Twenty Daylongs, Twenty Black Points

Posted on April 19, 2020 by Lee Lin

Earlier I pledged to finish out the remainder of my black points required for Life Master playing entirely in Support Your Club Events. As an update, I’ve hit my goal, beginning with the first Support Your Club daylong on March 25th, and competing almost daily since then.

Field Is Getting Harder

I suspected early on there would be an adjustment period as new players join BBO and experience their first robotic partnership. There are so many little nuances you learn as you play against the robots more. Ultimately, I firmly believe the robots have made me a better player, but it’s very possible to pick up bad habits. We will see when I make the transition back to humans…

In my first 10 Daylongs, I averaged a 60.34% matchpoints score, earning 11.11 black points. For the second group of 10, I averaged 57.02%, and scored 8.25 black points. It’s possible I’ve hit a dry spell, but I notice the field shrinking daily. There were about 1000 tables on the first March 25th daylong, but only 663 on April 16th. With so many virtual club game options now, some players are probably finding they just prefer human games. Those who stay with the Daylongs have figured out some of the robot quirks (hint: robots play 0314, not 1430).

Raw Results

3/25, 74.11%, 2.50
3/27, 52.90%, 0.75
3/28, 65.00%, 1.40
3/29, 62.53%, 1.00
3/30, 66.67%, 2.00
3/31, 54.68%, 0.56
4/1,  59.58%, 1.05
4/2,  63.15%, 1.05
4/3,  51.18%, 0.40
4/4,  53.62%, 0.40
4/5,  62.09%, 1.05
4/6,  61.06%, 1.00
4/7,  66.43%, 2.00
4/9,  56.54%, 1.05
4/10, 53.23%, 0.75
4/11, 52.49%, 0.30
4/13, 53.86%, 0.12
4/14, 50.79%, 0.53
4/15, 52.33%, 0.40
4/16, 61.38%, 1.05

After twenty daylongs and 180 boards, I averaged 58.68% and 19.36 points. Not quite 20 as promised in the title, but let’s round up since we’re among friends!

Done For Now

With $100 donated to clubs and $20 on top going to BBO, I think it’s time to come out of the shell and go back to human games! There are many choices now in the “All For One” club, formerly Honors plus 7 other affiliated local clubs. I also received more than the required black points – but now I am going to be stuck at 18 silver shy of the LM requirement.

Online Sectionals?!?

All that’s left on the road to life master is silver and total points. Will we see some human online sectionals soon? To be honest, I hope we do not. Not even STaC week.

As much as we would all love reaching Life Master more easily, I’m rooting for a return to live bridge, and a return to the Allendale, the new Woodbridge, and STaC week days (plus that elusive NYC sectional which someday still needs to happen). Besides, I would prefer to cross that 500 threshold among a crew of my favorite friends, partners, directors, opponents, and enemies. Do I really want to my celebratory Life Master moment to be with 3 robots at home?

Posted in Bridge Thoughts, Results | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Montreal NABC Summer 2020 Cancelled

Posted on April 18, 2020 by Lee Lin

The Summer 2020 NABC held in Montreal is officially cancelled. Many of us saw this coming, but we were holding on to hope that the public health situation was improving. However, even with 3 months to go, the Quebec government has issued a directive closing all large gatherings and events through August 31st.

How About GNT and NAP?

This is especially disappointing for District 24, given that we had near record levels of interest for all flights of GNT (and NAP from last Fall). It is very possible these events will be entirely cancelled for 2020. Originally, ACBL moved NAP from Spring to Summer, and GNT from Summer to Fall. If we shift everything again, then GNT will overlap the following year’s normal NAP. Perhaps it’s easier just to call it off and do a full reset?

Posted in ACBL News, Events | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Clarification on Enhanced Virtual Private Club Games

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Lee Lin

Excellent news. When we say we are going to dig into things some more, we try to be timely about it. Thankfully, we were able to figure it out in one day. Yesterday we discussed the possible changes to the Masterpoints formula for ACBL Support Your Club games compared to the Virtual Private Club games.

