Special Meeting of ACBL Board of Governors July 6, 2021

Posted on July 6, 2021 by Lee Lin

A quorum of eligible Board of Governors members gathered for Zoom meeting to discuss upcoming ACBL events and consider a set of motions.

Board of Governors chair Doug Couchman led the way through the agenda. After a few administrative to clarify voting procedures and to follow on issues from last time, we dug right a few motions and announcements.

Motion: Should the Live Board of Governors Meeting during NABCs serve refreshments to the Board of Governors attendees?

In prior years, there was a continental breakfast served, with complimentary coffee and danishes to show some appreciation to the Board of Governors. However, the breakfast was not served in recent meetings. The cost is generally $3000 to $4000, after including catering and cleanup cost at the venue. The cost seemed high for a meeting of approximately 100 attendees.

Some members mentioned other concerns. First, the breakfast area would end up very messy by the end of the meeting. Some individuals not on the board of governors also attend and take from the breakfast. Also, not everyone prefers the continental breakfast.

Some individuals recommended a separate motion. Instead of the continental breakfast, board of governor members would receive a voucher for food for an amount significantly less than the per-person cost of catered breakfast.

In the end, the motion passed narrowly, with 23 for and 17 against, and many abstainers.

Change the name of the Board of Governors?

The Board of Governors is not a board, and does not govern. It is closer to a house of representatives that meet and discuss issues from the general ACBL membership, and also relays information from ACBL to the membership. The Board of Governors CAN pass motions for the ACBL Board of Directors to consider.

Change to Bylaws – Technical Amendment

Whenever an elected board of governors member leaves the board prior to end of term (for example by resignation or death), then the District may fill the position by appointing a replacement for the board of governors. However, the replacement only applies to the three elected board of governors positions allocated to each district. Replacement does not apply to individuals on the board of governors because they are 1st or 2nd district director alternates, as the alternate positions are being phased out.

Note: For our district (D24), David Moss is currently the District Director. Jeff Bayone is the 1st alternate, and Lee Lin is the 2nd alternate. The elected Board of Governors members includes Diana Schuld and Silvana Morici. There is also one vacant seat.

ACBL BoD Motion: Clarification on Cheating and Unethical Play

The Appeals and Charges Committee plans to make several changes to the language in the ACBL Code of Disciplinary Regulations. The motion is 25 pages long, but makes several key clarifications. First, that cheating online bridge is just as serious as cheating in face-to-face bridge. Also, it clarifies certain cases of unethical conduct, such as a better definition for unauthorized signaling between partnerships. There are also various modifications to clarify when various factors should be considered when determining punishment for violations.

One particularly impactful change which could come up. Supplying false information to ACBL is a violation that could result in probation or suspension. Could that include lying about vaccination status? As written, if an ACBL tournament requires full vaccination and a member is found to have intentionally supplied false information, the member could be charged under the ACBL Code of Disciplinary Regulations.

One member mentioned that the Board of Governors does not yet have access to the Board of Directors motion

ACBL BoD Discussion Item: Require ACBL Number to Play in Club Games and Tournaments (including online)

Note, this does not require an active membership in good standing, just an ACBL number. On one hand, ACBL wants to know who is playing at their games, so having a number requires submitting your name and information to ACBL. However, some members have privacy concerns, feeling that ACBL is over stepping their bounds by micro-managing private clubs.

Also, without requiring a number, a player may be able to play under-the-radar, for example, someone worried about graduating out of Flight C could attempt to continue playing, just without supplying a number. That player would be able to gain experience without accumulating points.

ACBL BoD Discussion Item: Reduce Board of Directors Stipends for Attending the Board of Directors Meeting During NABC

As a cost-cutting measure, there is some discussion to reduce some of the subsidies and stipends given to Board of Directors members during NABC. The total savings would be estimated at $10,000. However, there are concerns that the cost of attending NABCs would otherwise be difficult for various board members.

ACBL BoD Discussion Item: Various Considerations to Handle the Transition Back from Online Virtual Clubs to Face-to-Face Bridge?

Should virtual clubs still have membership restrictions? Or can members just go to any club, regardless of where you used to play pre-Covid? For most of the last year and 4 months, since Covid closed every bridge club, you could only play in the virtual club extension of your former physical club, OR any virtual club that added you to their guest (and each club has a limited number).

How about Masterpoints and pigmentation? Prior to the pandemic, only unpigmented points could be won online, other than a few very rare cases (the online robot individual during NABC). There were also other restrictions, such as only 1/3 of your rank could be met with online unpigmented points.

