For those in the All-For-One alliance, there is a golden opportunity right now to earn your silver points. It’s one of those funny open games that are not really open. But it pays full 2x silver points: the 9:30pm speed ball with Sephardic – each night of Silver Linings Week 2.0.
According to the email from Honors, in a 0-3500 event, “professional players are put on notice that they are strongly discouraged from playing”. Not that we can promise all the ringers need any encouragement, but so far it has been a true mid-flight crowd.
Is It Closer To 750 or Open?
Honestly, there isn’t so much difference between the mid-flight and 0-750 fields. You gain a few strong pairs, but it’s largely similar people, if not exactly the same people. The sad truth is, we’ll all still be making many of the same mistakes, plus all new mistakes, with 2500 masterpoints under our belts! If you are earning points regularly in the 0-750 (every other session, say), you probably belong in mid-flight.
I highly recommend it for anyone looking to squeeze in a late evening game, and you can fit it in right after finishing the 7:15pm evening session. The Monday game had 11 tables, coded has a limited game (pays 80% of 2x points). But under certain conditions, given the player pool, they convert it to an open game – full 2x payment and you are still done in 90 minutes.
A funny thing happened on today’s Silver Lining Week 2.0 Kickoff. The All-For-One evening 7:15pm open game, featuring world champions and Barry Crane winners, only had 6 tables. The real party was in the 0-800, which I’m calling the Silver Rush game.
With only 15 minutes to go, there was over triple the demand in the 0-800 with James game. In the final minutes, at least one pair defected down after scoping out the scene.
A Silly Masterpoint Formula Fix
Under the normal ACBL formula, the masterpoint prize pool from the open game includes the table count of all concurrent limited games (the masterpoints trickle up). The theory is, whoever wins the open game with 6 tables would have also won it if we forced everyone into one huge 27 table game.
Unfortunately, the logic doesn’t yet apply to Virtual Private Club games, but I’m assured from sources within ACBL that a software update is coming very soon. In the meantime, don’t feel too bad for the pros – they still took advantage of the Howell movement trick (6 tables magically becomes 12).
Also, the entire formula will soon change to be based on strength of field – so you get an extra bonus when all of your opponents seem to have over 20,000 masterpoints.
Why 0-800, Who Plays It, And Who Is James?
Actually, I’m not sure why the limit is 0-800, when almost all gold rush games and limited games have forever been 0-750. My guess is the usual supply-and-demand reason – someone between 750-799 must really want it. Maybe we just go super gold rush, 0-1250?
Anyway, the Evening Honors and Aces limited program brought me many fond memories and will always hold a special place in my heart: whiteboard exercises with Tom, lessons with Georgia, weekends with Stephanie, duplicate and discussion with Yefim, and 20 Boards for $20 Bucks with James. You can even count mornings with Marin and Kerry, as pseudo-limited, friendly games. I’ve done them all, and often on the Evening EZ Pass (not available yet for online games, but maybe it’s an idea worth trying).
We like it because it’s a crowd of players, all still in the developing stages of our game. We’ve graduated from the newplicate. We can hold our own if we have to play open. But we still make a ton of mistakes, all the time and every time we play. Come join when you can!
The second Silver Linings week begins tomorrow. From July 27th through August 2nd, all virtual private club games will pay 2x silver points (first place gets 0.2 silver per table). As usual, with higher anticipated attendance, the clubs are preparing many extra games and speedballs. There is something for everyone. Just like last time, you can load up with 4 or 5 sessions a day!
Extra All-For-One Sessions This Week
ADDITIONAL SILVER LINING’S GAMES – in addition to regular schedule (July 27 – August 2nd)
Weekday evenings…($10) – in addition to regular schedule Monday evening…Open game at 7:15 pm. Tuesday evening…0 – 1,000 at 6:45 pm. Wednesday evening…0 – 1,000 IMP Pairs at 6:45 pm. Thursday evening…Open game at 6:45 pm. Friday evening….Open game at 6:45 pm. Every evening…..18 board 0 – 3,500 Speedball at 9:30 pm.
