Team Koeppel Wins GNYBA KO Finals

Posted on March 2, 2021 by GNYBA

In a GNYBA League first, the KO finals offered a live Twitch video stream from expert commentators David Gurvich, Ron Smith, and Adam Grossack! Hundreds of kibitzers tuned in for a 40-board final that remained within one game-swing for the vast majority of the match.

Final Score

Lynne Koeppel, Mustafa Cem Tokay, Okay Gur, and Gokhan M Yilmaz won the match 61 to 51, coming back from a tiny 2 IMP deficit at the half. The team had finished 3rd during the regular season 5-round swiss, which qualified them into the semi final KOs.

Congrats also to Ettore Bianchi, Leonardo Cima, Alessandro Gandoglia , and Giacomo Percario. They won the regular season with a commanding 73.08 Victory Points after five rounds (next highest was team Davids+ at 62.62). They also took second place in the post season.

For full results, head over to our KO leaderboard on BridgeResults, with full hand records.

Twitch Video Commentary

In the first segment – Adam and David introduce the teams. And at 18:31, we hear from District 24 Director David Moss. He explains the origins of why we created the GNYBA Winter League, describes the format, and drops some hints about an upcoming season 3. Adam later asks if New England might someday put together a similar league. David’s response? The GNYBA league is open to everyone! In fact, team New England won season 1. Later on, another local pro “dlev60” briefly joins the conversation.

Ron Smith joins us in the second segment as an official commentator. At 1:18:34, the pros walk us through one of the crucial boards in in the 2nd set. With the same contract, similar auction, and analogous low club lead, +630 vs -200 gave 13 IMPs in a very tight match.

Special thanks to Katherine Todd for chairing the GNYBA league committee and successfully spearheading our first GNYBA live Twitch stream! And of course, kudos to Adam Grossack and friends for hosting and taking Twitch bridge to the next level. Follow all of his streams at https://www.twitch.tv/nevereast00

Groups B, Group C, and Honorable Mentions

Last weekend we also concluded our group B and group C finals. In group B, Eric A Hendrickson, Paul G Gutterman, Andrew Caranicas, Richard D Lawson, Robert Schachter, and Mark I Krusemeyer won the knockouts and qualifying in 4th place during the regular season. Keeping the tradition of non-NYC teams winning, they are a team of university professors from Minnesota.

Congrats also to Philip Lentz, Jeffrey Rothstein, Thomas G Rozinski, and Grigoriy Blekherman won the Group B regular season and took 2nd in the KO. Lentz and Rothstein are Unit 155 board members who executed a successful gambit during the semis. They have already put us on notice that they will return next season.

In group C, Laura J Schisgall, Stanley Sterenberg, Stanley Tuhrim, and Betty J Mintz also won both the KO and regular season. They defeated the Greenwitches, who join us from… Greenwich, CT. I have played alongside them as teammates, even winning a bottom-bracket cash prize at the Hilton years ago. Also, it is possible one member of the LSSB Quartet is the original source of the Red Lion-Cromwell-gate.

From neighboring Long Island, Bill Dinner, Mark A Leibowitz, Bart Cirker, Dina E Schechter, David G Joseph, and Jack A Lipson made the group A semifinals in both season 1 and 2. We always welcome our friends from Unit 242, which includes Nassau and Suffolk counties. ACBL District 24 is the combination of their unit and GNYBA, and you will see many GNT and even NAP grassroots teams that mix and match players from both.

As for for the GNYBA organizers, both of our teams also made playoffs for both seasons. David Moss, Andrew Rosenthal, Katherine M Todd, David Gurvich, Jacob Freeman, and Jason Chiu won 2nd in the Group A regular season. Meanwhile, Scott Mcdermott, Alan P Davidson, Lee C Lin, Adam F Siegel, Aaron Liebhaber, and Vladimir Kolbun won 3rd in the Group C regular season.

