Joel Wooldridge became the ACBL’s youngest life master at age 11; this record has since been shattered and is currently held by Andrew Chen, who made Life Master at 8 years old. Joel was a fixture on the US junior teams, winning the junior world championships three times. He was the King of Bridge—awarded to an outstanding senior in high school—in 1997, which was the year he won his first NABC+ title, the Lebhar IMP Pairs in 1997, playing with Tom Carmichael.

Since then, he has won 12 more NABC+ events, most recently the Platinum Pairs in 2024 with Kent Mignocchi. He also won the Platinum Pairs, the most difficult and prestigious pair event in the ACBL, in 2011, playing with John Hurd.

Adam Kaplan is a member of the USA1 Open team that recently won the USBF trials 4-handed and will be representing the US this summer in the Bermuda Bowl. He has won two U26 World Junior Teams Championships, and has numerous additional medals in Juniors. In open events, he won the 2025 Gold Coast Teams, as well as the 2023 Gold Coast Pairs, and the 2024 European Winter Games Final B. He also stars in the documentary Double Dummy (https://doubledummymovie.com/).
He learned bridge at age 5 and played regularly throughout his teenage years while homeschooled before taking a 5-year hiatus from the game while finishing college at Stanford and starting to work. He returned to the game in Fall 2022, and now plays semi-professionally while maintaining an active career as a trader.

Nabil Edgtton is a member of the Australian national team and regularly attends NABCs. His team was second in last year’s Reisinger. Other impressive finishes include second in the world pairs, second in the world transnationals, and second in the World Bridge Tour final.

Nabil has compiled an amazing document that he calls the Mental Edge. It documents all the research he has done about ways to improve focus and performance. He has been kind enough to share it with all of us. You can access it here.