First, we announced earlier this week that we will be hosting the GNYBA Winter League playoffs on Sunday Dec 6th and Dec 13th (check the league page for more info). Four teams from each bracket will qualify into semi-final KOs. Save the dates!
Also, round 3 results are posted – check the leaderboard for the matchups next week. Remember, the plan is a 5-round swiss with no playbacks.
R3 Fast Players Shoutout: Monnig vs Gellas + Connors vs NY State Of Mind
This week is a tie for fastest players! The two matches started within seconds of each other, and finished within seconds of each other. The winner is too close to call, given that no one is paying too much attention anyway (no recounts allowed). Therefore, we’re calling it a tie.
Congrats to Susan Davison, Lore Monnig, Stanley Tuhrim, and Betty Mintz vs Nancy Garvey, Laura Tolkow, Bonnie Gellas, and Gloria Tamlyn.
Also congrats to Owen Lien, Marc Sylvester, Ryan Connors, and Randi Adelman vs Giorgia Botta, David Marker, Maureen Rives, and Martin Zonica.
We finished round 2 of the GNYBA league today, with a lot of close races on the victory point leaderboards. Matchups for round 3 are already posted. Remember, the plan is a five round swiss with no playbacks.
Round 2 Fast Players Shoutout: Gellas vs Deneroff
The fastest players this round were Valerie Deneroff, Marty Deneroff,Tom Hunter, and Robin Sanders vs Nancy Garvey, Bonnie Gellas, Eva Graczyk, and Gloria Tamlyn. Not only did both tables finish first out of the full 30-table match, but they beat the next fastest players by 10 minutes! The final score: 60 – 57, giving 10.82 Victory Points to team Deneroff.
Check back soon for our weekly GNYBA Pro hand analysis.
Round 2 of our NYC online bridge league continues this Sunday at 7pm ET. The twist this time includes a concept of Home and Away teams. Whichever team has the higher cumulative victory points has the “Home Team Advantage” – the opposing Away team must set their entire lineup first (placing each player in the proper North, South, East, West seats). Then, the Home team may strategy choose their own lineup given that information.
Read an in-depth, professional analysis of the somewhat volatile Board 9 from last week
Also, as a fun bonus, we are very lucky to have one of the top pros in the country, NYC’s own David Gurvich, publish some in-depth hand reviews from last week’s most crucial boards. Whether or not you are playing this season, hop on over to our league page and take a look!
Absolutely fantastic – the league officially launched with 30 tables playing their Round 1 match today. Some tables were full of “gold star” bridge players. But most tables consisted of familiar NYC players itching to play teams, IMPs, and swiss.
From the organizers at GNYBA, we hope everyone had fun – and be sure to check the leaderboard later for results!
Fun Fact: The Round 1 Fast PlayersShoutout for this week goes to the match between Jordan Lampe, Christopher Moh, Ralph Buchalter,and Jeff Roman versus Ryan Connors, Randi Adelman, Marc Sylvester, and Owen Lien. They were the first match out of 15 to have both tables finished!
We are so excited! The GNYBA league leaderboard is up and running and it looks amazing. Thanks Denis and Anton. Hop on over and take a look.
We have also posted first round lineups. Captains, please enter your lineups by Sat 7pm ET. For the first round of the swiss, all matches were randomly drawn. There is no home team advantage and everyone submits the lineup by the same deadline.
Note, the sorting is alphabetical order for now, because all teams are tied – they are not sorted by masterpoints or seeding.
Captains should have all received their team passwords to submit your lineup. If you don’t have it, contact league-support@gnyba.org
An amazing 28 teams will be participating in our first ever online league! Team captains, check your email in the coming days for instructions. You will need to confirm your team information and provide your lineup for the first match.
We formed preliminary brackets that will each consist of a 5 round swiss. (Perhaps a playoffs KO for the top teams?). Teams that opted to play in the top bracket will play there. We bracketed the rest by masterpoints, with some adjustments for players with non-ACBL experience.
We also announced that NetBridge will be organizing and managing the tournament!
More than 20 teams have already registered for the GNYBA Winter League! You have four more days to sign up for the November edition: get us your team’s names by Wednesday, October 28, and we’ll take care of the rest.
GNYBA has teamed up with NetBridge to manage the matches and results. Hands and standings will be posted online so you can follow along each week. The first edition of the Winter League is free, courtesy of GNYBA.
