Contract Bridge brings friends together to celebrate a major milestone

Friends, young and old, gathered at Mary Ann Seng’s home on Jasper’s north side Wednesday afternoon for a celebration of Julia Bomalaski.

Ms. Bomalaski, 91, recently earned Platinum Life Master status from the American Contract Bridge League. It’s an esteemed rank that very few reach. According to Ms. Bomalaski, fewer than 700 living members hold the rank out of the league’s roughly 130,000 members in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The visitors to Ms. Seng’s home all share a passion for playing contract bridge, a connection mirrored in the friendship she has with Ms. Bomalaski.

Seng, a Ruby Life Master herself, met Bomalaski decades ago at the Jasper bridge club. In 1986, the pair partnered in a major tournament in Florida and won. That win helped garner Ms. Seng her Life Master designation.

It’s a hard climb through the ranks in the American Contract Bridge Club with points awarded based on varying factors. It’s taken nearly a lifetime of playing for Ms. Bomalaski to accrue the 10,000 points necessary for the recent designation.

Her introduction to card games began at around five or six, when her father taught her euchre. It was a requirement to pull a chair up to the table and play if they were short a player.

“It’s a good beginning to bridge,” she said.

This love for cards, along with an eye for critical thinking and strategy, eventually landed her at a table at the YMCA in Indianapolis, where she learned the ins and outs of contract bridge in her 20s.

She was living there with her husband, Dr. Martin Bomalaski, and their four children. Though originally from Loogootee (her maiden name is Strange), the future Ms. Bomalaski and the future Dr. Bomalaski of Jasper had met as teens at dances the two towns’ young people traveled back and forth to attend. He grew up in Jasper, where his father was a dentist.

In Indianapolis, bridge offered her an opportunity to be social.

“I felt like I needed to get out of the house. I went to the YMCA and took bridge lessons once a week, and that was my getting out of the house,” Ms. Bomalaski said.

Since then, Ms. Bomalaski has played, and won, a lot of contract bridge, only slowing down for a few years in her 50s.

“I took a break for a few years. I went back to college, and I earned my undergraduate and master’s degrees in creative writing,” she said.th

Other than those years, she’s hardly taken a week off from the game she loves. A game that demands a blend of memory, logic, and adaptability. Because tournament bridge is played “duplicate” style, with every table playing the same dealt hands, luck of the draw disappears from the equation. “It’s what you do with the cards you’re dealt,” she said, “because everybody is going to be playing that same hand.”

Its complexity is what transcends ages and social status. She’s played in the same room as Bill Gates, who has funded youth bridge programs, and has faced off against James Holzhauer, the Jeopardy! champion known for his 32-game win streak who holds his own ACBL rank as a Diamond Life Master.

“It’s not just an older women’s game,” she said.

She plays three times a week in person and has spent years mentoring newer players, including one she coached from scratch over roughly 12 to 15 years. “You give back,” she said about mentoring.

One of the visitors to Ms. Seng’s get-together partnered with Ms. Bomalaski as a fairly new player and was thrust into a much more experienced bracket. They didn’t place well, but one opponent pulled her aside afterward. “That is really nice of you to play with those young kids and get them into the game,” he told her.

Her reputation for teaching led the ACBL to name her its 2026 Goodwill Ambassador for District 9, covering Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

She loves the network of friends she has made over the years.

“I know people from all over the country. I even know people from out of the country. It’s just like an extended family,” Ms. Bomalaski said.

The rank Ms. Bomalaski just reached sits near the top of a 10-level ladder the ACBL uses to track a player’s career. After Life Master status, players climb through Bronze, Silver, Ruby, Gold, Sapphire, Diamond, Emerald, and finally Platinum, at 10,000 points. Only Grand Life Master sits above it — a rank that requires winning a national or world championship event in addition to reaching Platinum.

Ms. Bomalaski earned Platinum in January. She’s not ruling out a run at Grand Life Master, which requires winning a major tournament.

“Sure, I’m still trying,” she said. “Why not?”