So far, this is the most crucial part of the meeting and discussion. It won’t be easy to transition back to face-to-face play, but at the same time, the vast majority of active ACBL members have played online for the past 16 months. ACBL moved quickly to transition everyone to online play and tournaments. However, do they take it away now for the sake of a return back to some new normal? What is the new normal?

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District 24 2021 GNT Final Results

Posted on June 16, 2021 by Lee Lin

All four flights completed their final 48-board knockouts this past Sunday. Here are the results!

Championship: Blanchard vs Dinner

Team Blanchard won after 36 boards with a score of 82-18. For winning first in the championship flight, Robert Blanchard, Sam Lev, Fred Chang, Adam Wildavsky, and Daniel Lev will each win 48 gold points, and a blue ribbon qualifier. Runners up Bill Dinner, Jack Lipson, Bart Cirker, and Mark Leibowitz will each win 36 gold point and a blue ribbon qualifier.

You can also find the entire recap of the championship flight on ACBL Live.

Flight A: Moss vs Cable

Team Moss defeated Team Cable with a score of 136 to 79 across 48 boards. David Moss, Stephen Levine, Jacqueline Chang, and Richard Walker will each receive 40 gold points and a blue ribbon qualifier. In 2nd place, Lorraine Cable, David Yoon, Stephannie Culbertson, and Rachael Moller win 30 gold points and a blue ribbon qualifier.

Due to scheduling conflicts, Team Moss has declined to represent the district during the July national finals. Instead, the honor falls to team Cable. As usual, all teams representing the district are allowed to augment their roster to a total of 6 eligible players, as long as 3 out of the 4 original team members remain on the team. Of course, teams can also just compete with no such modifications.

See the full Flight A recap on ACBL live.

Flight B: Merlo vs Yu

The highest total IMPs knockout took place in the match between Merlo and Yu. This is somewhat expected – the two teams were playing vastly different bidding systems that easily leads to different contracts on many hands, in addition to the normal chaos that comes from a 48-board KO. The final result is 129-111 for Merlo, also the defending champions from last year. Stefano Merlo, Robert Forster, Christopher Moh, and Jordan Lampe will each win 33.5 gold point and a blue ribbon qualifier.

For Flight B, because 10 teams showed up for the opening round, the District can sent two teams to the national finals. Each member of 2nd place team Leon Yu, Qun Yang, Jimmy Wang, and Samuel Kuang will win 25.13 gold points and a blue ribbon qualifier. Together, both teams will represent District 24 in July.

See the full Flight B recap on ACBL live.

Flight C: Xing vs Wagner

The Flight C final knockouts concluded as well, with Wagner winning 99-90. As stated in a prior post, both teams will win lots of gold and red masterpoints, as well as a red ribbon qualifier.

Similar to Flight B, both teams are invited to represent the district in the national finals. It was a close call, because as the registration deadline approached, there were only 6 teams, two short of the 8 team requirement for sending a second team. However, thanks to some collaboration between the clubs, units, and district (some of you may have received more than a few notices), we managed to muster up 3 last minute teams – including Team Wagner!

See the full Flight C recap on ACBL live.

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Team Xing and Team Wagner to Represent District 24

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Lee Lin

Congratulations to Team Xing and Team Wagner for winning their semi-final GNT-C KO matches today. They will still compete in the finals next Sunday, along with all the other flights, to determine the district champions. Normally, the district champion includes a travel subsidy, but this year the national finals are online. Instead, the winners receive fame and glory during our next District Award ceremony, as well as extra masterpoints and potentially favorable seeding next year (not that seeding played any role this year).

Both teams will receive a red ribbon qualifier, as well as at least 15 gold / red masterpoints (20 if they win next week).

Team Xing
Henry Xing
Jiaheng Hu
Tingran Wang
Yang Xu

Team Wagner
Margot Wagner
Benjamin Weisgal
Maryann Oehlerking
Anthony Chiocchi
Damon Suden

For winning 3rd /4th place, Team Montgomery and Team Ogden will each win 10 masterpoints, half gold and half red. Team Montgomery consists of Susan Montgomery, Rachel Brannan, Leslie Ehrlich, and Joanna Greenspan. Team Ogden consists of Cynthia Ogden, Catherine Williams, Laszlo Seress, and Barbara Ullman.

Check out the Flight C semi-final boards and match results.

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GNT Flight A and C kicks off today!

Posted on June 5, 2021 by Lee Lin

Today we have 15 teams playing in the opening round of their GNT Flight. Fight A is a simply 6 team round robin, 5 rounds of 10 boards each. Flight C is a little more weird, and shows the limitations of online bridge technology.

