2026 Leavenworth Regional, Day Six: Saturday, April 18
“Diamanten Brechen Bei Diesem Turnier Immer Stark...” Translate
Pre-Tournament Version — Included so far: Today’s and Tomorrow’s Schedule, Brain Warmups and Daily Deal.
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What’s My Name?
This Day in History - April 18 Birthdays
The five self-describing historical figures below were all born on April 18. Can you name them and place their birth years in chronological order? (Hint: the five people are in alphabetical order by surname.) Answers below.
- “I've been reviewing music, all types, since the 1960s, for many publications, but mostly for The Village Voice, where I worked for 37 years. I don’t know anything about music, which ought to be a damaging admission but isn’t... The fact is that pop writers in general shy away from such arcana as key signature and beats to the measure... I used to confide my worries about this to friends in the record industry, who reassured me. They didn’t know anything about music either. The technical stuff didn’t matter, I was told. You just gotta dig it.”
- “I was a defense lawyer who took on several high profile cases in the early 20th century, one so infamous I was eventually portrayed, under a different name, by Spencer Tracy! To keep the jury focussed as my summations went on and on, I devised the trick of lighting a cigar that had been previously pierced by some piano wire. The jury rubes were so amazed that the ashes stayed on the cigar that they never stopped listening!”
- “My big break was getting added to the cast of SCTV in their third season and creating hosers Bob & Doug McKenzie because the show was now on CBC and they wanted more Canadian content. This caught fire and we even put them in a movie. After SCTV ended, I was busy with movie roles in Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. I stopped to raise my kids and haven’t managed to get back to it yet, but it might happen soon.”
- “I was the host of the Tonight Show for about 35 minutes until Jay Leno decided that 10pm wasn‘t his best timeslot. Before, I had followed David Letterman in hosting NBC’s Late Night show for sixteen years, and afterwards I hosted my own show on TBS for another eleven years. Not bad for the weird-looking guy nobody thought would ever last!”
- “I was born in Budapest and made my way through London to the USA composing film scores, nearly a hundred of them. Hitchcock and I and David Selznick fought constantly over my score to Spellbound, which won me an Oscar. And yet the theme I am most famous for was not even noticable when first heard in cinemas: a four-note bass line underlying some terrifying music in the opening scene of The Killers was re-worked and brought to the fore by another composer to become the familiar theme to the TV show Dragnet! My score for Ben-Hur, featuring themes for each character, was one of the longest ever composed and won me another Oscar.”
Attendance So Far
In 2025, there were 696½ tables to this point at the fall regional in Whistler.
In October 2023 here, there were 380½ tables to this point.
In April 2022 here, there were 374 tables to this point.
For full details, check out the Table Counts page!
Bridge clubs and tournaments throughout the ACBL are struggling with returning to live play, so comparing this tournament’s attendance to one before the pandemic is not really fair. We'll hope to get around 60% of the 2018 attendance, making the target number 571 tables this time — but perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised!
Today’s Schedule — Day Six — Saturday, April 18
ALERT: Different Start Times Saturday and Sunday
The District 19 Final in two of the four flights of the Grand National Teams is being held at the Festhalle nearly concurrent with the tournament. On Saturday, the GNT events begin at 10:00 am and the Regional events (Open Pairs, 0-1250 Super Gold Rush Pairs, and two single session side games) begin at 10:30. There are only morning and afternoon sessions, at 10:30 and 3:30. On Sunday, the surviving teams in the GNT begin at 9:00am while the Regional Event, a Bracketed Round Robin Teams, begins at 9:30am.
Morning-only Event (10:30am)
Saturday Morning Side Game: Pairs game, part of the Morning Side Game Series (5th of 5).
Strat Limits (by pair average) A: 3000+, B: 1500 - 3000, C: 0 - 750.
Masterpoints: Mostly red points but gold points for overall winners if they play another session in the Morning Side Game Series, and a chance for gold points for individuals whose two best games in the series (played with the same or different partners) are good enough to make the series overalls.
Leavenworth 2023 winners (didn't go):
Whistler 2025 winners (7 tables):
A, B: Diana Jing, Surrey BC; Juan Xu, Coquitlam BC
C: Benjamin Levine - Nicholas Buck, Prince George BC
Morning-Afternoon Events (10:30pm, 3:30pm)
Saturday Open Pairs: Two session pairs game, matchpoint scoring.
Strat Limits (by pair average) A: 4000+, B: 2000 - 4000, C: 0 - 2000.
Masterpoints: Gold points for overalls and some section tops, other awards are red points. Note that you can win points in the first session that are replaced by a higher overall award after the second: you get the greater of your overall award or the sum of the session awards; not both combined.