From all of us at the GNYBA league, thank you for playing and we hope to see everyone back for season 3 – stay tuned and start gathering your teams!

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Winter League on VUGraph!

Posted on February 13, 2021 by Lee Lin

We held our GNYBA Winter League semi-finals on this quiet Saturday night, in order to avoid conflicts with the all-important Valentine’s Day. However, we livened up the BBO party with a live vugraph broadcast.

Eventually several dozens of people joined from around the world, all strangers to me, in order to watch the featured KOEPPEL vs DAVIDS+ match – and it was a close through the very end! Well done on all sides. In Group A Lynne Koeppel, Mustafa Cem Tokay, Okay Gur, and Gokhan M Yilmaz will move on to the finals and face Leonardo Cima, Ettore Bianchi, Alessandro Gandoglia, and Giacomo Percario.

Group B Gambit Success?

In Group B, season leader LENTZ opted to play against the 3rd place team BETTER THAN OK ON A GOOD DAY (who were the Season 1 swiss winners). The gambit paid off, as LENTZ will advance to the finals, as well as THE FROZEN TUNDRA, who originally finished the regular season swiss in 4th. Tune in next Sunday to watch Philip Lentz, Jeffrey Rothstein, Thomas G Rozinski, and Grigoriy Blekherman play against Eric A Hendrickson, Paul G Gutterman, Andrew Caranicas, Richard D Lawson, Robert Schachter, and Mark I Krusemeyer.

Group C New York vs Connecticut

In Group C, both 24-board quarterfinal matches saw heavy IMPs swings, grossing 240 total IMPs across the both matches (yes, we play common boards with Group A, but apparently uncommon contracts and play). My team, team MCDERMOTT, lost to the GREENWITCHES while THE LSSB QUARTET knocked out season 1 winners THE NMFERs. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing team GREENWTICHES consisting of Sharon Phillips, Fern M Lindsay, Cathy Dann, Kathy Markby, Nell W Otto, and Lindsay Ormsby have some members from Connecticut – welcome and congrats! They will face Laura J Schisgall, Stanley Sterenberg, Stanley Tuhrim, and Betty J Mintz (definitely New Yorkers).

Check out the KO leaderboard to see more!

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Round 5 Concludes, KOs Begin

Posted on February 6, 2021 by GNYBA

All 28 teams showed up on our special Saturday evening round 5, to avoid conflicts with any potential sporting events tomorrow. Although the season is over, we continue for two more weekends with our semi-final and final KOs. We hope to see you playing or spectating.

In each bracket, the top team will choose whether to to play the 3rd or 4th place team. The 2nd place team plays the other. Check out who made the playoffs on the leaderboard.

Fastest Players Shoutout Round 5:

I am told we focus far too much on who plays quickly, so we will keep it brief and speedy this time. The fastest players this week is a tie, between Frozen Tundra and Stanton, as well as Glubok vs Frogs. This is the 2nd week in a row of speedy play for the Frogs!

THE FROZEN TUNDRA:greek a – Sterman – Abnercakes – pggmbt
STANTON:mdeneroff – vdeneroff – jibsheet – kitkatbar
GLUBOK:ronsmithsf – hottodstl – VNDNBR2 – easyed67
THE FROGS:jeffroman – ralphb – greenj – chrismoh
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GNYBA League Round 4: Pro Hand Review

Posted on February 3, 2021 by GNYBA

Once again, we are super lucky to have a hand review from one of our own NYC world class pros. For those who played Sunday night, there were quite a few good slams, at least one tempting but very bad slam, and most importantly, some hands misplayed by even top notch declarers.

Review Of Select Hands, by David Gurvich

            There were a few hands that were interesting for various reasons and one in particular that might bring back memories of Justin Lall.  Bonus points to everyone who either knows or guesses the board.

