Bridge Club Pair Takes Top Spot at Collegiate Championship

Two members of the Bridge Club at Georgia Tech won the Open division of the Collegiate Pairs Championship, which took place July 23 in Providence, Rhode Island.

The winning pair are Bo Han “Bruce” Zhu, a computer engineering major, and Richard Jeng, a 2020 economics graduate. The Collegiate Pairs Championship is one of two national collegiate tournaments organized annually by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL), the premier bridge organization in North America.

“I was very excited to finally represent our school in a sport I’ve been playing semi-professionally,” said Zhu. “We were in position to win after the first session, so I made sure to think through and play every hand slowly the second session. Winning felt great but I’m prouder of what our program has accomplished.”

The primary mission of the Bridge Club at Georgia Tech is to promote the game of bridge to Tech students. Many come to club meetings because they offer an opportunity to take their minds off their studies and play cards in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. Others enjoy playing bridge as a competitive game and are eager to hone their skills and test them against other players. The Bridge Club welcomes both types of players, as well as anyone who would like to learn the game.

Bridge Club members also play against teams from other colleges, both in person and online. In February, the Bridge Club organized an informal collegiate tournament on the Georgia Tech campus, in which 11 teams from four different schools took part. The club is planning to hold a similar event in February 2023, along with online matches through the ACBL.

Cyrus Hettle, senior executive officer for the Bridge Club, encourages any student who is interested to come to a meeting.

“Most of our players learned the game in college and have been playing for a few years,” he said. “Two of our players who competed in Providence have only been playing for about a year.”

Learn more about the club on its Engage page, or stop by their table at the Fall Student Organizations Fair this week. The Bridge Club will also host a free screening of the documentary Double Dummy on Thursday, Sept. 15, at 6 p.m. in the Cypress Theater, John Lewis Student Center. The documentary showcases the experiences of two Georgia Tech graduates as members of the USA Under 21 team that won the silver medal in the World Youth Bridge Teams Championships in Taicang, China. The screening will be followed by a Bridge Club Open House the next day.