For the Sagamore players, they also added new speedballs and limited games.
Is This The Last Chance?
As a betting man, I’d say there will be other opportunities to get your gold and silver online. In fact, online gold is coming yet again in just one month – stay tuned.
However, this might also be one of your last chances to get the bonus 2x silver – the ACBL national board will vote on Item 20S2-02 and 20S2-03, reducing online silver payouts, and reducing 18-board session silver payouts. Even if both of those do not pass, the newly proposed Strength of Field changes will alter the formula enough that we really don’t know what to expect in the future! Get your silver while you can, and see you at the virtual tables.
While we are all unhappy that it doesn’t look like there will much face to face bridge for the rest of the year, there is a lot happening in our area and the ACBL. Below I will try to provide some information about: Online Options, 2020 GNTs, 2021 Tournaments, the ACBL board reorganization and some thoughts on the impact of cheating on the game.
ACBL Board Meeting Summary – Board Reorganization
The ACBL board held a full set of meetings last week.
Most significantly, the motion to reduce the size of the board from 25 to 13 by Jan 1, 2024 was approved. Our district will be paired with District 25 (New England). During the summer of 2021, the unit board of both districts will elect a single Regional Director whose term will start Jan 1, 2022..
Other approved motions included a 0-2500 two-day Swiss to go along with the recently approved 0-2500 pair game, and a change to the master point calculations to partially include strength of field.
The detailed agenda including the reorg motion isHERE. The reorg motion starts on page 30. Item 202-40 is the motion that passed. Minutes will be posted in August. Contact me if you are curious about the fate of any of the motions.
There were many discussions about the league’s future and online bridge. I am a member of an online task force that will deliver recommendations in August. Contact me if you would like to have some input.
Playing Online Bridge – How do you choose a Game?
Online bridge is thriving. There are multiple types of games and many excellent teachers and clubs making novel use of technologies. If you wish to play in an ACBL-sanctioned game, you have a lot of options that can appear confusing. Here are my personal thoughts:
Virtual Club Games
These are the online games run by our clubs. From a local stand point, these are the preferred games to play in:
They award the highest amount of master points – usually black, but the points will be Silver the week of July 27-August 2!
The majority portion of the entry fee goes directly to the clubs.
You are playing against the same people you played against in the “good old days” – pre- virus.
To find these games:
Sign into BBO
Click “Virtual Clubs” and then “North America”
You will then see a listing of club games that you are eligible for that start in the next 2 hours (to verify).
Note that some of the clubs have pooled themselves. “All for One” and “Alliance” include most of the largest clubs in the district.
If you do not see your club’s games, contact your club manager.
SYC – Save Your Club Games
These games are run by the ACBL. Points are black. A portion of the revenue is distributed back to the clubs based on the clubs that players attended in 2019 and early 2020. To find them, click on “ACBL World.” SYC games are shown with “ACBLSYC” as host. In addition to scheduled pair games, there are daylong robot games that can be a lot of fun if you are so inclined.
BBO run ACBL Games
The games showing “ACBL” as host are actually run by BBO for its benefit. They award “pigmentless” masterpoints which do not count for ACBL races, but do count for your total points. They provide some revenue to the ACBL but no revenue for the clubs.
Special Events
In addition to next week’s Silver Lining game, the ACBL plans to run a third online Regional in August.. The ACBL is running a spingold-like North American Online KO this weekend and next weekend. Selected matches will be shown on BBO Viewgraph. Details can be found on ACBL.org or Bridgewinners.com
2021 Regionals
The NSBA and GNYBA are each considering running regionals next Spring. We do not know if a local tournament in April or May will be feasible or well attended. Stay tuned.