All For One bridge included statistics in their sometimes-more-than-daily email.

Two Equations and Two Unknowns

For a throwback to high school algebra, you generally need two equations to solve for two unknowns. While both formulas are linear in table count, there is the “club game” formula which pays a flat 0.1 points per table for first place. Then there is the club championship / STaC / sectional / regional formula that pays has a constant bounty bonus, plus a larger linear amount per table.

Anyway, it is the club game formula, multiplied by exactly 1.5. The open morning game with 6 tables pays 0.1 * 6 * 1.5 = 0.9 to first. The open afternoon game paid 0.1 * 24 * 1.5 = 3.60.

Huge Bug – Get It While You Can!!!

Except there is one huge loophole, and I encourage readers here to get it while you can! If you are not eligible, certainly you must have friends who are.

The limited Virtual Private Club games are currently coded as an invitational game, which haircuts the prize by 20%. If you look at the enhanced 99er game, it paid 0.96 Black to first place to the top of each section. Not overall, but each section of 8 pairs. How do you get 0.96? It’s the same formula, multiplied by 80% for an invitational game: 0.1 * 8 * 1.5 * 0.8 = 0.96.

But doesn’t that feel a little high for a small 99er game? We need to go back to the pre-virus glory days when there was a Friday afternoon 99er at Honors. Also 8 tables, but this time first place got 0.48. What happened?

The Virtual Private Club Is Not Subject To The M-Factor

You knew it was coming. We must reference the ACBL Masterpoints manual again.

When you run a 99er club game, the M-factor should be set at 0.60, meaning it pays only 0.6 times as much as the normal payoff. Contrast that with a 0-750 game, which should pay 0.8 as much (a 0-3500 also pays 0.8). Instead, it seems the 99er games are treated as an invitational game, always with a 0.8 multiplier.

Intentional Promotion For Virtual Private Clubs?

Perhaps it is an intentional loophole, but it’s the greatest deal out there for limited games. A 99er, 750, and 0-3500 game currently pays 20% more than an open game at a physical club! And the open games are at 50% more.

Now, all we need is for the open game to gain the table bonus from all concurrent restricted game tables. The 8 tables from the 99er and the 9 tables from the 750 could add 2.55 to the first prize of the open game…

Posted in Events, Results | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Nationwide Versus Virtual Private Club Awards

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Lee Lin

There is just so much changing day to day, it’s hard to keep up. Only last week, we had our first 0-3500 game. For those who were waiting for the dust to settle, we are nearing what should be a steady-state very soon.

Wider Field vs. Familiar Players

There are daily, human-only ACBL games on Bridge Base open to the entire nation. Then there are virtual private clubs that consist of only local players. To ensure a relatively large field of tables, the local players include 8 surrounding clubs, spearheaded by what used to be Honors, Aces, and Cavendish. They are calling it “All For One”. Apparently one proposed name was “Divided We Stand”, which has the double pun of social distancing, and surprising your opponent with poor trump splits on defense (or perhaps passing with balanced hands).

How Do The Masterpoint Prizes Stack Up?

Normally a bigger game means bigger rewards, but the nationwide ACBL games tend to have 240 tables with a maximum prize of 4.0 points. In fact, just yesterday a pair got a 68.28%, 5th overall of 235 tables, and still only ended up with 1.50 points for a section top.

The only way to get 4.0 is to get overall 1st in your strat, either A, B, or C (how they do the strats is still a mystery, do they use ACBL or BBO points?). If you are strat A, you would need to beat GNYBA members Joe Grue and Gillian Miniter, who scored a 74.23%.

If you ARE going to go the nationwide route, note the 7:30pm ET game tends to get 120 tables, while the 10:00am and 5:30pm ones have twice as large a field with 240. In case you want to research yourself, here is a link to recent, nationwide ACBLSYC hosted games.

