Bridge with Kim

I love teaching and playing the game of bridge. My grandmother taught my sister, my Mom, and me to play bridge when I was in high school. I played very casually for the next few years, even dabbling in a few duplicate sessions. But after college, I did not play at all for 20+ years. An unexpected period of unemployment in 2003 gave me enough free time to rejoin the bridge world, and I wandered unawares into the Newton (MA) Bridge Club’s Open Game. I had never seen a bidding box nor heard of a transfer bid.

I persevered, found a few regular partners and started playing duplicate bridge a few times a week at local clubs. One evening in November 2003 I went to the club without a partner, and was paired up with a very nice gentleman named Robin Hillyard. A year and a half later, we got married, and although the two of us were working full time, we still played lots and lots of bridge!

One of my earliest bridge mentors, Bob Gaudet, introduced me to bridge tournaments and now I’ve lost count of how many I have attended over the past 19 years. I became a Life Master in 2006 and am currently a Diamond Life Master. I have numerous open Sectional and Regional championships to my credit. I love playing the game, win or lose. The parts I enjoy most are the mental challenges and learning something new every time I play.

I started teaching bridge in 2015, and have taught over 2,000 students in class sizes ranging from two to two hundred. In 2020, along with many others in all walks of life, I adapted and "went online." I'm grateful to be back to playing in person now, but many of us have concluded that learning online has distinct advantages. I plan to continue teaching online with the terrific Shark Bridge classroom.

2010 was a year that changed my bridge life when I started playing with bridge superstar Zach Grossack -- then only 13. Thanks to this partnership (and others), I've learned how to compete in high-level bridge. Now, many years later, I enjoy co-teaching occasional classes with Zach.

I love this game, and I hope you too will love it even more as you learn and improve in my classes.

Kim and her sister Kathy Gilman enjoy a visit to Napa before playing together at the San Francisco bridge Nationals in 2012.