2020 GNT
After the well-attended opening rounds, completion of the events through additional matches at the clubs became impossible in March. The NABC GNT in Montreal was cancelled. Our district opted to continue the events through online matches to determine “glory” and master points only. Here is the current status:
Open Flight: Winners: Peter Trenka, Igor Savchenko, Giorgia Botto and Ahmed Soliman Flight A: Final: Bill Dinner, David Joseph, , Bart Cirker and Dina Schechter vs. Igor Milman, Oleg Rubinchik. Albert Shekhter and Florin Neamtu Flight B: Final: Norman Trabulus, Charles Bilich, Michale Krevor, Barry Walfish and Robert Kuhnreich vs. Stefano Merlo, Christopher Moh, Jin Hu, Jordan Lampe and Robert Forster Flight C: Final: Aaron Liebhaber, Adam Siegel, Lee Lin and Frank Dinoff vs. Damon Suden, Anthony Chiocci, Mary Ann Oehlerking and Marla Lawson
NAP
The District 24 pairs that qualified for the NAP NABC final in Columbus, which was not held, are now automatically qualified for the final in St Louis in March 2021 – assuming that event will be held.
Point Races
The Barry Crane, Mini Mckenney’s and Ace of Clubs races are definitely active in 2020, although online play is becoming more important.
3 of the top 5 places in the Barry Crane race are currently held byNew Yorkers
You may be surprised at how well you are doing in the District 24 and two unit’s Mini McKenney and Ace of Clubs races. Check these by logging into to “My ACBL” on ACBL.org.
Cheating
Since everyone talks about it now and it is a threat to the game, I will only add: Don’t do it!
Cheating online or anywhere in bridge defeats the whole point. Most of us play online or face to face because we are competitive and enjoy the game. Cheating could ruin the game for all of us.
You will get caught. Players are encouraged to report suspicious results. No one will be penalized for achieving a few good results, but results on each board are stored and it’s pretty easy to detect suspicious patterns
Like all of us, I very much look forward to the return of face to face bridge in our area. I admit I have no way of predicting when this will occur.
We are in a nice rhythm of alternating gold and silver events at the end of each month. When the Covid-19 stay-at-home orders began, ACBL quickly invented the Support Your Club games and Virtual Private Clubs. You could play with many of the same familiar people from your local club, hang out afterwards for hand analysis with your local teachers, and have enough tables in your game via club alliances. Best of all, these games paid black points, at 150% the normal club rate.
In April we had the first massive online Gold Point Regional. For Memorial Day Weekend, we got the first Silver Linings Week (that was a tiring week). June gave us more Endless Summer Regional gold. Naturally, we are back to silver and the clubs.
Still Tied To Virtual Private Clubs
The silver point games are still tied to virtual private clubs. Unfortunately, the policy has been very confusing for many players. Just know that there is a massive amount of discussions behind the scenes going on between ACBL, club managers, and BBO to make the process as fair as possible.
For now, you should by default be allowed to play anywhere where you’ve played a face-to-face club game in the past 366 days. Each club is also allowed to invite a limited number of guests, but at least one member of the partnership should have played a face-to-face club game, and guests should not exceed 5% of players for the month.
New Default View Shows Eligible Games Only
Thankfully, they simplified the interface so you only see the club games where you are eligible to play. This ia huge improvement over previously taunting us with a massive list of games, none of which we can play. However, the new behavior also means you need to be more proactive if you aren’t on the list already. You won’t even know who to message or that the game exists, unless you find out about it from a friend or from the club directly.
Just like last time, our advice is not to wait until 10 minutes prior to a game to ask if you can just the guest list. Try playing a few games the week prior, just to iron out any issues.
Formula Pays Double Points
The awards this time will be a little bit lower. They are paying 0.2 points per table to first overall, which is double a normal club game. It is going to pay a little less than a STaC, especially for smaller games because a STaC has a fixed 1.875 point bounty prior to adding 0.1875 points per table. But it still pays more than a face-to-face club game, more than a 1.5x Support Your Club game, and did we mention it is silver points?
I look forward to clubs announcing a special schedule yet again, as we make it rain silver!