Board 3:

I like this board because numerous declarers misplayed it. Most pairs either got to 4H or 3NT by East after a 3D preempt was doubled by West.  4H is trivial in the play and merely requires guessing to lead a heart to the K instead of finessing for the Q.  3NT is more interesting and requires some planning.

Most pairs in 3NT received a diamond lead.  All the declarers who won this trick should go down 3 when the clubs are unfavorable.  Some made with a popular misdefense of not rising with the heart Ace, leaving partner to a guess. 

The correct play requires some foresight.  With the 3D preempt there is an excellent chance that clubs don’t break and diamonds are 7-2.  If clubs don’t break we need 2 more tricks.  There are 2 lines which require different plays at trick 1. 1)The heart A is with the preemptor. 2)The heart A is not with the preemptor. 

Option 1) Win the opening lead, cash 2 clubs finding the bad news, finesse for the heart Q.  That line is fine if your opponents typically preempt with a good suit and side A at favorable vulnerability.  Mine don’t, which leaves…

Option 2) Duck the lead, win the diamond continuation (pitching hearts from dummy), cash CK and duck a club when the suit fails to break.  On the heart return rise with the K.  This combines three separate concepts for declarer. Plan the play before playing to trick 1, scissoring the opponents’ hands, and an avoidance play.

Board 12:

Most pairs reached a 4H which requires careful defense to beat.  Many tables received the lead of the SK when partner overcalled or opened spades.  To guarantee a set, either a small diamond or 2nd spade followed by a diamond must be played, though there are many landmines available.

            A typical defense was SK followed by 2 more rounds of spades ruffed high.  After drawing 2 rounds of hearts and stripping spades and clubs, declarer has to decide how to endplay East.  The holdings where it is possible to make are KQ, KJ, QJ or singleton honor.  Kx when the defense fails to unblock is also possible but usually requires cashing the DA early.

            Since I don’t like guessing when deduction is available let’s see what information we have.  On the 3rd round of spades West typically pitched a diamond.  After drawing trump we know that West started with 22 in the majors and 9 cards in the minors.  Psychologically, it’s much easier to pitch from a 5-card holding than a 4-card holding.  As a defender with Jxxxx and KJxx would you pitch a diamond or a club?  That means we can assume that West is 2254 and East is 5215.  Once we make that assumption playing for East to have a singleton honor becomes a certainty.

Board 19:

4S was the normal contract.  A few pairs went down immediately when played by North on the lead of the HA followed soon by a heart ruff.  Many pairs made when played by South on the lead of the CK.  What went wrong?

            In our match the C3 was played at one table and the C8 at the other.  At both tables declarer ruffed and tried to sneak a spade through with a fake finesse, playing the SJ from hand.  At one table West rose with the SA and shifted to a heart while the SJ held the trick at the other.  Who misdefended?

            The C3 is a clear misdefense, even though partner is expecting an attitude signal there will be no other chance to signal for a heart shift.  I would play the C10 but at least give partner a chance with the C8.  On the other side, ducking the SA will only gain in 1 case and requires that partner holds the SQ and declarer is 6520 with the HK or HA.  With fewer hearts declarer will be able to pitch down to doubleton heart (9xx opposite AKQx drops J10). If declarer doesn’t have HK or HA, winning the SA and getting a ruff is obvious.

Board 20:

7S is excellent, somewhere between 70% and 80%.  From the results it’s clear that the grand is difficult to bid with most pairs that bid 7S essentially guessing what to do.  There was only 1 pair that didn’t, Warren Chang – Stephen Jansen.

            Most tables started with 1D-2C to show the GF and longest suit. Stephen chose 1S and had an easy road to 7S after Warren raised to 3S and exclusion keycard was applied.  While 1S might run into difficulties on other hands it made the auction much easier here.  A trivial example of a problem with 1S is opener rebidding 2D.  3C is artificial and clubs will frequently not be shown unless getting to a slam.