Results Mid-Day

First, here is what everyone is looking for, the real-time results.

Flight A Leaderboard

Flight C Leaderboard

Online with 9 teams in the field?

Normally in face-to-face bridge, with 9 teams in the field, you could set up a rotation so that each team plays 8 rounds of 6 boards, through a coordinated movement. For example, round 1 every East-West pair moves up one table, next round every East-West pair moves down one table. After every pair of rounds, the teams can compare scores. It’s not quite the same as having 3 different 3-ways. It’s more like a massive 9-way. But the important point is, no one ever needs to sit out a round.

How did we handle it?

Unfortunately, there is no solution yet for online bridge, and perhaps we wouldn’t want one. Instead, everyone is playing the same pre-dealt hands at the same time, except that one team sits out each round, leaving the other 8 to play a quick 6-board round. It’s a little annoying that the day lasts one round longer then it needs to – and even more unfortunately that no one knows when there bye round is until the day of the match. For people with playing-time restrictions, it makes the day hard to predict. Hopefully next year we have a better solution, or we are fully back to face-to-face.

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GNT 2021 Championship and B Finalists

Posted on May 28, 2021 by David Moss

Congratulations to District 24 GNT Open and Flight B finalists. They will play their final 2-session KO on Sunday, June 13th, starting at 10am.

Open – 8 teams entered. Finalists
Bill Dinner, Jack A Lipson, Bart Cirker, and Mark A Leibowitzvs 
vs
Robert Blanchard, Sam Lev, Fred C Chang, Adam Wildavsky, and Daniel Lev

Flight B – 10 teams entered. Finalists:
Stefano P Merlo, Robert B Forster, Christopher Moh, and Jordan Lampe
vs
Leon Yu, Qun Yang, Zhuo Wang, and Samuel Kuang

See links for complete weekend results:
Open: 
Round Robin
Semi Finals
Flight B
Round Robin
Semi Final

Flights A & C will be played June 5 & 6.

Pre Registration required by May 29: Bridge Winners

All rounds (2-session): 10:00 am on Bridge Base Online
Card fees will be $120 per team per day.

Flight A – 0-6000 MPs
1st Place: 40 Gold Points* 2nd Place: 30 Gold Points

Flight C – NLM < 500
1st Place: 20 Gold/Red Points* 2nd Place: 15 Gold/Red Points

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GNT real-time scoreboard, B and Championship

Posted on May 22, 2021 by Lee Lin

We won’t bother to put too much spin on the results. We know what everyone wants is the real-time scoreboard, so here it is.

Championship Flight Leaderboard

Flight B Leaderboard

With 4 rounds complete in B and 3 rounds complete in Championship, we are near the halfway mark. Remember, the top four teams by Victory Points will advance to the next day.

Championship Flight Leaderboard after 3 rounds (7 total)

Flight B Leaderboard after 4 rounds (9 total)
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District 24 GNT 2021 Kicks Off This Weekend!

Posted on May 20, 2021 by Lee Lin

We have 18 teams registered for the first GNT weekend, with 8 teams in the open flight and 10 teams in Flight B. Because we have crossed the required threshold, we are eligible to send two B teams to the district finals.

Also, ACBL ruled that the GNT District Finals will pay the full masterpoint amounts, not the 20% reduced amounts due to online play. Flight B first place pays 33.5 gold points, and open flight pays a ton more (not that they need more).

Prelim Schedule:

Saturday 22nd Qualifying stage

Open (8 teams). Round Robin

7 rounds of 7 boards (49) 50 min per round 10 minutes break 1 hr lunch break

1 – 10:00
2 – 11:00
3 – 12:00
4 – 13:00
Break
5 – 15:00
6 – 16:00
7 – 17:00

Flight B (10 teams). Round robin

9 rounds of 6 boards (54) 45 minutes per round 5 minutes break 1 hr lunch break

1 – 10:00
2 – 10:50
3 – 11:40
4 – 12:30
5 – 13:20
Break
6 – 15:20
7 – 16:10
8 – 17:00
9 – 17:50

Sunday 23rd Semifinals

Winner of the round robin chooses his opponent between 3rd and 4th place

2nd place plays against the team not chosen by the winner

4 segments of 12 boards, 1:25 plus 10 minutes break between segments. 1 hr break for lunch

10:00 11:35 14:00 15:35

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District 24 GNT 2021

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Lee Lin

District 24 will hold District GNT finals online. Winners in each flight will advance to the national finals, also held online, in late July 2021. Fees are $60/session per team, with all teams ensured at least one full, two-session opening round.