Both GNT Flight B and C have completed the semi-final rounds for 2020.
Flight B
For placing 3rd/4th place in District 24 GNT Flight B, the team of Joann Goodspeed, Harry Faivus, Lore Monnig, and Gisela Brett will each receive 16.75 gold masterpoints.
The teams advancing to the finals will receive a Blue Ribbon Qualifier and compete to win 33.5 gold masterpoints. The final match will consist of 52 boards between:
Team Merlo Stefano Merlo Christopher Moh Jin Hu Jordan Lampe Robert Forster
Team Trabulus Norman Trabulus Charles Bilich Barry Walfish Robert Kuhnreich Michael Krevor
Flight C
For placing 3rd/4th place in District 24 GNT Flight C, the team of Betsy Scherl, Audrey Meredith, Barbara Ullman,and Cynthia Ogden will each receive 10 masterpoints, half gold half red.
The teams advancing to the finals will receive a Red Ribbon Qualifier and compete to win 20 masterpoints, half gold half red. The final match will consist of 26 boards between:
Team Suden Damon Suden Anthony Chiocchi Mary Ann Oehlerking Marla Lawson
Team Liebhaber Aaron Liebhaber Adam Siegel Lee Lin Frank Dinoff
I remember March 14th-16th very well, not just because it was the last weekend prior to Covid-19 lockdowns in NYC. It was also the weekend of the most recent Spring 2020 Online Individual NABC. At the time, these special NABC-related robot tournaments were the only way anyone could win pigmented points on BBO, with the bonus that they were gold/red!
Are These Bot Tournaments Still Special?
Ok, so we’ve all been sheltering at home since roughly March 17th. Since then, we’ve had two massive online gold point regionals, and a massive Silver Linings Week. There are many black point virtual private club games daily. Is this bot tourney even special anymore?
It will be interesting to see whether the online individual is still popular. I suspect it will be and have already registered for it ($40 early bird, $34 for returning participants). You get 3 days of fun, playing 24 robot boards each session. It is stratified and broken into sections of about 15 players. In other words, you have a very good chance of winning some gold and red.
And yes, the online individual NABC is still very special. It’s the only 3-session ACBL robot event, held only once each NABC (so 3 times a year). At 72 boards, equally weighted across the 3 days, the ultimate winners tends to be more than just lucky, and more than just skillful at tricking robots. Historically, the winners are extremely strong face-to-face players.
Why The Luck Factor?
Usually, robot tournaments are a crapshoot. Long term good players will average out a better score, but luck plays a big factor in the daily 8 and 12 board daylongs. Remember, you do not get the same boards as everyone else. For security reasons, only 35 or so other people play each board.
To score well, you need the kinds of boards that are tricky to bid and play. A straight-forward board is going to net you and everyone else a 50%. Ideally, you get a board with multiple viable lines of play; if there is any justice, you pick the better line and it works! But as we have all experienced, sometimes the better line fails, the mediocre line wins a top, and we smile and realize this is a part of duplicate bridge.
Standard Rules
By now it should be familiar to everyone. It’s Best Hand, meaning your hand always has the most HCP at the table. Human Declare, meaning you will declare for your partner if the auction would have made you dummy. These two rules together ensure you have an interesting bidding decision to make each hand, and you will end up declaring about 80% of the boards. Hope to see everyone register!
An update from the District 24 GNT Flight C semifinal knockout matches:
Team Suden, consisting of Damon Suden, Anthony Chiocchi, Mary Ann Oehlerking, and Marla Lawson defeated Team Goodspeed.
For placing 3rd/4th in the District Flight C finals, Joann Goodspeed, Maureen Dinger, Irma Hilton, and Lore Monnig will each receive 10 masterpoints, half gold half red.
The other semi between Team Scherl and Team Liebhaber is scheduled for July 11th, with ACBL Director Rui presiding. The winner of that match will face off against Team Suden in the finals.
