July 28, 2025: Louis-Amaury Beauchet, a professional bridge player from Brittany, France, takes a break between game sessions in an empty ballroom during the North American Bridge Championships taking place at the Center City Marriott with some 4000 card players in town through Aug. 3.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Founded in 1937, the ACBL is the largest bridge organization in North America, with over 120,000 members (down from around 165,000 before COVID).
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Card players fill a ballroom - just one of many - in a panoramic image during a bridge session at the Center City Marriott.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Gary Peterson of Boston is one of the ACBL directors standing by to answer questions and mediate any disputes during tournament play.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
With supplemental lighting provided, Bill Cook, Jr. of Madison, Miss. plays at a table with Maya Jonas-Silver (right) of New York City.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Elizabeth Silvius (center) of San Bernardino, Calif, is on the phone with her brother and bridge partner Stephen Silvius (far right) of Wilmington, giving him directions to her table and their game with partners Lee Blocher (left), 15, of Champaign,Illinois and Brandon Wolpert (right), 13, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A card player enters his table’s player data and results into the ACBL computer system following a game. Every year, the League sanctions over 3.5 million tables of bridge, played in more than 2,000 bridge clubs and 750 sectional and regional tournaments, plus 1 million tables played online.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
ACBL events coordinator Jada Woods from Memphis, Tenn. gets the “Swag Table” ready for card players about to break between sessions.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Two teams compete alone in a room (left) during a semi-final Grand National match that is live-streamed. Joe Grue (left) with New York’s Miniter team, plays Steve Robinson (right, in red) with Washington DC’s Robinson team. Their partners are behind the screen, standard in top-tier bridge play to prevent any signaling.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A time clock at the North American Bridge Championships at the Center City Marriott Sunday, July 27, 2025. Bridge draws players of all ages and walks of life – fictional characters James Bond and Snoopy both played as do billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett (who sometimes play as partners). Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Card players arrive during the first weekend of the championships, from all over the world. The #31 jersey is for Yann Aurel Ludger Bisseck, a soccer player for Inter Milan in Italy and on the German national team.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Larry Huiras, a tournament director from Olive Branch, Miss, pushes a cart of “boards” through the hotel kitchen to be locked in ACBL safes in the ballrooms for later game sessions. The cards are pre-dealt by a computerized machine in order to allow for competitive scoring. Every hand is played with others playing identical cards.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A card player stretches between games during a three-hour morning session.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
ACBL Hall of Fame member Patty Tucker (rear, right) prepares to resume teaching the “Learn Bridge in A Day?” five-hour class for beginners. Seated in front is Cathy Fashingbauer, from The Villages in Florida who has been playing bridge for four decades and is helping some of her neighbors who came to the event.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Louis-Amaury Beauchet, a professional bridge player from Brittany, France, takes a break between game sessions in an empty ballroom.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
National tournament director and ACBL Hall of Fame member Sol Weinstein from New York City works the event Sunday. He learned bridge in college in the 1960s, but eventually preferred directing tournaments to playing in them. He became the League's youngest national director and decades later was integral in the ACBL’s move to computer scoring.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Winston Huang (left) of San Francisco poses with his bridge coach, Ho-Yee So from Taipei, Taiwan (suited up in heart, club, diamond and spade shirt, socks and skirt) during a break at the North American Bridge Championships on Sunday, July 27, 2025. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Gavin Wolpert (left) of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. checks the scores with his son Brandon, 13, after his team finished a session. The elder Wolpert is a bridge professional and Brandon just returned from playing at the World Youth Team Championships in Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Bridge draws players of all ages and walks of life. Fictional characters James Bond and Snoopy both played, as do billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett (who sometimes play as partners).
The Philadelphia area, covering from King of Prussia to the Jersey Shore, boasts an active community of 2,200 bridge players and 27 community bridge clubs.
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