Registration Required on BridgeWinners:
https://bridgewinners.com/tournament/view/district-24-gnt/

All opening rounds start at 10:00am ET

FLIGHTOpening WeekendSemi-Final
(if needed)		Final
OpenMay 22 + May 23June 6June 13
Flight AJune 5   + June 6 June 13
Flight BMay 22 + May 23 June 13
Flight CJune 5   + June 6 June 13

All games played on Bridge Base Online
Questions: gnt@gnyba.org

District GNT Coordinator: Lee Lin (lee@gnyba.org)

Tournament Flyer:
https://gnyba.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GNYBA-GNT-flyer-2021_Apr-21.pdf

See the full Conditions of Contest (some highlights below)

Special Eligibility Rules for 2021:

The event is open to teams of 4-6 players.  All players must be members in good standing of the ACBL and meet residence and flight-specific masterpoint / rank restrictions.  

For the 2020-2021 season, GNT eligibility for location, masterpoint limits, and Life Master rank are all based on August 6th, 2019 records.  In all flights, a member’s principal physical residence as of September 1st of 2019 shall establish District residency.  A player who moved between September 1, 2019 and September 1, 2020 may elect to compete in either District (but not both). New ACBL members who joined after September 1, 2020 may use their current District residency.

The Championship Flight is open to all such players, Flight A to those who had fewer than 6000 masterpoints, Flight B to those who had fewer than 2500 masterpoints, and Flight C to those who were non-life masters and had fewer than 500 masterpoints. 

A player may participate in 2 flights of the event as long there is no conflict in the initial rounds as scheduled.  However, once a team advances to the final KO phase in any flight (or semi-finals of open flight), none of the players may participate in any other flight.   For example, if a Flight B team advances past May 22nd and May 23rd into the finals on June 13th, none of the players will be allowed to join a Flight A or Flight C roster.  The team will not be allowed to forfeit their KO in order to join other flights. 

Format

a)  The First stage of the District Final will be knockouts, round robins, or swiss at the discretion of the Coordinator and the tournament Director.

b) Head to head KO ties will be broken by a six-board playoff.  Round robin or three-way KO ties will be broken per current ACBL general conditions which can be found at www.acbl.org.

c)  Round robins or swiss rounds will be scored using the USBF Victory Point charts (even though BBO software may display ACBL Victory Points).  See USBF conditions https://usbf.org/docs/COC/General%20Conditions%20of%20Contest%202019.pdf .  

d)  NUMBER OF BOARDS.    Every knockout match in the championship flight will consist of 48 boards.  For Flight A, B, & C, the final knockout match will consist of 48 boards, while earlier rounds will be 24 boards if single-session and 48 boards if two-session.  The exact format depends on the number of teams entered and will be determined by the Tournament Director using Appendix A as a guideline.

Participation Requirements

Each member of a team must play 50% of the boards per knockout match.  During the swiss or round robin stage event, each player must play in at least half the rounds, rounding down.    

If the team receives a bye for any portion of the event, then all members of the team are deemed to have participated for that portion.

Convention Charts

At the District and National Finals, the Basic Chart applies to Flight C, the Basic+ Chart applies to Flight B, the Open Chart applies to Flight A, and the Open+ Chart applies to the Championship Flight.  Players are responsible for ensuring their agreements abide by the appropriate chart.  The director-in-charge and GNT Committee may unfavorably adjust the results of any board in which a pair or team used disallowed methods, or even disqualify the offending team in extreme cases.

Arrangement of Matches and Security

a).  All rounds will be played online using Bridge Base Online, following standard ACBL conventions for swiss, round robin, or knockout matches. 

b).  The director in charge will determine required security protocols for all rounds.  For knockout rounds, players should be prepared to maintain a connection with a virtual screen mate opponent using Zoom, a live phone call, or other video chat software.   Typically, North and East are one set of screen mates, South and West are the other set. 

Masterpoint Awards

Flight C: 16.0 Gold / Red
Flight B: 26.8 Gold
Flgiht A: 32.0 Gold
Champ: 38.4 Gold

Note: Masterpoint awards assume at least 4 sessions played in the flight – if there are fewer than 4 teams, the director in charge may shorten the event. Also, masterpoint awards above represent a 20% reduction from face-to-face District GNT finals, because the event is held online and awards gold and red mastepoints, per ACBL Board of Directors motion 20S2-02.