· Phil Lentz, Tom Rozinski, Roberto Verthelyi, Robert Kuhnreich · Ryan Connors, Randi Adelman, Marc Sylvester, Owen Lien · Uday Ivatury, Christal Henner, Migry Zur Campanile, Pietro Campanile · Margie Cole, Alejandro Bianchedi, Giorgia Botta, David Marker · Lynne Koeppel, Mustafa Cem Tokay, Okay Gur, Gokhan Yilmaz · Peter Lieberman, George Sullivan, Ricky Binder, Alan Watson · Bill Dinner, Dina Schecter, Bart Cirker, David Joseph · Jordan Lampe, Chris Moh, Jeff Roman, Ralph Buchalter · David Moss, Andrew Rosenthal, Katherine Todd, David Gurvich, Jacob Freeman · David Rosenberg, Sandy Friedman, Michael Rosen, Alene Friedman, Andrea Hayman · Ava Grubman, Elliott Grubman, Steve Zlotnick, Bonnie Britton · Ralph Tamlyn, J. Goldstein, Robert Tamlyn, Rona Levine, Steve Levine, T. Brines · Bonnie Gellas, Laura Tolkow, Nancy Garvey, Julia Eva Graczyk · Marty Deneroff, Valerie Deneroff, Robin Sanders, Tom Hunter · Betty Mintz, Stanley Tuhrim, Lore Monig, Susan Davison · Gary Steinkohl, David Weil, Marsha Porcell, Ron Weiss · Carole Reising, Dennis Reising, Kathy Duran, Joe Durand · Jill Howard, Nancy Marshall, Nina Steinberg, Marilyn Schapiro, Judy Gruenberger · Mee Warren, John Overdeck, James Keiger, Nikki Hudak, Jayce Wang, Matt Gordan · Rita Thompson, Barbara Wingate, Viola Porter, Harriet Walcott · Rachael Moller, Stephannie Culbertson, Matt & Allison Rudary · Alan Davidson, Scott McDermott, Lee Lin, Adam Siegel, Aaron Liebhaber · Norman Trabulus, Charles Bilich, Amy Rhodes, Mark Blanchard · Barbara D’Elia, Rob Guerrera, Margot Wagner, Ben Weisgal · Damon Suden, Anthony Chiocchi, Mary Ann Oehlerking, Marla Lawson · Carolyn Dolan, Jane Gertler, Cynthia Nicole, P. Alexandrakis, J. Rosenthal, L. Rosenthal · Audrey Meredith, Betsy Scherl, Barbara Ullman, N. Calomiris, C. Williams, C. Ogden · Sheri Elowsky, Stephanie Chamberlain, Jean Sosna, Jacob Sosna · Ang Yee Gary, Tony Wong
(we are updating this list manually – if you don’t see your team, don’t worry!)
We have an amazing 20+ teams confirmed for the Winter League, with many more teams still forming. For now, we are welcoming all registrations, but we may need to limit entries in the coming days. A few frequently asked questions and answers…
How do I register a team for the GNYBA Winter League?
Go to this registration form. You may make changes to your roster all the way until the October 28th deadline, so there is no reason to delay. If you have a team ready to go, then claim a spot while you can!
What skill level are the teams that have registered?
The current teams represent a very good spread of skill levels. We will definitely have a bracket for Gold Rush and lower Mid-Flight teams. We have a bracket of teams competitive in Mini Spingold events. And we have a few teams with NABC+ level players!
Is there a partnership desk?
For now, we are taking names of individuals and pairs who do not have full teams, but we haven’t begun match-making yet. We might do so to fill out brackets near the deadline.
Are members from Long Island / Unit 242 invited?
Yes! Please register your teams. If we must limit teams eventually, teams with GNYBA members will receive priority. However, our friends in Unit 242 are very much welcome. To ensure a spot, register asap – you can still make changes to your roster later.
Who is organizing and directing the tournament?
GNYBA is sponsoring the tournament and fully subsidizing the cost. We have hired the same organizers that run world class online bridge tournaments. We will announce the vendor and partnership shortly.
Will winners receive ACBL Masterpoints?
Probably not this time. However, we plan to hold future tournaments in 2021 and we will seek an ACBL sanction for those events if possible. Teams that play in this tournament will likely get priority in our future events. Maybe even discounts to winners from this season…
What is the maximum number of teams?
Good news – the GNYBA board last night voted in favor of increasing the original budget given the high demand! We will eventually still need to limit the maximum team count to keep everything manageable for both our tournament vendor and the GNYBA organizers.
What’s the catch? Why is it free and who’s idea was It?
That was then, and this is now. First, let’s give thanks to Uday Ivatury, who had the initiative and foresight in early June to propose a friendly yet competitive online tournament. While we all hoped life would return back to normal by now, there have been very few options to play online teams – especially for casual players.
Next, Katherine Todd has shared her valuable experiences playing in the Online World Teams event. Also, our conditions of contest, vendor selection, and marketing efforts would not be possible without her hard work. Almost everyone first heard about the tournament through her e-mail flyer (if you didn’t get it, double check your ACBL privacy settings and address).
Of course, David Moss is always a treasure trove of wisdom for all things bridge, both in New York and around the world. In addition to giving advice on every aspect of the league, he ensured the idea would gracefully comply with GNYBA goals (ensuring our funding), as well as all things ACBL now and in the future.