            A simple auction might be 1D-2C-2H-2S-3S, then exclusion and 7S.  The problem with that auction is when partner has an inadequate number of keycards and you are forced to play either in 5S (off 3 keycards), 6S on spade finesse (if lucky) or 5NT.  A few pairs had an auction where they made a slam try and partner bid keycard.  That allowed them to bid 6H but partner still had no clue how high to go. 

The main problem is that opener has no way to show some extra values over 2C using standard methods.  Here is a reasonable standard auction to 7S: 1D-2C-2H-2S-3S-4C-4D followed by 5H exclusion.  If opener takes control with keycard instead of 4D the auction goes off the rails and should stop in 6.

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Masterpoints and GNYBA League? Round 4 Concludes

Posted on January 31, 2021 by Lee Lin

Currently, the GNYBA League does not award ACBL masterpoints. We only award a small quantity of fame and glory. Should it and could it award points? That’s a question for ACBL to answer someday in the future.

Would paying points be helpful to the league? In other words, would it have a meaningful positive impact on participation? And would we need to change the way we run it? We would be curious to hear from all players whether it makes a difference (both the points and modifications to how we run the league).

Fastest Players Shoutout Round 4: Frogs Versus Hinterland

This round fastest player shoutout goes to Jordan Lampe, Christopher Moh, Ralph Buchalter, and Jeff Roman vs Anita Heitler , Don Heitler, Tom Bishel, and Brian Ross. Both tables finished in 97 minutes, and 12 minutes faster than the next closest team. That is extra impressive given The Frogs play a transfer-oriented symmetric relay system, with a strong club! Here is an example board of all the alerting that must be explained, starting with a strong club opener and opponents passing throughout.

1H (natural 2nd seat open, limited to 15 HCP)
1N (game forcing and artificial)
2C (2-suited with minor)
2D (tell me more)
2S (5-5 red suits)
2N (tell me more)
3C (shortness in spades)
4H (signoff, slam unlikely)

EDIT: An earlier version featured Board 16, however Board 11 is more representative of some of the system features.

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Round 3 Record Speed – Lentz vs Gellas

Posted on January 24, 2021 by GNYBA

We have a new record in GNYBA Winter League history. The fastest players shoutout goes to the Lentz vs Gellas match! In the prior two rounds, each team had already previously won. It only makes sense that matching the two together would result in an ultra speedy match!

For the match results, head to the GNYBA leaderboard.

Speed Relative to 2nd fastest team

Note that the absolute speed alone is not the only revealing statistic. Some days the boards are just easier to bid or claim. What we track more carefully is the speed relative to the next fastest teams. In this case, both tables finished their match a full 23 minutes prior the 2nd fastest team.

Congratulations Philip Lentz, Jeffrey Rothstein, Thomas G Rozinski, and Grigoriy Blekherman vs. Bonnie Gellas, Laura Tolkow, Eva Graczyk, and Gloria K Tamlyn. They finished their match in 84 minutes, 23 below next fastest.

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Koeppel, Connors, and LSSB Quartet Take the Lead!

Posted on January 17, 2021 by GNYBA

GNYBA League Round 2 resuls are up, with a new team taking the lead in every bracket! Hop on over to the GNYBA leaderboard and check it out.

Group A

In Group A, Team Koeppel was narrowly trailing Team Glubok by less than one Victory Point (0.83 to be exact). Koeppel pulled ahead in round 2 with a strong 17.32 VP win for a total of 32.26 for the two rounds. Not far behind is Team Bianchi at 30.41 VPs. The two will face off in Round 3 of our 5 round swiss. On Team Koeppel: Lynne Koeppel, Mustafa Cem Tokay, Okay Gur, and Gokhan M Yilmaz.

Group B

In Group B, season champions from the November league Better Than Ok On A Good Day faced off against newcomers Frozen Tundra. They narrowly lost the match by only 3imps, allowing 4th place team Connors to charge forward with a strong victory against previous playoff champions Gellas. David Yoon also joins the Connors roster for the remainder of the season, alongside Ryan Connors, Randi Adelman, Jess Jurkovic, and Lorraine Cable.

