Finding GNT Partners and Teammates

Posted on February 8, 2020 by Lee Lin

As we near the GNT opening rounds for District 24, we are getting more and more requests from pairs and individuals looking to complete their teams. It’s a great event and we encourage everyone to give it a try. Here are some tips that you might not know:

The Cutoff Date Is August 2019 For Eligibility

This is big. If your favorite partner just made Life Master in the December regional, he or she is probably eligible for GNT Flight C! The fine print in the conditions of contest require all members of the team to be residents of District 24, and 0-500 masteproints, and not life master by the August 6th, 2019 ACBL update (that includes points won in the Las Vegas 2019 NABC).

That goes for all flights. Anyone who just crossed 2500 recently is likely still eligible for one more time in GNT Flight B. And individuals who moved out of NYC last fall can still play for this district (that’s a little more tricky – you can’t play for TWO districts. ACBL will recognize you in only one).

You Can Play In Two Flights

If you are eligible for Flight B, you can play in both A and B as they are on different dates. Similarly, for Flight C teams, you can play in Flight B the weekend prior. However, just make it clear to all of your teammates that you are two-timing. One of the most awkward situations occurs when an individual potentially qualifies for two different flights with two different teams or partners!

The rule is simple. You are welcome to compete in the District finals in as many flights as you can fit in your schedule. However, you may only represent the district in one flight should you prevail. The remaining teammates may augment the team with a replacement, but you had better give them ample notice if there is a chance this will happen!

You Can Have Four, Five, Or Six On The Team

The rules require that every team member plays 50% or more of the boards. If you have four people on your team, everyone just plays the whole time. If you have six, then you can rotate in a way so that one pair plays the whole time and the other two half the time. A more complicated rotation has two pairs playing 3/4 of the day and one pair 1/2 the day.

Also, remember there are some stages that will run as a swiss instead of a knockout. It’s a little trickier to divide rotations when there are 7 rounds, but I’m sure your team can figure something out. SOMETIMES the directors say that playing 3 rounds out of 7 counts as “50% of the boards”. That’s weird, but that’s what the director at a regional told me once.

When you have a team of 5, all sorts of fun rotations can pop up. You can have the classic “anchor pair” that plays the whole day. Then the other table will be “the wheel”, which can have an anchor person and two rotating. The wheel might also have the three of them switching around all day long. If that sounds a little dubious, an alternative is the pentagon team – each person can play with exactly two other people. This works best when one player agrees to play the entire day, and the other four will play 3/4 of the day.

The GNT Coordinator is Not a Partnership Desk

Lots of hard-working GNYBA board members volunteer their time to help organize GNT, including the email marketing blasts, the flyers, and the actual scheduling and logistics. Unfortunately, they are too swamped to also take on the role of partnership desk. You might find some luck in the usual places. Perhaps the ACBL online partnership desk or the bridge winners forums. Maybe you can even comment on this post!

Try To Have Fun

Putting together a team is stressful. It’s hard enough to coordinate with one partner, but 4 or even 6 people is bound to be hectic. Remember, we are all playing to have fun, and there is enough luck and randomness in the game that anything can happen. This event also happens every year. And for those set on going to NABC, there are plenty of pair and team events that are just as fun, arguably more prestigious, and require no stages of qualification at all.

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STaC Weekend Feb 7th to Feb 9th 2020

Posted on February 7, 2020 by Lee Lin

We have ourselves another STaC weekend, so you can expect extra points at the club, and probably larger crowds (we recommend emailing or calling ahead with reservations). It also means you won’t see “the percentages” in the Bridge Mate for any of the rounds. Some of us probably wish that were the case all club nights – it could improve both the speed of the game and general morale!

Here is the link to the Feb 7th to 9th STaC Weekend Results.

The results update each day, a few hours after the session. Remember, you will get more points than what is shown on the club screen and printout due to the STaC bonus.

Swiss Teams and Silver

Similar to last time, there will be 2 chances to play swiss teams for silver points. Friday Feb 7th at Honors for 0-750 players, and Sunday night Feb 9th. If you are reading this just now, it might be too late for Friday morning. But Sunday night is looking very strong!

