Story by Ila Shah (BBO: purnimasha)

My bridge story started in my childhood at about 10 years of age, when I was just observing my parents and uncle playing at home. Slowly, after watching them repeatedly, I became interested, but never got the chance to actually play until I went to medical college.

Every time we had night duty and were free, we played bridge. This was the time I actually bought a book and learned various bidding systems. I quickly learned that Chinese players were very good players, so I started following Precision and found good results.

For several years, while practicing pediatrics, I played only occasionally at home with family members. Then we had two other players who were interested and came to our house to play once or twice a month.

At our 50 year reunion in United States, we went to Chicago. One of our classmates took us to a duplicate game, and for the first time we played, we were No. 1. We quickly learned that party bridge was boring.

We came back home, started looking for duplicate games, and became members of the American Contract Bridge League. I started playing once a week regularly. When I wanted to go to sectional and regional games, my husband said, "We can never be Life Masters," but I took that as a challenge.

When I started getting my first silver and gold points, my husband said, "Do you know you also have a family?" This was the time I could convince him to come to a national game in Atlanta. We were No. 1 in the Mini McKenney race. My husband enjoyed it so much that he never refused to go to sectional, regional, and national games again. The rest is history. We are both Ruby Masters now.