Being a relative Newbie, I have sometimes wondered, but never got around to asking: Who was (is) Mr(Ms) Ryder; How did the Tournament(s) come to be named; and what is the history ?
DonKiwi

Seeing as you asked -
The Ryder got its name sort of accidentally. Two wonderful people in the Advanced Lounge, Dianne and Pratap ran a weekly tournament much the same as all the other tournaments in advanced. Being a very competitive tournament, players were naturally pleased when they won. At one tournament, a discussion was held between rounds on which of two dominant partnerships was “better” (all in fun of course - seriously). One thing led to another and the two principals then started choosing a dream team from the players. Pratap (who did most of the lounge chatting for the director team) fanned the fire as much as he could and eventually got everybody taking sides one way or another. It was decided that the next week when he took reservations, Pratap would assign the pairs to one of two teams headed by the two combatants who he called “captains”. When the tournament was underway, it was noted that one side was mostly European and the other mostly American. Yours truly who was helping direct at the time made the comment that it looked like the Ryder Cup (the international golf tournament I was watching on TV at the time). Pratap liked the name and kept it. The format was well received and fun for a while but didn’t meet the competitive needs of advanced (nobody really won). It reached its zenith when the men faced off against the ladies in a battle of the sexes. The days leading up to that match filled the bulletin boards with chatter and “trash-talk”. When that event was over, the format died out in advanced (recently resurected by Cherryrivets) and with Dianne and Pratap’s blessing I brought the idea to the Social Lounge. There are a million changes since it was brought over, but the name, concept and idea of having a good time stayed.

Our first game was "Team Cathugo" Vs "Team BigMojoDaddy". We had 3 tables and played 3 rounds of 6 hands with a 1/2 hour time limit per round. Cathugo dubbed her team "the Cats" in the 3rd week. I believe it was Dittny who called the other team "the Rats". Needless to say, being called a Rat was not all that attractive and people were not too pleased when they were assigned to that team. In those days, as a pair signed up they were assigned to a team - first one to the cats, next to the rats etc. One day Kenny_HA2 declared his team was the Dogs and from that point on people started requesting a team to be assigned to. Look where we are now!! We have had a number of other species in the Alley too. We have seen Dragons Vs Knights, Mustangs Vs Stallions, Bulls Vs Bears and Seals Vs Orcas to name a few. None of them caught on and we have always reverted to Cats Vs Dogs. Some friends are so committed to Cats Vs Dogs that if we changed it now, I would have to wear a disguise to walk past the alley.
For an early write-up on the alley see: http://www.geocities.com/socialryder/awalkinthealley.html

We used to have names in the alley. Names you would recognize as people you have seen while playing in other lounges and other tournaments. That was in the days before Yahoo had to increase the amount of names allowed in a friends list. Way back when you knew which friends were in the lounge because they showed up in blue. Even further back to when you actually could recognize one of your friends.

Today you could sit across from your regular partner and have no idea who it was. Players change names now more times than they change their socks. It isn’t unusual for a player to use three or four different names on the same Saturday. Try being a director and keep the names straight with that going on. Just to illustrate - A_cold_hellhound; Catastrophic_dj; DJ_Cataleptic; dj_fleabag; Garfy_loves_Odie; Kittenium; s_cat_terbrain; Scanty_Claws have all been seen on various occasions in the alley. Chances are you know some of them or have played against one or two. Maybe you have even seen one of them direct a tournament. I am sure you all know and love these characters too. They are all names which our faithful director Iain (IMDJ1) has appeared under. There is no way of knowing if the list is complete, nor can I swear to the accuracy. Rumor is he is trying to amass more names than a large dog who we sometimes know as Mike (Macmarine), It is a known fact that Mike has a library of unused names and offers a bounty to anyone sending him a real “gem”. Then there is Lori (Lorrrobb) who has more names than pairs of shoes. Micki (Mickifinn) has a name for every occasion and a few more for when there is no occasion (which makes no sense because whenever Micki is around she creates her own occasion). Chris (Happilyeverafter) not only has names for every holiday, pet, and whatever else she can think of, she also has another billion names people call her in the chat room. Then we have names that the people themselves may not even know who they are. The first was Kenny_ha2 who was tagged as the BigDog. Then we had the HugeCat, a play on the name Cathugo, The Cheerleader, a name given to Computemom who had to go to work and could only kibitz for a while. The list goes on and on – some still unknown to this day – The Intimidator, The Judge, The Spoiler, Snappy, The Nurse, The Double Agent, The Super Spy were all listed at least once in the Ryder write-ups.

All this started on March 4, 2000 (a day destined for infamy). That was the day Cathugo disappeared and Doghugo showed up playing with Kenny. The mystery thickened when Rueful Rabbit suddenly vanished and Rueful Dog showed up as his replacement. We old-time insiders refer to that event as “The day Orla lost her bunny”. For some reason, one which I can still not figure out, Joyce (Felden1) thought this was funny and lots of fun. She scurried throughout the lounges for the next week getting everyone to come up with a new name they could use in the Ryder. I don’t think I knew who anybody was on Saturday. Everybody had a new name – no blue names on my list. Some could be figured out as they weren’t really meant to fool anybody and some were extremely clever. My personal favorite is Cat_on_a_hot_tin_rueful_rabbit. This is probably because I have roots in theater and it is one of my favorite shows. I guess Joyce must have been right about the fun thing because it never went back to normal.

Hope this answers a few of your questions.

OldYank1