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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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Anyone Tried FunBridge?

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Lee Lin

As the bridge community continues to stay at home amid the Covid-19 orders, we are all slowly adjusting to the new Bridge Base Online world of ACBL club games. We are glad to hear NYC Bridge, formerly Honors / Aces / Cavendish, is now the largest online private club. You can check out their daily ACBL Support Your Club events to win Black points.

FunBridge

BBO is not the only game in town. I first heard about FunBridge because they participated in the Biggest Online Bridge Tournament last December. I’m still not sure what that was, but it was a collaboration between BBO and FunBridge. My wife and several unrelated friends of varying skill levels also told me they enjoy FunBridge. Time to explore!

Conventions Galore With Bots

The most immediate difference I noticed is the plethora of conventions and carding systems available. As readers know, I am an avid bot player with the BBO GIB bots and they are generally great for learning. The most frustrating part is the bots rarely respect your carding on defense. They certainly aren’t giving you any reasonable count or attitude signals, and forget about attempting suit preference. You are also forced to play 2/1, although kudos to BBO for making the robot 2/1 system extremely modern and sound.

What a pleasant surprise. FunBridge out of the box supports 2/1, SAYC, ACOL, Polish Club, Precision, among others (what is Forum D?). They also have a highly configurable set of carding conventions (UDCA, Lavinthal, Odd / Even).

Unfortunately, it’s not the Standard Modern Precision we all love. 1D promises four or more, therefore 1NT is 13-15. I guess you pass balanced 12 counts?

Anyway, it’s still early. I was originally excited when BridgeBaron promised to support precision and advanced carding. However, I’m convinced the Bridge Baron carding was not correctly implemented. The robot partner never seemed to respect it at all.

Not Entirely Free

Ah hah, there is a catch. FunBridge has a free plan – you get 10 boards per week, and you start off with at least 100 when you register a new account (or download to your phone). If you want to play an unlimited amount, they charge about $12 a month. I don’t think you get any ACBL masterpoints through FunBridge at this time, but they seem to support a lot of other bridge federations.

Note that on Bridge Base, you can always play for free with groups of friends, or against the robot using “Challenge A Robot”.

Has anyone tried FunBridge extensively? What are your thuoghts?

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How To Get ACBL Masterpoints on Bridge Base Online

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Lee Lin

There is a huge learning curve to playing bridge online. Even if you are a life master or very seasoned player, the shift to playing online is still hard. How do you actually pay and enter events? How do you agree on conventions. How do you alert your bids? Also, almost everyone accidentally sends a private message to the entire lobby of maybe a thousand people (don’t worry, you don’t actually send it to everyone, it just looks like you do — more likely no one sees it).

Sign Up And Username

First thing is first. Create a free account! However, be a little bit thoughtful about your username. I don’t think it’s easy to change, and you might not want to get too creative. Your partners and opponents will always see your screen name, and you probably want your partners to remember it very easily. In fact, the biggest problem is friends of friends – if you pick too creative a name, people won’t know who you are, even if they know you in real life!

ACBL Number Link

This is pretty important if you plan to play any ACBL events. You need to link your ACBL Number in your account settings, and you cannot change it without jumping through hoops later. Once you make the link, you will be stratified in ACBL events such as the Online NABC based on your ACBL masterpoints. You will also win masterpoints for events that pay them!

From the home screen, click ACBL World. At the bottom, see the button “Update ACBL Number”

Get BBO Dollars

The easiest way is to use your credit card and click the BB$ button from the website. Even if you use the mobile app, sometimes the app store charges a big commission on so-called “in-app purchases”, so you are probably best off buying through your old school browser.

ACBL Masterpoint Pigments

Here is where things get complicated.

You earn Gold and Red for the Online NABC. They happen three times a year, at the beginning of each NABC. About 2000 people enter each event, and the winner gets 48 gold points. More realistically, you can expect 0.5-1.5 points each session with a score between 50-60%. Above 60%, you reach the overall awards, especially Flight B and C players, who can net 3 or more in one day.

You earn Silver points for the online sectionals (there has only been one).

You earn Black points for all the Support Your Club events (SYC). This might be a limited time opportunity, but it seems it will be around through the Covid-19 shutdowns. There are daily live games with no robots allowed, and there is a daily Daylong SYC.

All other ACBL events, such as the $1.39 Daylong events that do NOT say Support Your Club, will only pay online masterpoints. They can help you hit your next rank, but will not be any pigment (not even black).

Life Master Online Is Still Hard

For many non-life masters, the bottleneck becomes silver and gold points, which are in limited supply for now through BBO. For now, it’s still easiest getting these by going to your local sectionals and regionals (no word yet on STaC week for online SYC events). I don’t think anyone wants to do away with live bridge, so it’s probably best not to open the floodgates too quickly to online points! Still, earning points online can be a huge convenience and cost savings, especially for those of us who don’t want to rent an NYC Apartment to play everyday at the local clubs, sectionals, and regionals.

