santa Clara Valley fall sectional concluded recently. I’d like to thank everyone who donated food and effort to make it a success. I’m sorry I didn’t get all the names. Several unit board members set up and took down tables and brought snacks, led again by president Dan Turkus. Lyle Supp fed a number of players with his meat trays on Sunday. The turn out was down a little from record levels. Let unit board members know how to improve the next sectional.

In the two-session pair game, it was Henri Farhi & Kit Humphrey, Michael Fleisher & Mindy Moos, and Jiang Wang who took first in their stratifications. Earning section and stratification tops in single-session pair games were Stu Goodgold & Grant Robinson, Maxine & Ray Lubow, John Prior, Judi Carollo & Phyllis Vierra, Bob & Carole Woldstad (where were Ted & Alice?), Mich Ravera & Jerry Lundquist, Chris Lazarovici & Kamen Nedelchev, Thomas Scharf, Raghu & Manju Agarwal, Marilyn Bliss & Karen O’Connell, Bill Traver & Joyce Hatfield, Barbara Harkleroad & Kathleen Keener, Boyer Chu & Cassandra Leung, Daren Kuo, Samuel Shat, Thomas & Claire Feury, Rodica Cailean & Mike Bennett, and Stacy Bowman. (Sorry, I have no room to name repeat winners.) The knockout team of Michael Bodell, Elenalani Lam, Ken Rosenfeld & Alan Malloy prevailed in its bracket.

Winning their Swiss team flights were Marcia & Robert Dean (A); Gigi Spinazze, Lynn Yokel, Lynn Shannon & Ray Yuenger (X); Norman Wang, David Chang, Cassandra Leung & Boyer Chu (B); Helen Chao, Peggy Chen & Jia Wang (D). How did we let interlopers win C?

Joel Koransky had a section top at the Los Angeles regional. At the Santa Cruz sectional, Maggie McEnery had a section top. The winning knockout team was Annette Powers, Don Nemiro, Lynn Shannon & Lynn Yokel. Yokel, Nemiro, and Diane Shannon won flight A in the Swiss teams. Prevailing in flights B and C were Barbara Mash and Thomas & Claire Feury. At the BER sectional, Frank Lowenthal not only had two section tops in pairs, but his Swiss team won.

Congratulations to our newest masters: Yubo Dong, Jane Slenkovich (Junior); Corinne Carter (Club); Michael Leitner (Sectional); Sunny Chiu, Thomas Feury, Karen O’Connell, Gary Ratts, Randolf Rice, Jia Wang (Regional); Benjamin Leitner (NABC); Cassandra Leung, Alexander Tampilang (Bronze); RayYuenger (Gold (phew! now I can relax)).

I’m still available at rayyuenger@comcast.net and (408)379-7717.