For the non-750 among us, you probably don’t care whether or not the points are silver, platinum, or colorless. But if you are tired of pairs and long for teams, there is an open swiss on Sunday night. So far, no word on whether it’s bracketed. But it will certainly be pre-duplicated, a nice perk that you won’t find at the sectionals and regionals.

What If I Miss This Chance?

The next chance to get silver points is March 6-8, at Woodbridge. This could actually be the last Woodbridge, as they look to move it to a new venue.

There will be another STaC in New York March 9-15 if you really don’t want to traverse the Lincoln and Holland tunnels.

And after that, there might just be a standalone NYC sectional in the works. Nothing to announce yet, but stay tuned!

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Bridge Adventures: GNT – An Experience For All

Posted on February 4, 2020 by Lee Lin

What is the Grand National Teams? It sure sounds like a high caliber event, but it’s actually one of the most enjoyable and accessible team events ACBL and the District holds each year! If you haven’t formed a team yet, it’s certainly not too late. Here’s a wild story about how I began my bridge journey…

Two Years Ago – A Last Minute Team Forms

Almost exactly two years ago, I was total beginner and knew nothing about the game of bridge (my partners often remind me not much has changed). A few former colleagues wanted to chance a team, and I reluctantly agreed having never scored IMPs in my life. Adding to the chaos, our 4th dropped out last minute with a work conflict – so we grabbed a company intern to fill the spot. Lucky for us, this intern later joined the Columbia bridge team that went to the National Collegiate Bridge Bowl finals!

Back then, the timetable started in December with a club qualifier round. Fortunately, the district decided to eliminate the qualifier
We had no idea what the event was about at all – but it sounded intriguing

Club Qualifier to District Swiss to District KOs to NABC

Amazingly, we prevailed, and it was a nonstop set of firsts for me! My first red points. My first knockout. My first experience playing 48 boards against the same opponents – and feeling the emotional fatigue pile up alongside my many errors. My first NABC – Atlanta Summer 2018!

Even though our GNT team lost early on, we turned the trip into a wonderful week of bonding among friends. We played 3-4 sessions per day, the morning bottom bracket, the evening side swiss, the midnight knockout. On the last day, we won our first Gold Rush!

After returning to New York, I was hooked. GNT definitely launched the beginning of my bridge adventures, and I’ve been so lucky for all the encouraging teachers, mentors, friends, and partners who have helped me along the way.

A Full Day Of Fun Guaranteed

In total, 6 teams can qualify to the Montreal Summer NABC and represent the district this year – one from each flight plus a possible 2nd team in flights B and C. There are four brackets to cater to all skill levels, so I encourage everyone to give it a shot. There are no qualifiers this year, just show up with your team of 4 to 6 players, ready to play on any of the dates below. A full day of fun team play will be guaranteed!

And you never know – maybe you’ll become New York and Long Island’s next Grand National Teams representatives!

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Freaky Knockouts and Freaky Masterpoint Awards

Posted on January 27, 2020 by Lee Lin

The Tarrytown regional just concluded their very successful week-long tournament, including a return of the Freaky Knockout Teams events (previously known as Far Out Knock Out In A Day).

(EDIT: The Masterpoint formula has changed following the Tarrytown event)

DISCLAIMER: This post is about the quirks in the ACBL formula, from the point of view of a data nerd. The directors and folks from District 3 did an amazing job running the tournament. The Freaky KO format is an innovative solution to knockouts in one day, and GNYBA is considering a similar format for the upcoming regional.

Masterpoint Payments Very Freaky

The current ACBL Masterpoints formula requires adjusting the points when knockout matches are shorter than the usual 24 boards. For example, a compact knockout with 12-board matches pays half as much as 24-board full knockouts. A freaky knockout with 18-board matches pays 3/4 as much as 24 boards. Simple and linear until you reach 24.

A Swiss, however, has no such adjustment, as long as the swiss qualifies as “2 sessions”. Technically, the swiss that lasts 4 rounds with 9 board matches beginning at 12:30pm and ending 6:45pm qualifies as two sessions. It’s a creative solution and works well with the Freaky KO format. However, shouldn’t we adjust the award to account for only 18 boards per session? (EDIT: Yes, we should and will from now on)

The Knockout Formula has the “L” factor, which redues the award if the boards played per match is less than 24 boards.
The Round Robin formula has no such factor – they assume the tournament will fill the entirety of the two sessions with 7 rounds of 7 boards.

