Record Breaking 17 Teams Contest GNT-B (District 24)

Absolutely amazing. Last year we had 10 teams show up for the GNT-B opening round, but today we broke a district record at 17 teams! The conditions of contest didn’t even account for 12+ teams resulting in 8 survivors. But that’s what we had. Our seeding committee split the 17 teams into a group of 8 and a group of 9, each with 4 survivors. Here are some of the teams moving forward:

Team Warren

The winners of the larger Group of 9 teams is Team Warren. All four members of the team are NABC Grassroots veterans: Allison and Matt represented the GNT-C’s during Summer 2016 in DC, where they reached the quarter finals nationwide. James and Mee were 2018 and 2019 repeat President’s Cup NAP-C District winners, representing us last year in Memphis and next month in Columbus.

Team Merlo

The team of Stefano Merlo, Christopher Moh, Jordan Lampe, and Jin Hu won the Group of 8 teams. Last summer in NABC Las Vegas, Jordan gained more experience playing behind bidding screens than anyone else in the district – he was on the GNT-B team with Stefano that went all the way to semi-finals, then after a short break, entered the micro Spingold with Chris for the eventual win!

Team Trabulus

Norman Trabulus has represented our district during NABCs more than any other Flight B Grassroots player. His GNT-B team took 2nd in the district last year. He also competed in the national finals for either GNT or NAP every year since 2015. If his name sounds familiar, he recently joined the GNYBA Board of Directors, and might be part of the secret committee planning a NYC silver point sectional. It’s only fitting that such a tournament would certainly hold a special Grass Roots Fund game.

More Teams?

If any of the other teams have a team photo or bio to post, please let us know. We’ll be happy to post!

Full Standings

Let’s just say the seeding committee must have done a great job. Both groups came down to an extremely tight finish. The cutoff in the Group of 8 between Team Liebhaber and Team Goodspeed was only ONE VICTORY POINT. To make things more fun, those two teams faced off in the final round. The Group of 9 was amazingly more tight. Team Sigward lost by one victory point. But Team Duvshani lost by 0 victory points – both were tied at 69 after 7 rounds, so the total net imps across all matches became the tiebreaker (simulating what would happen if we used the continuous VP scale).

What Next?

The winners will play 26-board knockout matches for the quarter and semi finals (in March or April). Then the final 52-board match will take place in May. Both teams making the finals will go to Montreal to represent the district – but only the winners will take home the 33.5 Gold Points for first prize and the $1000 travel subsidy.