Editor's note: Loren is a relatively new ACBL player. He started last year with just 26 masterpoints, and he has already earned more than 70, mostly by playing in ACBL Pair Games in ACBL World.
I live in Seoul, South Korea, where I teach literature and imaginative writing (poetry) at Yonsei University. I began playing bridge last year, after many years of resisting invitations to learn from my mother, who has played for 25 years and is an ACBL life master. She taught me at the kitchen table, then took me over to the kind folks at the Rose City Duplicate Bridge Club in Tyler, Texas, who took me under their wings. There Mark Leighton (woodwork) introduced me to BBO and helped me get started. I'm grateful to the many wonderful players who took a moment to share some wisdom or a word of encouragement with me, especially Claudia McDonald (cmcdo), who mentored me over countless hours at the BBO tables.
I enjoy the BBO game as a way of turning off the mind: not thinking, just playing, therapeutic. The fact that BBO offers the opportunity to do this by engaging with such a variety of people from all over the world is an added bonus. I like the camaraderie and friendly (yet fierce!) competition. It is a pleasure to encounter and interact with so many personalities, modes of communication, strategies, and styles of play. There is something about learning to communicate without speaking, through listening to your partner, and observing everyone's moves, which feels useful and at times enlightening. This sense of relationship feels healthy, and useful whenever I fall too much into my own hand or head.
