Gold Points! Endless Summer Regional June 25-28

For those who missed the previous online gold point regional, there is another chance two weeks from now!

Update 6/26/2020: For More Information on the Endless Summer Regional
Gold Point Awards Reduced 20% for this regional
Make sure you know which ACBL Convention Chart applies to your event
Understand the rules of the Side Game Series

Here is the ACBL Endless Summer Regional June 2020 schedule.

Tons of Stratification ! (99/499/750/1250/2500/3500/Open)

Looking at the schedule, they have created many more granular stratified events. In fact, there are more stratification levels than any regional ever held by ACBL – including at NABCs. In addition to the usual suspects: 99er, Gold Rush, Mid-Flight and Open, there are three ‘in-between” stratifications. There is a 499er, a super gold rush (up to 1250), and a super midflight (up to 3500). Strangely, there is no 299er.

Load Balancing Plus Skill Balancing

Part of the benefits for all these strats is the load balancing. Hopefully each tournament is equally popular, and given the different starting times, most people could play in two different two-session events on the same day. That is, if you are a Mid-Flight type of player, you would play the 10:30am and 2pm schedule for 0-3500, then play the 5:30pm and 9pm sechedule for 0-2500.

If you are a Gold Rush player, you can do a similar four-session schedule starting at 10:45am and 2:15pm for 0-1250, then again at 5:45pm and 9:15pm.

All Pairs, No Teams. All Matchpoints, No IMPs

For those who like teams, sorry. It seems this regional is still all pairs, as BBO and ACBL work furiously to make team play and swiss work in a mass tournament setting. You can always set up your own team games among friends for free on BBO.

The No Man’s Land Limited Games?

This is the fun one – you might find yourself in the spot between 750-1250. For the first time in perhaps years, you will once again be eligible for the expanded gold rush up to 1250, and then you can follow up with the lower Mid-Flight 0-2500. The timing will be a little tight but it should work.

Horizontal Side Game Series

For those who don’t want to play 2x or 4x on the same day, you can instead slice your time horizontally across the days. If you want to play at 10am all four days, then the Side Game Series is for you. As usual, they combine your best two session for each series – so if you go this route, make sure you group your sessions wisely.

You either want to do Thursday and Friday, or Saturday and Sunday. The disaster is Friday + Saturday, as you will be playing a separate series each day.

Ribbon Colors for the New Strats?

Most people shouldn’t care much about ribbon qualifiers, but it’s fun to acquire your first few. As usual, the single session 99er and 499er events do not provide gold points and do not provide ribbons.

Most people know that Gold Rush through 750 pays Red Ribbon Qualifiers and open games pay Blue Ribbon Qualifiers if you get overall 1st or 2nd for the day. How about the weird in-between strats? Here is the relevant rule from the ACBL site:

First and second (including ties) in all Gold Point Regionally-Rated Events with no upper masterpoint limit or with an upper masterpoint limit of more than 1500 masterpoints.

Ok, so the expanded Gold Rush to 1250 will still pay Red Ribbon Qualifiers. The Mid-Flight 0-2500 and higher pay Blue Ribbon Qualfiers. Some day we will need a special post on how to use these ribbon qualifiers, and why ACBL needs to seriously revamp the entire ribbon system.