Leavenworth 2023 winners (18, 18 tables):
A, B, C: Daniel Balof - Barry Balof, Walla Walla WA
Whistler 2025 winners (10, 11 tables):
A, B, C: Linda Davies, Burlington ON; Faye Jensen, Vancouver BC
Saturday Super Gold Rush 0-1250 Pairs: Two session pairs game, matchpoint scoring.
Strat Limits (by pair average) 7: 750 - 1250, 4: 300 - 750, 2: 0 - 300. No individuals over 1250 points may play in this event, even if the pair average is below 1250.
Masterpoints: Gold points for top strat overalls and some section tops, other awards are red points. Note that you can win points in the first session that are replaced by a higher overall award after the second: you get the greater of your overall award or the sum of the session awards; not both combined.
Leavenworth 2023 winners (9, 8 tables):
7: Carol Sohn, Kennewick WA; Billie Ker, Richland WA
5: Steven Lachowicz, Wenatchee WA; Sheila Bergren, Leavenworth WA
3: Yanchun Guo, Redmond WA; Qian Liang, Bellevue WA
Whistler 2025 winners (3 tables):
7, 4: Vicki Scatliff - Neville Sankey, Qualicum Beach BC
2: Maria Ria Lawson, New Westminster BC; Maria Irvine, Burnaby BC
Afternoon-only Event (3:30pm)
Saturday Afternoon Side Game: Pairs game, part of the Afternoon Side Game Series (6th of 6).
Strat Limits (by pair average) A: 3000+, B: 1500 - 3000, C: 0 - 750.
Masterpoints: Mostly red points but gold points for overall winners if they play another session in the Afternoon Side Game Series, and a chance for gold points for individuals whose two best games in the series (played with the same or different partners) are good enough to make the series overalls.
Leavenworth 2023 winners (didn't go):
Whistler 2025 winners (8 tables):
A: Steve Vincent, Burnaby BC; David Waterman, Surrey BC
B: Nolan Derby, Vancouver BC; Stuart Carr, Burnaby BC
C: Sharon Dodd - Alan Dodd, Kamloops BC
Events not on the schedule this time
Saturday Bracketed Round Robin Teams: Team game, 4-6 players on a team, short matches scored in IMPs and converted to victory points.
Bracketed, by team average into brackets of usually 7-9 teams; each team will play all, or nearly all, of the other teams in their bracket.
Masterpoints: Gold points for overalls, or red points for match awards. Lower brackets may have part-gold, part-red for overalls, based on masterpoints.
Whistler 2025 winners (26 teams in 3 brackets):
William Bailey, Mill Valley CA; Daniel Korbel, Las Vegas NV; Jacob Morgan, Madison WI; Cindy Oishi, West Vancouver BC
Bracket II: David Huang - Jin Mei Luo, Burnaby BC; Juan Xu, Coquitlam BC; Diana Jing, Surrey BC
Bracket III: Vanda Blok - Pam Sterling, Gabriola BC; Trudy Nagurski, Kamloops BC; Helmar Prent, Toronto ON
Masterpoint Leaders thru Saturday
Look for this around 11:45pm
Overall Leaders |
Non-Life Master Leaders | ||
Masterpoints will be updated first on the masterpoints page. Leaders will appear here soon after in the preliminary version, before the game results are added. |
Brain Workout Section!
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For those of you who used to like the puzzles I printed in the old bulletins, here is a link to an online version: one of the puzzles that I used to feature in the old paper Bulletins, but it is easy to play on a computer as well. Not so easy on a tablet or phone, since most of the puzzles require right-clicks, not easily done in a tablet or phone environment.
Signpost challenges you to find the path from #1 at the top left to the highest number at the bottom right, following the arrows from number to number: 1 points to 2, 2 points to 3, etc., but the distance between consecutive numbers may be one cell, or many, in the indicated direction. Strategy: Check the instructions provided with the game for how to use several useful tools to help you solve these without guesswork. You can, for example, mark a sequence of cells that connect together with a letter and connect a number later, or you can right-click on a cell to see which other cells point to it. Click on the puzzle you want to try at the right (or the caption below) to go to the page with all the instructions you’ll need. These puzzles come from Simon Tatham’s Portable Puzzle Collection (see below) and there are links there to apps for most devices. 
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 Easy puzzle (McBruce’s time: 1min 20sec) |
 Medium puzzle (McBruce’s time: 2min 34sec) |
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 Tricky puzzle (McBruce’s time: 3min 13sec) |
This Day in History - April 18 Birthdays - Answers
- Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938) was the American defense attorney who took on several high-profile cases in the early 20th century.