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Letter From Our ACBL District 24 Director

Posted on March 26, 2020 by David Moss

District 24 Director News 

As District Director, I had planned on sending regular updates on the goings on of the ACBL Board and District 24 (New York City and Long Island). Like everything else, the bridge world has been turned upside down by the coronavirus.  Both units were set to run Spring regionals with new dates. We have followed government advice and cancelled them. We expect to apply our deposits to the Fall regionals. The Columbus NABC was cancelled. 

ACBL Board Meeting Summary The ACBL board was able to hold a full slate of meetings electronically during the NABC time frame.   The impact of the coronavirus was first concern.  The well being of our players, clubs and employees is the priority. Especially in our district we have a set of large clubs who cannot easily sustain long term closures. ACBL management is working with BBO and others to run “Support Your Club Black Point Games”.  Next week clubs expect to hold their own games where you will play against the club regulars.  Please check with your club and BBO for more information. This will be a great way for us to stay connected with our fellow club players and provide financial support. Full scale tournaments are also be planned.

GNT and NAP. The 2020 NAP Finals will be held at the Montreal Summer 2020 NABC. The 2020 GNT Finals will be held at the Tampa Fall 2020 NABC. The details of the Finals, including the scheduling of those. events, will be established by management at a later date. The deadline for the completion of District GNT Finals will be October 1, 2020.  Lots of details need to be worked out

ACBL Board Size The board did finally agree on a motion to reduce its size. See the actual motion HERE. This will reduce the ACBL board from 25 members to 13. The method used to select the new board is far from ideal, but it will bring the board to a size that is efficient and much more functional.

New NABC Event. Starting next spring there will be a 0-2500 2 day pair event.

Back to Bridge
I know we are all looking forward to a time in the not too distant future when we can get back to life and bridge as usual. Before the virus, the status of bridge in our district simultaneously challenging and promising. The overall challenge is that ACBL members are getting older and fewer in number. Table count at regionals has been falling by a steady 2-4% over recent years.

On the promising side, we have many successful teachers and novice/social programs in the district that are introducing new empty nesters to bridge. We even see a full group of millennials who are drawn to the area for its new economy and are picking up bridge with enthusiasm. A challenge is how to convert these players into ACBL members and tournament attendees.

On Long Island, the NSBA board has a new location for its regionals and is looking at ways to make the tournaments more attractive to its regular club players. In NYC, the GNYBA board has changed the dates of its regionals and added new events. This June for the first time in years, the GNYBA hopes to run an open sectional.  Thanks in large part to some energetic younger players, the 2020 GNTs was the best attended in decades. 50 teams competed across the four flights compared to 32 in 2019.

I look forward to future reports of normal bridge activity more focused on our successes at the tables. Stay healthy

Thanks
David Moss
ACBL District 24 Director

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ACBL Black Points, No Others Humans

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Lee Lin

It’s a weird time for everything and everyone, but Bridge Base and ACBL have stepped up in a major way. They must be working around the clock to release all new gadgets and events rolling out daily.

Katherine wrote about some of the Humans Only offerings on BBO. For those of us who enjoy the robots, today is the first ever Support Your Club Daylong Tournament. It is special in 3 ways:

1.) You earn ACBL Black Points. Normally you can only get these by playing at an ACBL sanctioned club game, and only when it is nor a special STaC week.

2.) Part of the fee goes to supporting bridge clubs, who need us now more than ever. In fact, it goes to YOUR club. They will look at which clubs you’ve played at recently, and donate based on your playing history.

3.) The format is 18 boards, just like the human-only Support Your Club events. It is a Daylong robot event, meaning you can take a break as long as you finish by midnight (or is it 1am?). Otherwise, the rules are similar to the Online Individual NABC – best hand, human declare, matchpoints, and you won’t get the same boards as any of your friends.

Partaking in the first Support Your Club Daylong

Come give it a shot. It’s only $5, and you will be a part of the first ACBL SYC Black Point Daylong. You have until the rest of today, but there will probably be one daily for quite some time if you miss this one.

Easiest way to find it: Home, ACBL World, find the ACBL SYC Black Point Daylong

It should take less time than an 18-board speedball, because 3/4 of the table plays very quickly and you never have to wait for another table to finish. You are your own bottleneck (and feel free to think as long as you want on the tricky boards).

Review The GIB Convention Card

Despite having played over 3000 bot boards in my life, I learned something new today — the bot can pass you in this auction. Looking at the provisional scores, I wasn’t alone. My fault, I should have gone over the card with my robot partner.

Oops! Playing Best Hand doesn’t give much advancer practice.

Have Fun While Supporting Your Club!

As always, there is more luck than usual when you have deal pools and robots. Sometimes you fall flat with no chance of recovery. Sometimes you eagerly await the final results! Today things are looking alright. But regardless of the results, it’s always an amazingly therapeutic hour to take our minds off the craziness of life; a bargain for $5 bucks.

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