The just-completed Endless Summer Regional tried 18 boards per session for their events, which allowed bridge fanatics to play 4 sessions a day. Other than the 20% reduction in points for non face-to-face play, they still awarded a “full session” worth of points.
Everyone seems to agree 24 online boards in one session feels like a lot. Why does it feel more tiring than at the club? Shouldn’t it be more relaxing, with no moving around, no physical bidding boxes, or card play (and generally faster rounds)? Also, you are playing from home, with nolong walk, subway ride, Citibike loan, or traffic-filled drive to blame.
Perhaps it’s exactly the lack of movement that makes online boards feel more grueling? Also, with 7.5 minutes per board in the club, most rounds it’s possible to finish early. Maybe the mini-breaks from walking around between rounds helps?
Replicate theSugar Recharge At The Club?
Back at Honors, if I finished a round early, I would run to the “coffee cove”. You know what I’m talking about. It’s that mini L-shaped through-way where you are guaranteed to bump elbows with everyone else refilling fountain sodas, scooping from the ice bucket, opening Lipton bags and crafting trail mix consisting of M&Ms, peanuts, and brownie bits. Ah, don’t we all miss the physical club?
Maybe it’s best I replicate the coffee cove at home. I’ll try it next time – my favorite indulgence lately has been the 365 EveryDay Value Organic Mint Chip Ice Cream (from Whole Foods and Amazon Prime Now). However, don’t ever get the non-organic one – it’s nasty.
Normally I’m not a sucker for the word “organic”, but I can confirm there is something off in the non-organic chips
Back To Bridge
Anyway, for the longest time 24 boards has been the standard for a bridge session, and we expect it to take 3 hours plus the commute. In the new BBO world, are we going to make 18 the new normal? If so, will it be possible to squeeze a session into 2 hours?
Yesterday was the first day of the Endless Summer Regional, offering ACBL gold pigmented masterpoints for online bridge. With so many different stratification levels, you might wonder which event would be most popular. Based on yesterday, the verdict is clear!
The Super Gold Rush, open to players with up to 1250 points, attracted 552 tables – more than 1100 entries and possibly the largest event in history.
Special congrats to GNYBA pair Damon Suden and Anthony Chiocchi, winning overall 5th place and stratification 2nd place. If the name sounds familiar, Team Suden is the current top seeded team in the District 24 Grand National Teams Flight C standings, along with teammates Mo Oehlerking and Marla Lawson.
Point Reduction Motion Already In Effect?
For those who care about masterpoint formulas, what should 1st place in a regional Super Gold Rush with 552 tables award? It should be 32.30 gold points. Instead, the winners received 25.84 – still a very respectable amount for an online gold rush, but what’s going on?
The national ACBL Board of Directors held a vote in their June special meeting on whether to reduce the online gold, red, and silver masterpoints awarded by 20%, and reduce awards for online 18-board silver point games by 25%. According to the meeting minutes, the Board spent an hour and twenty minutes discussing these two issues, and ultimately the motion was deferred to August or September.
However, according to my calculations the 20% reduction is already in effect. Let’s walk through the formula:
B: 552 tables = log (552/4) R: Regional Rating = 14 S: Two sessions = 1.5 M: Super Gold Rush Limit of 1250 MPS = 0.575 T: Pairs Event = 1.25 P: No restrictions other than masterpoints, should be 1.00
However, it seems the reduction applies, awarding only 25.84
Normal Gold Rush Also Reduced
The reduction applied to the normal gold rush as well, which had 374 tables. A normal gold rush has the M-factor at 0.525 instead of the 0.575 of the Super Gold Rush. For the astute, the super gold rush pays about 9.5% more than a regular gold rush.
log (374/4) * 14 * 1.5 * 0.525 * 1.25 = 27.16
Instead, it paid exactly 20% less, which is 21.73.
Previous Regional Was Not Reduced
Compare that to the first online regional held at the end of April, when the formula paid the full amount for the online gold rush with 391 tables. First overall received 27.43 as expected.
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