(EDIT: Following the Tarrytown regional, the formula has been changed. The 36-board swiss will be multiplied by the 0.75 factor as well. However, it is still possible for the swiss winners to win more points than the lower brackets of the KO contributing to the swiss)

Transcending Brackets Becomes Freaky Too

With bracketed round robin events, a team can either choose to play in the top bracket or the bracket mandated by their team masterpoints. However, with 7 brackets of 7 teams on Saturday of Tarrytown, 3 teams from each bracket were knocked out in the first round. The Freaky Swiss afterward had two brackets, one with teams knocked out of brackets 1-3, the other one with 12 teams from bracket 4-7.

For teams hoping to play in a wider field or play slightly above or below their bracket, losing the first round of the Freaky KO becomes an awkward way of getting an A/X Swiss and a B/C/D Swiss. You CAN skip the morning festivities, sleep in, and register directly for the Freaky Swiss at 12:30pm. I don’t think any teams took that route.

Losing the Freaky KO and Winning the Freaky Swiss

This part is mind-blowing. In the very top bracket, the eventual KO winners won 19.38 Gold. The winners of the higher Freaky Swiss with 9 teams from brackets 1-3 won 18.33 gold (much more than 2nd place in the KO).

In the lower brackets, things get even more odd. The winners of bracket 4 won 8.37 Gold. The winners of the lower Freaky Swiss won 8.69 Gold! That’s more than the winners of all the KO brackets who sent their knocked out teams to the swiss! As it turns out, the winning team came from Bracket 7, the very bottom. That same team would have won 3.94 points, half red half gold, had they won all their matches that day.

It’s a bit of a fluke because the original KO bracket had 7 teams, and the swiss afterward had 12 teams. But something seems weird about losing the first round and eventually getting more points than all the teams from much higher brackets.

As it turns out, running all 7 brackets as a Brackted Round Robin would pay more points to the eventual winners than what the knockout recipients received. However, if you add the points paid in both the Freaky KO + Freaky Swiss, the tournament ends up paying much more, which is a nice perk. We created a spreadsheet showcasing the two scenarios for the lower brackets, but the findings hold for higher brackets as well.

Tarrytown January 25th Freaky KO vs Round Robin Data

Are Knockouts In A Day Successful?

I had lots of fun participating, as did 200 other people each day they held the event. Any regional team event with 7 brackets is a success, especially with concurrent gold rush and open pair events. And this is across two different days back to back! Granted, it’s hard to know whether attendance would be unchanged holding the usual Bracketed Round Robin. Some people enjoy Knockouts more than Swiss. Some vice versa. But without a doubt there are more Swiss events than Knockouts, especially at regionals. Outside of NABCs, there are limited chances to enjoy the longer matches of a Knockout.

As a reminder, the Freaky Knockouts attempt to solve 2 problems – that the entire bracket is complete in just one day, and any teams knocked out early have events to play. Freaky Knockouts shrink a full 4-round knockout with up to 16 teams into only 3 rounds with brackets up 8. You can finish 3 rounds and 54 boards all in one day. Teams eliminated in round one automatically join a 36-board swiss with 4 rounds and 9 boards per match. In all cases, teams just pay for two sessions, $176 in this case, to play a guaranteed 54 boards. At every point in the day, the team is technically eligible for gold points.

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Bad Claims At The Pro And World Class Level

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Lee Lin

Interesting timing – shortly after posting yesterday’s thoughts on strange bridge claiming habits, I wandered over to the BridgeWinners forum. I’m only playing in two days of the Tarrytown Regional, but one is with a first-time partner and I love the online convention card editor they have!

Bad Claim Story

Right in the top of my news feed, a posting about a top level bridge player making an erroneous claim, with possibly a bad ruling by the director. Again, we are only hearing one side of the story, but apparently the declarer in a slam claimed on trick 3, representing that he started with 7 spades (trump), 2 hearts, 3 diamonds, and a stiff club (KQx clubs in dummy to pitch a heart loser). Don’t feel too bad for the protagonist though, shortly after he found out he was the lucky $100 winner of the GNYBA frequent player drawing.

What Happens In A Bad Claim?