Lastly, I am also one of the organizers, providing as much geek squad support as I can both on this page and offline. First off, we apologize ahead of time for the somewhat clunky registration form – sometimes we just need something that works with the lowest possible hassle, no need for overtricks! Team captains will be hearing quite a bit from me as we prepare brackets and matchups to our tournament vendor.
As always, reach out with your questions.
What are the conditions of contest?
We will default to general ACBL KO conditions of contest with a few exceptions.
To keep the games friendly and efficient, we will be very flexible regarding substitutes and playing time. There are no playing requirements except that a player may only be on the official roster of one team.
We plan to allow ACBL Open+ Chart in the upper brackets and Basic+ in the lower brackets.
The regular season is 5 weeks long, each week consists of one round of a 5-round swiss. Each round is a 20-board match, IMPs scoring into a continuous 20 VP scale. Substitutes are allowed after the 10th board, but no player may switch compass directions. The first round is a random draw, future rounds follow typical swiss matchups with no playbacks.
My Howling Winds side game adventure, aka the 9:15pm side game, has been very educational and lots of fun! I could have played with a different partner daily, but for this regional, I was lucky to have 3 sessions with the same always-upbeat partner and friend.
Only Single Sessions Are Stratified
We can finally de-mystify how the side games work. It’s simple and a little unfortunate for limited players. Only the individual sessions are stratified. If your pair average masterpoints is under 500, then you are Strat C for the session. However, winning strat C, overall 1st across all sections, will only net you red points.
As usual, to win ACBL gold masterpoints, you need to win the overall award across multiple sessions, or win a section top in one session.
Unfortunately, overall awards are NOT stratified for a side game series. I can see why it is complicated – if I play twice with a pro and twice with a fellow non-life master, then which strat am I in for overalls?
A Good Source Of Red Points, Poor Source of Gold
For those trying to decide between Side Games and the normal Gold Rush and Mid-Flight events, here is my recommendation. If you don’t care about the pigments, side games are a reasonable source of red points. However, if you require gold points, you are better off with the Gold Rush or Mid-Flight event.
In strat B or C, you can win more than one red point with a score in the low or mid 50s. Two single-sessions pay more than one 2-session event, per the ACBL Masterpoints formula. And with each session independent, you get a great chance to rebound (we started the week with a 40.44%).
As stated above, overall awards are not stratified. You will not win gold unless you win a section top or achieve overalls among pros and world class players.
A Proposal to Stratify Overalls
Let’s go back to the example of playing four sessions in the side game: twice with a pro, once with a Strat B friend and once with a strat C friend. Say my results are:
Pro: 61% Pro: 56% B-friend: 55% C-friend: 59%
In theory, the tournament could generate overalls for A, B, and C. Then players receive whichever overall gives them more points.
For Strat A, use 61% and 59%, my two best sessions. For Strat B, use 59% and 55%, my two best B sessions. For Strat C, I am not eligible, because I do not have two C sessions.
If I would have won more under the strat-B overalls, then give me that! For the series, if my single-session total is more than my overall scores, then give me the single-session total, but still award the partial gold that comes from the overall award.
Brush With Greatness (not really)
Finally, congrats to GNYBA members Shelley Mendelsohn and Amy Schottenstein for winning gold today with both overall first in C and section top in A. We also had a chance to “play against” Jeopardy James, who was also in our North-South field.
To help you cope in these COVID times, the GNYBA is bringing the excitement of team bridge to the comforts of your home. We are thrilled to announce the formation of the GNYBA Winter League!
The Winter League is a series of team matches that will take place on BBO over the course of several weeks. The first edition will begin November 1. Five matches (20 boards each) will determine which team(s) advance to the KO.
The hands will be pre-duplicated, hand records will be available afterwards, and you will hopefully recognize some (screen)names of your opponents — just like the old days. Act fast and get your team together!
*** GNYBA WINTER LEAGUE ****** NOVEMBER EDITION ***
What: 5 team matches, with a longer KO for qualifying teams; Each match will be 20 boards, starting at 7p Eastern.
Who: You and your friends. All levels welcome, in teams of 4-6 players.
When: 7p on Sundays November 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29
Where: BBO (where else?)
Why: Um, do you really have somewhere better to be? Don’t you need a break from matchpoints?
How: Pre-register your team HERE. We will bracket as best we can, so please sign up ASAP to help with this.
Pre-registration deadline: October 27, 2020
Cost: FREE. This one is on the house, GNYBA’s treat. You’ve been through enough this year!
Questions? Shoot ‘em: email thegnyba@gmail.com. Alert: Details may change based on entrants
GNYBA looks forward to seeing you @BBO. Let the games begin!
NOABC Victories
Katherine Todd (0-5000 Teams Champion)
Zia Mahmood
(Open KO semifinals)
Joe Grue
(Open Pairs 4th)
Team Liebhaber
(0-1500 Teams semifinals)
GNYBA League Nov 2020
Season One Results Team New England
Better Than Ok On A Good Day
Team Sam