- Miklós Rózsa (1907 - 1995) was the Hungarian-born film score composer whose background theme in the bass for the movie The Killers became the four-note introduction to Dragnet.
- Robert Christgau (born 1942) is an American music critic and one of the first to write about rock and roll and other modern styles.
- Rick Moranis (born 1953) is the SCTV add-on who became famous as “hoser” Bob McKenzie, and appeared in many major films in the 1980s and 1990s before leaving to raise his children.
- Conan O’Brien (born 1963) was the host of the Tonight Show until Jay Leno decided 10pm wasn't for him, but had longer tenure than anyone in late night before and after.
Tomorrow’s Schedule — Day Seven — Sunday, April 19
ALERT: Different Start Times Saturday and Sunday
The District 19 Final in two of the four flights of the Grand National Teams is being held at the Festhalle nearly concurrent with the tournament. On Sunday, the surviving teams in the GNT begin at 9:00am while the Regional Event, a Bracketed Round Robin Teams, begins at 9:30am.
Morning-Afternoon Events (9:30am, TBA)
Saturday Bracketed Aufweidersehen Round Robin Teams: Team game, 4-6 players on a team, short knockout matches scored in IMPs and converted to victory points.
Bracketed, by team average into brackets of usually 7-9 teams; each team will play all, or nearly all, of the other teams in their bracket.
Masterpoints: Gold points for overalls, or red points for match awards. Lower brackets may have part-gold, part-red for overalls, based on masterpoints.
Leavenworth 2023 winners (17 teams in 2 brackets):
Bracket I: Xiaojing Deng, Richmond BC; Tom Carmichael, Marysville WA; Arthur Gong - Nathan Gong, Sammamish WA
Bracket II: Alexander Woo, Moscow ID; Shelley Burns, North Vancouver BC; Kelvin Raywood, Vancouver BC; Nelson Davis, Seattle WA
Events not on the schedule this time
Saturday A/X/Y Swiss Teams: Team game, 4-6 players on a team, short matches scored in IMPs and converted to victory points.
Strat Limits (by team average) A: 5000+, B: 3500 - 5000, C: 0 - 3500.
Masterpoints: Gold points for overalls, or red points for match awards.
Whistler 2025 winners (12 teams):
A: Dan Jacob - Cristina Jacob - Bryan Maksymetz, Vancouver BC; Michael Hargreaves, Victoria BC
X, Y: Jennifer Hong - Long Xie, Burnaby BC; Amy Gao - Baixiang Liu, New Westminster BC
Saturday 0-3000 Bracketed Round Robin Teams: Team game, 4-6 players on a team, short knockout matches scored in IMPs and converted to victory points.
Bracketed, by team average into brackets of usually 7-9 teams; each team will play all, or nearly all, of the other teams in their bracket.
Masterpoints: Gold points for overalls, or red points for match awards. Lower brackets may have part-gold, part-red for overalls, based on masterpoints.
Whistler 2025 winners (13 teams in two brackets):
Bracket I: Libby McWilliams, Richmond Hill ON; Vanda Blok, Gabriola BC; Helen Sophianopoulos, North York ON; Rahat Mahmood, Markham ON
Bracket II: Jeremy Gulley, Auburn WA; Shannon Kasperkiewicz, Redmond WA; Sarah Thesenvitz - Greg Thesenvitz, Black Diamond WA
Saturday Fast Open Pairs: Two session pairs game, matchpoint scoring, quick pace of play, about 5 minutes per board. Second session begins at noon (approximately) and should be done by 3:30pm.
Strat Limits (by pair average) A: 2000+, B: 750 - 2000, C: 0 - 750.
Masterpoints: Gold points for overalls and some section tops, other awards are red points. Note that you can win points in the first session that are replaced by a higher overall award after the second: you get the greater of your overall award or the sum of the session awards; not both combined.
Whistler 2025 winners (6, 5 tables):
A: Hal Montgomery, Portland OR; J Jay Roll, Kelso WA
The German sub-headline at the top of the page, “Diamanten Brechen Bei Diesem Turnier Immer Stark...” translates to “Diamonds are always breaking badly at this tournament,” which was the desperate and infamous excuse given to the Committee by a pair accused of cheating in an European tournament two decades ago. Dummy had looked into a defender’s hand and then signalled to declarer in several obvious ways that his screenmate had three trumps. Declarer read the signal and made the anti-percentage play needed to make the slam, defending his strategy with several poor excuses leading up to this bizarre final argument, which made the Committee’s decision easy! Back to top.
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