I’ve heard too many horror stories on what happens during a bad claim. Even when the players call the directors immediately, it’s stressful for everyone. The player making the claim should have provided the line of play (prior to director call). When crucial details are not provided, things get interesting. Clearly the defenders can’t argue you will play stupidly and clash your aces on your kings, or ruff your winners. But if there is a guess involved (two reasonable ways to finesse), then you won’t be given the benefit of the doubt.

Too Trusting?

At least in the mid-flight levels, I’ve found most defenders are too quick to show their hands during a claim, prior to hearing the line of play. Sometimes players say “play it out”, which is also technically not proper (it gives back rights that I surrendered after claiming).

Even if 95% of the time the claim is rock solid, should we be a little more careful?

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Claiming By Not Claiming?

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Lee Lin

Seen and heard recently at a local game. A declarer just finished the 9th trick and said, “I’m not going to claim, but I will show you my hand.”

Apparently, he heard that officially claiming means he loses some rights. That’s true, he is required to give a line of play, and if there are any disputes to the claim, play has already ended (the table would need to call the director to resolve). The declarer has seen and made enough bad claims that his habit is to show his hand and hope the defenders concede without asking for a line of play.

Claiming Without Showing

Amazingly I’ve seen the opposite. A declarer claims by taking the rest of his face down cards, mixing it with the tricks already played, and putting it back into the board! The opponents of course raise objections, and he said “the dummy is obviously good”. I wonder how many times this claim has gone awry – problems with a blocked suit or transportation problems, for example.

Claiming by Defender

I’ve been guilty of this one myself. As a defender, you assume you know all the relevant remaining cards, so to speed things up, you claim for the declarer! I can remember two different professional players doing this to me, and in each case they were gifting me a trick (in one case partner spoke up, the other I only saw it looking at hand records later).

Concede Then TakeBack

Another pro once played through 10 tricks and conceded the last two. We agreed and showed our cards. Then he stopped us and said, “Wait!” Looks like your Ace and King clash, and you are forced to lead back into my winner.” We accepted that, being nice people in a friendly club game. I’m curious what the official ruling is when declarer concedes, then sees defenders cards and realizes there is a way to make an extra trick

Conditional Claim

There is nothing wrong with this one, except it removes room for bad defense. The most common being an early claim conceding a few tricks, but also asking if a side suit breaks or a finesse is on. Apparently in Fast Pairs, which is not my cup of tea, people will make insanely complex claims – “if the squeeze is on and the repeated finesse works, I get two more tricks.”

Any Other Bad Claim Stories?

Claiming generally saves time and moves the pace of the game along – but we probably all have some claiming horror stories. I’d be curious to hear some.

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GNYBA Board Meeting Minutes Jan 9 2020

Posted on January 19, 2020 by Lee Lin

We have posted the meeting minutes from the Jan 9, 2020 Board Meeting.

May 2020 Regional

Most players should be interested in the proposed schedule for the May 2020 regional. A full discussion will be reserved for another day – however the tournament will likely feature some variant of the Knock Out In A Day. There will be Gold Rush pairs every day – which means NOT having a flighted swiss day (A/X + Mid-Flight + Gold Rush Swiss). There will be bracketed round robin every day, excluding the featured Knock Outs day.

Stand-alone NYC Sectional?

We are gaining more momentum for reviving a stand-alone NYC Sectional. Everyone in NYC and Long Island knows silver points can require significant travel to obtain. Players who love two-session team events have no silver-point options other than Woodbridge, Allendale, and Poughkeepsie.

We continue to explore options for attempting a weekend sectional, and thankfully a few reasonable options have surfaced. If it works, we could usher in a new era of GNYBA minting silver points without detracting from the STaC calendar.

Not sure why BridgeFinesse suggests a Singapore cruise as a nearby silver point option

December Regional Attendance 2019

The winter regional only saw a slight decline in year-over-year attendance, better than expected given the adverse calendar. In 2018, Dec 26-30 ended with the final day on Sunday Dec 30th. We were concerned Monday Dec 30th, 2019, would not see the same success. Fortunately, Monday saw solid attendance – 5 brackets of round robin, 19 tables in open pairs and 14 tables in the Gold Rush, all taking place alongside a large side game.

