The folks in Omaha were probably surprised to see a pair from the Oregon Coast show up at their sectional. With that stop in Nebraska in October under their belt, Monica Taylor and Lew Richardson completed a goal set almost 10 years earlier: playing in at least one bridge tournament in each of the 50 states.
Both live in Astoria, the northernmost city in Oregon, and began playing tournaments in nearby Seaside in 2007. The pair had little more than 100 masterpoints each and had only played in four states – Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Colorado – when Richardson decided in March 2008 that he wanted to collect them all. “I had not traveled out of the Northwest much before playing in Colorado and thought it would be fun to play against different people from many areas.”
Now, after 31 regionals, 23 sectionals and eight NABCs – all requiring air travel – plus 55 tournaments in Oregon and Washington, they’re Ruby Life Masters.
Lew Richardson and Monica Taylor of Astoria OR stand outside the Jewish Community Center of Omaha NE where they played at a bridge tournament in a different U.S. state for the 50th time.
Except for their first four states, the only one they visited more than once for tournaments was South Carolina. (They’ve also played in British Columbia three times and Ontario once.) The other 45 states were one-and-done. The lucky site for each of those states was selected based on weather, proximity to airports and timing to avoid family and club obligations, Richardson said.
Although they didn’t spend much time in most of the 50 states and enough of it was spent at bridge tables to bring in more than 300 masterpoints, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t time for sightseeing. Taylor has fond memories of taking a helicopter ride to the top of a glacier in Denali National Park in Alaska and a horse-drawn carriage in Savannah GA; visiting the Nantucket Whaling Museum in Massachusetts, an old gunpowder plant in Delaware and Glacier Park in Montana; and taking a small plane to the Grand Canyon during the 2008 Summer NABC in Las Vegas. They saw the final draft of the U.S. Constitution in New Hampshire and a multitude of solar panels in Vermont.
There were also bridge highlights and lowlights along the way. Taylor, Richardson and their Alabama teammates won money at the regional in Birmingham. Thinking a hand had been passed out in Fargo ND, Richardson, in second seat, exposed his hand at his first turn to bid, barring Taylor from the auction and allowing the opponents to make an impossible 3NT with little to nothing when declarer got to choose which of the 13 penalty cards Richardson had to play at each turn.
The most dramatic moment of their journey came when a tornado hit the Oklahoma City sectional on May 31, 2013, at the start of the evening session. At check-in, Biltmore Hotel staff had advised Taylor to put a mattress over the bathtub to create a shelter. As tornado alarms went off, the manager entered the playing area and ordered everyone to leave – and found out what happens when anyone tries to tell bridge players to put their cards down. As Taylor headed for her bathtub, reluctantly the more die-hard players exited. “There was flash flooding, baseball-sized hail, and the trees around the hotel were snapped off and pulled out of the ground,” Taylor said. Although there was an inch of rain on the hallway carpet Saturday morning, the games resumed.
By the start of 2017, Taylor and Richardson had just five states left on their list: Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey and Tennessee. By the start of fall, there was just one. Two weeks after the 10th anniversary of their first Seaside Regional, they reached the finish line in Omaha.
Fifty tournaments in 50 states
| Seaside OR | Oct 2007 |
| Reno NV | Dec 2007 |
| Vancouver WA | Feb 2008 |
| Denver CO | March 2008 |
| Boise ID | May 2009 |
| Whitefish MT | May 2010 |
| Cheyenne WY | Sept 2010 |
| Orlando FL | Nov 2010 |
| Charleston SC | Dec 2010 |
| Yuma AZ | Jan 2011 |
| Richmond VA | May 2011 |
| Anchorage AK | June 2011 |
| Pittsburgh PA | Sept 2011 |
| Schnectady NY | Sept 2011 |
| Lake Geneva WI | Oct 2011 |
| Albuquerque NM | Jan 2012 |
| Rapid City SD | May 2012 |
| Fargo ND | Aug 2012 |
| St. Paul MN | Oct 2012 |
| San Francisco CA | Nov 2012 |
| Overland Park KS | Dec 2012 |
| Honolulu HI | Jan 2013 |
| Savannah GA | Feb 2013 |
| St. Louis MO | March 2013 |
| Hyannis MA | April 2013 |
| Oklahoma City OK | May/June 2013 |
| Salt Lake City UT | Sept 2013 |
| Cambridge MD | Nov 2013 |
| Wilmington DE | Dec 2013 |
| Dallas TX | March 2014 |
| Raleigh NC | May 2014 |
| Gulfport MS | June 2014 |
| Fairborn OH | Sept 2014 |
| Danbury CT | Oct 2014 |
| New Orleans LA | March 2015 |
| South Bend IN | April 2015 |
| Edwardsville IL | May 2015 |
| Council Bluffs IA | July 2015 |
| Newington NH | Aug 2015 |
| Farmington Hills MI | Oct 2015 |
| Birmingham AL | March 2016 |
| Hot Springs Village AR | April 2016 |
| Manchester VT | May 2016 |
| Wheeling WV | Aug 2016 |
| Warwick RI | Sept 2016 |
| Louisville KY | Feb 2017 |
| Portland ME | March 2017 |
| Nashville TN | July 2017 |
| Allendale NJ | Sept 2017 |
| Omaha NE | Oct 2017 |