Pacific Northwest

After nearly 20 years in Oklahoma, we are moving to Seattle. I have a new job building the weather inputs to a data analytics system to improve agricultural yield.

With the upcoming move, I haven't had the chance to play much bridge, or to post bridge hands from the games that I did play. I was in New York last week, and played a game at the new Aces Bridge Club in Manhattan with my usual New York partner, Bill.  We ended up with a 61% game and won our direction, but there were a couple of hands where I overbid.

In one, I was not sure how Bill would bid with a minimum hand that held 5 diamonds and 4 of a major.
                         Me                Bill
                         1C                 1D
I had a 4414 hand with 14 points.  Some thing like QJxx AQxx x AJxx. What would you bid in response to 1D?  I tried 1H and Bill rebid 2C:
                         Me                 Bill
                         1C                  1D
                         1H                  2C
Now what? I tried 2NT, and Bill passed.  2NT went down 1.  2C would have made 3.

I will be playing at a sectional in Norman at the end of the month. It will give me a chance to say goodbye to a lot of friends. It is amazing how one builds both deep and broad relationships simply by playing cards once a week ...

I am going to have to look for bridge clubs and partners in Seattle. I went to the ACBL website and did a club search. There are 3 pages of listings, nearly 40 clubs in the area! How am I supposed to know which games are friendly and strong? And even then, finding a network of partners will take time.  One part of me is nervous about going to a club and saying that I have 250 masterpoints for fear of who I would be matched up with (I delude myself that I play much better than that ...).