Group C

In Group C, the LSSB Quartet defeat previous season winners The NMFERs to take the lead. The LSSB Quartet consists of Laura J Schisgall, Stanley Sterenberg, Stanley Tuhrim, and Betty J Mintz. Next week they will face Connecticut team The Greenwitches.

Fastest Players Shoutout: Lentz vs. Rudary

With both tables finishing 20 boards in 96 minutes, the Letnz vs Rudary match wins our fastest player shoutout of the week. Congrats Philip Lentz, Jeffrey Rothstein, Thomas G Rozinski, and Grigoriy Blekherman vs. Stephannie Culbertson, Rachael Moller, Matt Rudary, and Allison Rudary. Hopefully you all had lots of fun kibitzing the rest of us slower players!

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League 2.0, Round 1 Results Posted

Posted on January 10, 2021 by Lee Lin

Check out the leaderboard to see the round 1 results and round 2 matchups. Remember, it’s a swiss, so you play against a team with a similar victory point total to yours. Also, there are no playbacks during the 5 round swiss. As the rounds progress, it turns into more of a round robin – in fact we might have to allow playbacks to avoid byes – we will see how it goes.

Fastest Players Shoutout Round 1: Gellas vs. Stanton

The fastest players shoutout goes to the match between Bonnie Gellas, Nancy A Garvey, Laura Tolkow, Eva Graczyk, and Gloria K Tamlyn vs. Kitty B Stanton, Sam Guzzardo, Martin M Deneroff , and Valerie L Deneroff. Of the 13 matches, they were the first to complete 20 boards at both tables, in 1 hour and 34 minutes. Even more impressive given they had a substitution at board 11, relative to the 4 vs 4 straight matches.

Welcome New Players, Congrats Veterans

With round 1 results over, we are seeing some familiar names off to a strong start.

In group C, previous season playoff winners the NMFers are in the lead: Barbara Ullman, Betsy Scherl , Nancy Calomiris , Catherine Williams, Audrey J Meredith, and Cynnie Ogden. As for my team, we are in the midst of a dubious swiss gambit…

In group B, previous regular season winners Better Than Ok On A Good Day are leading: Ralph Tamlyn, Robert Tamlyn, Steve Levine, Rona Levine, Joyce M Goldstein, and Tracy A Brines. In 2nd is new team Frozen Tundra, which happens to contain one of the original professors from MathCamp – significant because that summer 1999 in Seattle was my first time playing bridge (credit to professors David Savitt and Jeremy Martin for teaching our crew of 13 to 18 year olds AND chaperoning multiple trips to the bridge club)!

And in group A, new team Glubok has taken the top spot with a 27 IMP victory. Welcome to the league: Brian Glubok , Alex Kolesnik, Walter M Schenker, Edward Zuckerberg, Ron Smith, and Tod Moses.

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GNYBA 2.0 Launches This Sunday

Posted on January 9, 2021 by GNYBA

Check out the Winter League page for the latest updates. The brackets are up, this time again with 3 brackets and a total of 26 teams. We already awarded our first random shoutout of the season – hop on over and check it out.

To actually see the rosters and brackets, you might want to go directly to the Jan 2021 GNYBA league leaderboard.

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GNYBA League Jan 2021 Edition

Posted on January 7, 2021 by GNYBA

Get ready for another fun season of the GNYBA Winter League! If we are fortunate enough to continue into the Spring and Summer, we might need a new name. However, for now this is the one and only, Winter League second edition.

The organizers are busy at work making final preparations for the season. If you are a registered team, your captains will be receiving conditions and instructions very shortly. Stay tuned.

Bridge Results will once again be hosting the primary leaderboard and tournament results page. Until then, you can check out some of the registered teams on our Winter League page.

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