The virtual private club games will have an upgraded formula this week. It’s not yet clear exactly what formula they use. If they are treated as a club championship game with membership restriction, you would hit 4.0 points after 25 tables.

WIth B=35, R = 7, S=1, M=1, P = 0.8, T=1.5, first overall would pay 4.08 points, capped at 4. This assumes the new formula uses the club championship math. It’s possible Support Your Club events get an all new formula. Honors reported it as a 1.5x multiplier on a normal club game, which seems to require 27 tables.

Formula Needs Updating

Unfortunately, ACBL seems very lagged on giving us clarity on how the masterpomt formulas will adapt to the new BBO system. We can only wait and see – but you can bet we will be among the first to point out any weirdness in the masterpoint awards.

For the record, it seems insane to award only 1.50 black points for getting a 68% in a field of 235 tables. But I see why you would want to cap the award of an 18-board, one-session online game. Maybe the right solution is to have 3 regions, each with convenient time zone options. But that would be a mistake if the table count eventually dies down in the coming weeks.

One last nitpick – right now 18 boards is still considered a full pairs session. Just like with the Freaky Swiss, do we need to update the formula so that 18 vs 21 vs 24 vs 27 boards pays different amounts for a one-session pairs event?

Posted in ACBL News, Results, Software | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Online Honors Classes To Resume, New Website

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Lee Lin

Exactly 4 weeks ago, Honors Bridge Club held their last live duplicate games prior to the Covid-19 related temporary closure. My partner and I declared the very last two boards during a sudden death tiebreaker board in our GNT-C knockout match ending at 10:40pm.

Largest Virtual Private Club

Almost immediately after the physical games ended, the team quickly became pioneers of the online Private Virtual Club games. These are special duplicate sessions that award Black points and are only open to players who played in the physical club in the past 366 days. While ACBL has their nationwide Support Your Club games, the majority of any card fees in the virtual private club games go directly to your former club. Honors announced on March 28th that they have become the largest private virtual club with 28 tables in their Saturday duplicate game.

New Website, Name, Merging Player Base

In an email yesterday, Honors announced their new website, ManhattanGamesCenter.com. Don’t worry about the design, they admit it is “very much a work in progress.” More than just a rebrand, they are developing an online booking tool for their classes and supervised play sessions. You can also find direct links to the game results for their virtual private club games. The previous websites at Honors and NYC Bridge are still standing, but have notes to attend to the new site.

Several nearby clubs are also joining the virtual private club, meaning their pool of former club players will be eligible to join the duplicate games on BBO. That’s generally a good sign – we want to ensure enough tables for vibrant games, both Open and Limited types, while still preserving a sense of community by playing against former friends, rivals, and friends of friends. So far all the clubs joining are close by, so even if you didn’t see them at Honors and Cavendish, you might have played against them at Woodbridge, Allendale, or Carle Place.

Classes Resume on Zoom, BBO

Classes are to resume using a combination of Zoom and Bridge Base – even the Taste of Bridge and Beginner 1 Series for completely new players. It will be interesting to see how the bridge teacher community adapts to the virtual model. They can offer extremely personalized service, usually with no more than 8 students per teacher. Students will easily be able to save and replay all teaching boards on their own, after the lesson.

Possibly most exciting – by having all the students already using BBO to bid and play, it’s a much smaller physiological gap to leap from the classroom setting to live practice or duplicate games. I can envision a whole new generation of newcomer games and events for graduating students who otherwise wouldn’t have played in an ACBL club game.

As for initial demand, it looks like the first few classes are already oversold. If you want a spot, don’t be shy about reaching out.

Mandatory Disclaimer

GNYBA is a non-profit with all-volunteer board members. We represent the unit in dealings with ACBL and organize our local grassroots, sectional, and regional tournaments. While private bridge clubs have always been an important component in the local bridge scene, we are a separate entity with a separate mandate.

Although there are many exciting changes going on in the bridge world, our goal is to inform rather than endorse. Please share any feedback you have on the newer bridge opportunities.