Financials

Nothing interesting to report, which is good news. We are a non-profit organization operating at a slight loss of a few thousand dollars against a positive, low six-figure balance sheet. The primary expenses are operating the regional tournaments, including the venue, ACBL director fees, marketing, and hospitality. We also sponsor the lower flight grass roots pairs and teams at NABC with small stipends. All of the board members volunteer their time and energy to keep the ship sailing smoothly.

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What Is The Name Of the Sturbridge Host Hotel?

Posted on January 16, 2020 by Lee Lin

First off, huge round of applause to the District 25 folks for quickly dealing with the Red Lion Cromwell abrupt shutdown. Planning a regional takes many months of lead time and planning. It’s amazing that everything will continue as scheduled, at a tried and true location (and a cheaper hotel rate).

So what is the name of the new Sturbridge host hotel? Surprise! The venue is actually called, Sturbridge Host Hotel. For a moment I thought the hotel was named “Convenient Hotel”. Anyway, they have updated the Presidential Regional tournament flyer with the new phone, name, and address of the venue.

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New England Regional Moved To Sturbridge, MA

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Lee Lin

Followup to our news that Red Lion Cromwell is no longer hosting the New England Presidential Regional.

It is now at Sturbridge, MA – more information below. For New Yorkers, that adds about 45 more minutes to the drive. But the room rate is almost 20% lower than Red Lion.

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Cromwell Tournament and Red Lion Hotel?

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Lee Lin

Breaking news – a trustworthy source told me that the annual Cromwell regional tournament will no longer be held at the Red Lion Hotel! That conflicts with the email I received from Mike Wavada and District 25 just last week. It also conflicts with the latest tournament flyer and the nebridge.org webpage.

(Edit: Confirmed, Red Lion Cromwell has been knocked out – updated location to be announced very soon).

Edit: The Hartford Courant, WFSB, and Middletown Press report the abrupt shutdown occurred last Friday over some sales tax issues. Also, locals heavily impacted – we wish the best for the town and impacted employees . Updates from D25 coming soon.


Calling The Red Lion

I called the phone number for the Red Lion Hotel Cromwell. No answer twice. That’s not the best sign for a hotel with over 200 rooms. Granted, it was 12:30am Eastern Time, but it isn’t THAT late for what should be a 24/7 establishment (no voicemail either).

We will keep digging to find out more. Maybe there is a perfectly good explanation…

KIKO Format and Monster Knockout

Because we haven’t yet talked about it, Cromwell features both regular knockouts and Knock In Knock Outs. The regular knockouts are called Monster Knockouts, because they traditionally attract a monstrously high number of teams and brackets for a regional event. If you are knocked out Saturday, you can join one of my favorite formats, the choose-your-flight swiss teams day (Gold Rush, Mid-Flight, A/X Swiss).

So what is KIKO? Earlier we talked about the Tarrytown Knockout In A Day held in the upcoming Tarrytown / Westchester regional.

In constrast, Knock-In Knock Out is a two-day event where the first day is a qualifying swiss, and the second day completes a Knock Out with seeding based on the swiss victory point results. Specifically, directors form many brackets of about 8 teams, all with similar masterpoints. The top four teams advance to the next day and play semi-final knockout matches (then finals if they win that).

KIKO solves the two primary Knock Out problems – if your opponent in the first round happens to be a much stronger team, you will get tied last place for losing right away. And problem number two, if you lose in the morning, you suddenly need to fill your day with a single-session event (or go home early). With KIKO, the opening swiss ensures you play All day against most of the teams in your bracket, hopefully reducing some randomness and eradicating the early elimination possibility.

Good Practice for Grand National Teams

All told KIKO is a very exciting and fair format, and closely mimics the Grand National Teams District 24 Finals. For those practicing for GNT, you might give KIKO a try! The NABC GNT finals is also very similar, just at a larger scale. The “Knock-In” is a massive swiss with 1 or 2 teams from each of 25 districts, and then 16 surviving teams enter a knockout.

The Soloway KO Teams also incorporated two days of swiss “Knock-In”. The main benefits are knockout brackets are no longer seeded by masterpoints, but through the swiss knock-in day. It allows teams with lower masterpoint totals a better chance to progress, because they aren’t stuff playing top pros in the first round!

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