Inaugural Bridge Tournament in Microsoft

Since I was young, or rather younger, I wanted to learn Bridge. I used to see my dad play this wonderful card game with his friends. So long story short I learnt to play it on my own using some online tutorials and playing with colleagues.

 

After joining MS, I was glad to find an email list for Bridge enthusiasts and joined it hoping to play a game or two sometime. Then one fine day, someone emailed about hosting a Bridge Tournament for MS Give campaign in this October. I immediately signed up as part of the organizing committee and I must say I made a good decision.

 

There were about 5-6 of us. I volunteered to setup an email alias for us and a Sharepoint site to host all the documents and registrations for the event. Someone came up with nice slogans and flyer designs for the event. Others arranged for the equipment like bidding boxes and score cards and snacks. The amazing thing was that most of us never met each other in person. Most of the organization was done via conference calls and emails. Thanks to a supporter, we also got gift items for the participants.

 

On the eve of the tournament, we started at around 6 PM. Initially there was a duplicate Bridge tutorial. Around 7 PM the tournament started. The participants were divided into two groups, beginners and advanced. We also helped pair up people who did not have partners. So interestingly I played in advanced category. I was surprised that I did not disappoint myself and we did fairly well considering that it was my Bridge tournament and first experience playing duplicate. All in all, there were around 40 participants. I met so many new people and had a great time.

 

I am completely impressed by all the etiquettes, rules and courteous nature of the game. It was a fun filled evening and I had a good feeling that it was contributing to charity.

 

I hope that this game becomes more popular and we get even larger crowd next year.