The GNYBA Award Game is both a celebration of Mini McKenney and Ace of Clubs winners from the past 6 years. It is also a chance to welcome all players back to the face-to-face club, since pre-Covid, club play was a huge component of any race winner’s MP earnings.
What is the Award Game?
You can think of it as something special, or just an ordinary game, both are perfectly fine ways to enjoy the evening. We had wine and cheese, cake, stickers and photos for the winners, and a welcome speech from our Unit president. But for people there solely for the bridge, just think of it as a lively game and a chance to see familiar faces and meet new friends.
This was a first-ever event to lookup back and include six years of prior year winners, from 2018-2023. Technically, there was a GNYBA Award Dinner in April of 2019, but that only celebrated one year of winners; every year after we postponed due to either NYC not being open (due to the pandemic), or Honors not being open (because it was Bridge and Games, and not the Brian Glubok version). In addition, it simply took us a while to get organized and for a viable evening game to form (if you haven’t been, Wed night at Honors is amazing).
The Masterpoint Races
Each race is broken up into many brackets, so if you began 2024 with between 0-5 Masterpoints (or joined mid year), then you are in the 0-5 bracket. The full set of bracket are 0-5, 5-20, 20-50, 50-100, 100-200, 200-300, 300-500, 500-1000, 1000-1500, 1500-2500, 2500-3500, 3500-5000, 5000-7500, 7500-10000, and 10000+.
For each such bracket, there are now three different races. Your bracket includes your total Masterpoints from the prior year. Each race counts the number of qualifying points you earn that calendar year. Regardless of whether you started with 101 or 199, you are in the 100-200 bracket that year, even if you end up earning 200 and skip an entire bracket year.
Mini McKenney: Counts all pigmented points won throughout the year. The key word is pigmented. Black is a pigment, but what used to be called “online points” or “colorless points” are not. So online play CAN help you win mini McKenney, but only when you participate in the correct type of games that give black, silver, red, or gold.
Ace of Clubs: Counts black points won at clubs. Starting in 2023, only black points won in face-to-face clubs count. Also confusing, STaC week points do NOT count.
Ace of Virtual Clubs: New in 2023, counts only black points won in online virtual clubs. Somewhat ambiguous is whether silver linings week or various random gold point club weeks count.