 I’m David Muller. I own and run the Diamond Bridge Group as a Sole Trader. The club was founded in 2004 by Dick Shek. Dick owned and ran the club for four years from 2004 until 2008. In 2008 I took over ownership of the club and have been running it from 2008 to date. The club used to meet three times a week at the Hall School Sports Ground, in the mornings, on Mondays and Wednesdays when we held Duplicate Pairs tournaments, and on Tuesday when we had Supervised Play sessions for improvers, however due to Covid-19 I was forced to stop having face-to-face meetings, and the club has become an online club.
I first learned how to play bridge at school at the age of 14, since I am now 67 it means I have been playing bridge for 53 years!
When I left school I went to Queen Mary College, London, to read Maths and Computer Science. In my leisure time I was an active member of the bridge club, I started playing competitively for the college team in matches against the other London Colleges. I formed bonds with many of my colleges teammates and continued to play competitively with them after leaving college.
After leaving University I joined British Airways IT department where I stayed for 23 years. Airline staff get cheap flights, and I took advantage of that perk to attend many overseas tournaments in my holidays including many US National Bridge Championships.
I played regularly in National Championships, rising through the ranks as I became more successful, and attained the rank of Grandmaster at the age of 26. My successes include wins in the Spring Foursomes, The Brighton Teams, two wins in the Two Stars Pairs and the Young Chelsea Marathon, a 24 hour event.
However my greatest achievement and proudest moment as a player happened last year. In 2018 I was selected for and played in the England Seniors Bridge team that came 8th in the European Seniors Bridge Championships. That qualified the team for the World Bridge Championships. These took place the following year, and the team got to the final, losing to Denmark but that made us World Bridge Silver medalists. I have also been involved in other International Championships, as a coach for the England Under 26 team
I have always been heavily involved in bridge administration. I have been on the Executive Committee of the London Metropolitan Bridge Association for many years, and had spells on both the English Bridge Union Tournament Committee and the English Bridge Union Selection Committee. I am a qualified bridge teacher and a qualified club tournament director. I also enjoy being a Bridgebase Operator and am often seen sitting beside the terminal when major EBU events are being broadcast over the internet. I recentIy was awarded the prestigious Dimmie Flemming award for my services to bridge.
I have been single most of my life, but that all changed when I met Lorinda in a chat room belonging to the jdate dating site. Lorinda was in Chicago so for several years we conducted a Long Distance Relationship, but we were married in Chicago in 2016, and she moved here in October 2017. She wasn’t a bridge player when I met her, but she has started learning, with me as her teacher.
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