Posted in Bridge Thoughts, Software | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Bridge Adventures: The Road To Virtual Life Master!

Posted on April 9, 2020 by Lee Lin

We previously discussed the possibility of reaching Life Master by playing online bridge in virtual clubs and tournament events. That was before Covid-19 and the Support Your Club events on BBO, which now provide multiple daily opportunities for Black Points. I have decided to embark on making that a reality, and will earn my final required Black Points entirely through the SYC events!

Not A Life Master?!?

I hope you haven’t been reading my GNYBA posts thinking this entire time that I was a Life Master! I am not. For now I am a Flight C player in the NABC / NAP / GNT world, and soon I will likely fall into the no-man’s land: a player above 500, but not yet a Life Master. I am a victim of the classic NYC Silver Point shortage.

There is one last very strange status that could be achieved: a 0-500 player who IS a Life Master. Players who joined ACBL prior to year 2010 are grandfathered into the old rules. They only need 300 points, with at least 50 Black, 50 Silver, 25 Gold, and 50 Gold/Red/Platinum. I nearly ended up here, except for some weird technicalities.

How Much Farther To Go?

We are getting very close! I was very lucky two years ago to find partners and bridge mentors who were eager to play in regional and national tournaments. Three years ago I never would have expected to ever attend an NABC, and now it feels skipping one is missing the party!

With 171.75 Gold and 124.56 Red, I am poor when it comes to Black and Silver. That’s further proof that Honors provides a tough field – Gold Rush’ing and Bracketed Teams at the Big Apple Regional is a much faster way to earn points.

Does Life Master Matter?

I am told you still receive a nice metallic card shortly after reaching life master. Also, it sounds very impressive to your non-bridge friends – they might think it is the same difficulty as hitting Grand Master in chess.

Previously being a NLM would exclude you from competing in several events: The Sally Young LM Pairs and the Smith Life Master Womens’ Pairs. Two years ago, they relaxed the Sally Young requirement, allowing all 0-2500 players to play in the Young Pairs.

The other side, being a LM under 500, graduates you early out of any NLM event like the Sagamore Bridge Club LM/NLM charity teams, any of the many 0-500 NLM sectionals, and any national Flight C events such as online individual NABC, NAP, and GNT.

Supporting My Virtual Private Club!

With 64.6 Black Points to my name, I only need 10.4 more to cross the 75 Black threshold. I have also participated in all but one SYC Daylong Event. Since I’m home all day every day, it has become my greatest daily discretionary expense – and usually the only one, at $6 a day plus tax. Of that fee, $5 goes directly to supporting my hometown club.

Yes, it’s true. I spend my days playing alone with robots – even when everyone is sheltered-at-home, there are introverts in the virtual world

How did it go? The first one ever was my best one, but I suspect the majority of the field at the time hadn’t yet learned how robot partners and bidding worked. However, the daily haul has been reasonably predictable. We shall dive in more next time!

Posted in Bridge Thoughts, Races, Software | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Let’s Try The Mid-Flight 3:45pm Today!

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Lee Lin

Alright – I’m finally going to bite the bullet. No more hiding out and sparring with robots. I’ve only played one live Support Your Club game on March 26th – the very first private club event open to all honors players. But I’m among those who didn’t continue. No particular reason; I wasn’t holding out for lack of frozen yogurt and cake. If anything it was probably a general sense that BBO was crowded with lots of lag those first few days – but things seem better now.

How Was The First Live Game?

I’ll confess I probably did not have a representative experience. I tried my best to make conversation, especially with people I recognized, like fellow Friday Wine & Cheese tutor “marla3NT”. Not everyone had their names posted though, which makes life tricky. I can understand the need for privacy, but I thought the point was playing our former friends.

