Personal

Bridge

Christine enjoys playing bridge in her free time. Bridge is a poker card game played by four people, using the standard 52-card deck. (Note that bridge is completely different than Texas hold'em poker!) The game consists of the bidding phase and the playing phase. Bidding is the language of describing what cards a player has, in order to decide which should be the contract. The playing phase is relatively easier -- Ace is the largest and 2 is the smallest in each suit (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs). More details can be found on the ACBL (American Contract Bridge League) website: How to Play Bridge.

When people win at ACBL bridge games, the organization awards various colors of masterpoints to the player.  Christine currently has less than 300 ACBL masterpoints, giving her an advantage in winning stratified games. Her Bridge Base Online ID is star1327p. Even though many ACBL tournaments have an upper limit of masterpoints, Christine likes to play up and prefers open games (open to players of all levels). More challenges mean more fun and more opportunities to improve! In December 2019, Christine played in the 0-10,000 Swiss Teams, and her team qualified to the second day (24 out of 45 teams qualified). In March 2018, she won her first platinum points in the Jacoby Open Swiss, and she even convinced her partner in northern Virginia, who had ~1300 masterpoints, to play in a national-level event for the first time. More of Christine's bridge scores can be found on live.acbl.org.

A little more about her bridge-playing history: She first learned to play in 2007 when she entered college in Taiwan, but did not get serious in playing until 2009. After moving to the US in 2013, she joined the USBF Junior Training Program and graduated in December 2016. In December 2015, Christine's team was the first runner-up in the Junior United States Bridge Championship -- Rona Team (girls under 26). 

Fun fact: Christine's car plate is AKQJT9, which stands for "Ace King Queen Jack Ten Nine" in terms of poker cards.

Languages

Mandarin Chinese (native), English (full professional)

Spanish (elementary), Japanese (elementary)  

Christine has been learning Spanish on Duolingo since July 2016, and her Duolingo ID is also star1327p.  She maintained a 2500+ day streak by practicing on the app almost every day. She is interested in learning a new language because she has never done this later in life. The reason why she chose Spanish is that she noticed many English-Spanish signs in the United States.