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ACBL Board of Governors Livestream NOW

Posted on April 10, 2021 by Lee Lin

Today the ACBL Board of Governors is doing its first ever remote livestream. Here is the link embedded below. Nothing TOO exciting should be discussed, but you may see several of the folks representing you.

Livestream: https://youtu.be/Mpx9FmJNBwwso
Update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eki6IJedtho

The stream will continue for about 2 hours. As always, the Board of Governors meeting is somewhat misleading. It is not really a board, and it does not govern. It’s primarily a group designed for two-way communication between the ACBL national level and the district membership. In many ways, it most closely resembles the house of representatives, whereas the Board of Directors is the senate.

As a reminder, a lot of Board of Governors information can also be found on the ACBL website BOG section.

Brief Summary (Not official meeting minutes)

Opening remarks by Doug Couchman – thanks everyone for coming, reminds everyone on ground rules. We will also later in the meeting discuss whether Saturday evening ET is a reasonable time to hold these meetings moving forward.

Jeff Jones gave a summary and answered questions regarding online cheating procedures and their cooperation with BBO on the matter.

Georgia Heth gave an overview on why 2021 will be very different than 2020, and filled with plenty of uncertainty and opportunity.

Counsel Linda Dunn updated everyone on the outstanding lawsuit between former ACBL tournament directors Peter Marcus et al vs ACBL, regarding exempt vs non-exempt status. Should directors be paid overtime? More information about the case on BW.

Several members had questions and comments for Linda Dunn about the lawsuit about the financial implications of the lawsuit. Although not all details could be provided on the lawsuit while still in litigation, the legal fees has cost $160K beyond what was covered by insurance.

Peyton Dodson reported on the financial health of the organization. The annual audit has been concluded and financial statements posted on the ACBL website. The original budget from November 2019 projected $330K in net gaming income. After quick pivots during the beginning of the pandemic, ACBL earned $2M a month in revenue and ended the year with a net $2.2M of gaming operations. The 2021 budget is approved and projects net gains of $748K, primarily from online activity. The budget currently does not project meaningful financial impact from face-to-face play.

Doug Couchman reports on activities from the Board of Directors (that’s the Senate, not this group, remember). One large set of changes included changes to the ByLaws, which among many things reduces the 25 Districts into 13 Regions. Pertaining in particular to the Board of Governors, the 1st and 2nd Alternate positions for each districts are no longer actually alternates moving forward.

AJ Stephani answered a question about the why 1st and 2nd alternates are no longer considered necessary. However, there is a transition period for the rest of 2021. One major reason is that all Board of Governors meetings will now be on zoom, a total of 6 per year (3 general and 3 special). In the past, Board of Governors meetings were held at NABCs, but even when face-to-face bridge resumes, we will likely continue to use Zoom meetings.

[Note: For District 24, which incudes GNYBA, the District Director is David Moss, the 1st Alternate is Jeff Bayone and the 2nd Alternate is Lee Lin. There are also three other members on the board of governors in our district: Diana Schuld, Uday B Ivatury, and Silvana Morici].

A series of motioned were made and voted on by the voting members in attendance. Normally this would be done via paddles in a physical room during NABC. Today we used Zoom polls. The first motion passed agreeing with ByLaws changes for the Board of Governors.

A prior motioned discussed talking about changing the name of the Board of Governors to something more descriptive. However, we have decided to continue calling the entity the Board of Governors.

Two more motions were proposed revising changes to the way the Board of Directors and Board of Governors cooperate. Both motions failed. However, some members note a past frustration with Board of Governors motions not passing at the Board of Director level and without sufficient communication from the Board of Directors. Others notes the communication falls to the Board of Governors chair, and that the current chair has done an excellent job.

A motion was proposed to direct the Bridge Bulletin to periodically publish a list of members currently suspended, banned, or on probation. This motioned failed. Some members pointed out that the ACBL already publishes a list of members CURRENTLY under discpline (although not a historical list).

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District Director Letter March 2021

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Lee Lin

Once again, District Director David Moss updates all of us on the latest happenings with ACBL, our unit in Greater New York, and our neighboring unit 242. In the quarterly letter, he announced the dates for our greatly revamped District GNTs, the latest with the GNYBA league, updates from the national branch of ACBL, and some important bridge milestones from those in our district.

Check out this letter and all previous letters in the District Director section.

And to save some people an extra click, the dates for GNT will be posted on the front page of gnyba.org from now through June.

Initial Rounds Open & B: May 22-23     
Initial Rounds A & C June 5-6     
Finals All Flights June 13

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