Careful Over-Clicking The Bidding History

But that was early when people were asking how self-alerting works. I also click the bids obsessively when I’m playing against the robots, because that’s what you do to understand how they bid. I didn’t realize that every time you click on someone’s bid, a window pops up asking them to explain! So I was unknowingly spamming all of my opponents asking them to explain simple bids like responding 1 diamond to partner opening 1 club.

Eventually, my opponents displayed some frustration with my constant clicking…

Not Everyone Is There For Small Talk

Despite my trying to strike up some conversation, people seemed more concerned and stressed out about playing fast enough for the rounds. You get 21 minutes per round for 3 boards – and that’s without needing to sort or touch the cards. I’m a notoriously slow player, but 7 minutes per online board should be plenty. It’s also possible people don’t know yet how to chat to the whole table – it’s easy to accidentally chat to the entire tournament lobby, as discussed..

Partner Disconnected!

This is actually a plus more than a minus, but it caused me stress in the moment. My partner had a wife emergency and disconnected – not only in the middle of a hand, but in the middle of declaring!

With only 3 tricks left! The directors were called, and replacement player sat in for the rest of the game (thanks MJ!). But it’s hard to declare the last 3 tricks having not seen the prior 10. We probably should have just claimed, but instead defenders said nothing and we gave up a trick for down one. Very odd.

Nevertheless, the fact I got a replacement player for the last 8 boards shows the directors are there to make things go smoothly. I was expecting to be immediately disqualified.

Playing the 0-3500 Mid Flight!

Yesterday was the first 0-3500 Mid-Flight Event, and I’ll be trying it today with an all new partner! Hope to see many of you there, and I promise not to force you to explain your passes and other routine bids.

Posted in Events, Software | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Honors Publishes NYC Bridge Survey

Posted on April 5, 2020 by Lee Lin

The Honors / NYC Bridge crew has done a fantastic job bringing back the club feeling, now with a full schedule of open and limited duplicate games. Here is the latest schedule. Even the brick and mortar honors never had a designated “mid-flight” game.

Monday’s NEW private Save Your Club Schedule:

Pairs***NYC Bridge***Open***9:45 am
Pairs***NYC Bridge***0 – 99***12:15 pm                 
Pairs***NYC Bridge***0 – 750***12:30 pm
Pairs***NYC Bridge***Open***12:45 pm
Pairs***NYC Bridge***0 -3,500***3:45 pm
Pairs***NYC Bridge***Open***6:30 pm

There will be plenty more coming in the next few weeks. Bridge lessons and tutoring sessions will begin soon, as well as one of the big staples Honors used to offer: Supervised Play! Supervised Play is like semi-private lessons, usually led by a member of the teaching staff. You can play in a group of 4 that you choose, sign up as an individual or pair and be matched off with others. The best part is, it’s a friendly environment where everyone is there to learn from their mistakes. If you need help, just ask the instructor.

Why The Holdouts?

Understandably, not everyone has transitioned yet to online bridge. Maybe it’s just not as fun as the physical club, or we are still optimistic that things will be back to normal soon? I’m pretty curious what will happen months from now, when hopefully all of this virus business is long behind us (I know some experts say a full vaccine will take even longer). Will we forever have Support Your Club events online? Even if ACBL stops allowing black points to be awarded, maybe some of the online games will stay?

Anyway, back to the reasons people haven’t fully committed. Out of 109 answers, notice the 4th most common answer has been missing the lovely Honors buffet and froyo machine! I also miss the Aces 20 boards for $20 Bucks with Pizza on Thursdays.

Posted in Events | Tagged | Leave a comment

Is Summer 2020 NABC Montreal Still Happening? (Nope)

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Lee Lin

So far, NABC Summer 2020 is still on (EDIT: NABC Summer 2020 is officially cancelled), and it runs from July 15th to July 26th. It would have conflicted with the Tokyo Summer Olympics, but that is no longer a problem. However, the official schedule still lists the Grand National Teams kicking off the Summer NABC as usual. We know that is unlikely, because the ACBL Board voted to reschedule NAP to Montreal 2020 and postpone GNT to Fall 2020 in Tampa. With some scheduled events in flux, including when the NAP District representatives need to play, it’s hard to form partnerships and plans for specific events.

