D.C./Baltimore Area Bridge
I play most of my bridge locally, mostly because I really don't have the money or time to travel for bridge. DC and Northern Virginia has a reasonably strong contingent of bridge players that make for good competition. Below I detail the usual games I play and a brief description of each.
  • The Washington D.C. Unit Game - One of the strongest few weekly games in the country (or so I've heard) happens every Thursday night in Silver Spring, MD. I usually play this with one of my regular partners, Noble Shore. The game is almost always strataflighted with an A/X, B/C/D, 0-300 and 0-20 game all at the same time. You can find the weekly results here, along with other information about the Washington Bridge League. I have also been tracking for a few years now the long-term average matchpoint scores of the players in the game to see who's really doing well. The results of this are here, although I haven't gotten around to it for 2008 as of yet.
  • Club Game in Laurel, MD - In addition, I play approximately weekly with my dad in a club game on either Tuesday or Wednesday nights. It usually gets somewhere around 7-10 tables, and the level of players is probably slightly better than most club games. You can find the results of this and other information about the club at their site.
  • Local sectionals - There are 7 D.C. area sectionals over the course of each year, all of them attract about 400-500 tables and have a good selection of events for players of all abilities. The hospitality is generally very good, and (most) people are friendly. You can find results of the WBL sectionals at their site, linked above, and the results of the NVBA (Northern Virginia Bridge Association) Sectionals at their site, or you can find all of these and other stuff at the MABC Site (Mid-Atlantic Bridge Conference). I don't get to play in these sectionals as much as I'd like anymore because of time constraints and other activities in my life.
  • Local Regionals - There are 2 regionals fairly close to the area, one in DC or Northern Virgina, and the other in Hunt Valley, MD (about 15 min North of Baltimore). I haven't really participated much in these either in the last few years, unfortunately, as both seem to be reasonably well-run and well-liked. You can find information and results at the MABC website.