Flight Deals: Take Advantage of the Uncertainty?

To be honest, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to plan anything 4 or 7 months ahead these days. We don’t even know 2-4 weeks from now if we are all still sheltering at home. But what we do know is, every airline has extremely flexible cancellation policies now. Adam Wildavsky reports on the nyc-bridge mailing list that now is a great time to book risk-free flights for Montreal.

I can confirm – $152 round trip on United, and it’s not even the Basic Economy fare where you might have to pay extra to bring enough clothing for 7-10 days of bridge.

The Safety Play?

If we learned anything from the Columbus Spring 2020 NABC, there are some advantages to booking with the official partner hotels. You are more likely to get a full cancellation if the event is cancelled. Airbnb eventually refunded everyone who cancelled with mid-March bookings, but it was far from assured. Note that for Montreal, the playing events are at the conference center, surrounded by many of the partner hotels (For SPG / Bonvoy members, Le Westin seems the way to go).

Posted in Events | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Advanced Bot Pricing on BBO

Posted on April 2, 2020 by Lee Lin

I know I’m going to jinx it right after this post. So far, it’s been a week of supporting my club using the Daylong SYC Robot tournament. I’ve managed to get some points each time I’ve played, but I’ve only done one human SYC event for the Honors evening game. There are many human SYC events, but so far BBO just feels a bit too congested during prime time. The Open ACBL-wide SYC event regularly gets 150 tables, and fills up quickly. For now, I’m sticking to the bots.

Discussion On The Price For Advanced Bots

A few people have complained that the SYC Daylong feels expensive. The SYC Daylong is $6 now, for 18 boards. It has standard Daylong Rules: Matchpoints, Best Hand, Human Declare, Deal Pools, and Advanced Bots.

You could pay $1.35 for the ACBL Daylong that has all the same rules, but only 12 boards. However, you only earn online points instead of black points. And more importantly, you aren’t supporting the clubs!

There is also a $0.39 daylong which is only 8 boards and doesn’t give any ACBL masterpoints. You will earn BBO points, which give you that number next to your badge when people find you online. It’s also free to challenge a Basic Robot, or $0.25 to challenge an Advanced Bot for 12 boards.

Black points are normally only earned at club games. You need a certain amount to make Life Master, and they count towards the annual Ace of Clubs and Mini McKenney Races. Online points do not count towards those races, but they will increase your total points needed for hitting your next rank (or to bracket higher in our favorite Bracketed Round Robin format).

The final way to play with Advanced Bots is to rent one directly for $1 per day. You only pay $1 whether you have 3 humans and need a 4th bot, or you are a partnership needing 2 bots, or want to play solo with 3 other bots. BBO Prime members always receive Unlimited Advanced Bot usage when creating a table (but not for challenges).

Click Robot World to find all of the Daylong options

To recap:

ACBL SYC Daylong Pay $6.00: 18 boards, Earn ACBL Black Points, $5 goes to clubs

ACBL Daylong Pay $1.35: 12 boards, Earn ACBL Online Points, nothing goes to clubs

Daylong (MP) Pay $0.39: 8 boards, Earn BBO Points only

Challenge Pay $0.25: 4-12 boards (you should probably pick 12). No points
(You can challenge for free using Basic Bots)

Rental Pay $1.00: Rent an advanced bot for 24 hours. No points

How Does Club Support Work?

We will look into this more, but for now BBO plans to look at the clubs where your played in the past one year, and somehow donate in a prorated way to the clubs where you play most frequently. You are not allowed to direct the funds yourself. Some players have not been active at physical clubs in the past year, but I’m sure they can do something reasonable. Either split the funds over all sanctioned ACBL clubs, or split it across clubs near your city or in your ACBL Unit.

Posted in Bridge Thoughts, Software | Tagged , , | Leave a comment