Greater New York Bridge Association

ACBL recently launched the TryBridge campaign, with a goal to introduce the game to new players of all ages and demographics. Bridge forums everywhere have debated recruitment from all angles, but I’m always intrigued with the comparison to chess.

Why is that the wrong comparison?

The starting position in chess is the same in every game, and all players have access to the same information at all times

Poker seems more similar to bridge than chess, and it shows with the overlap of high caliber players.

Bridge and poker involve both skill and luck – there is enough luck to give weaker players a chance on any given hand, or even a session of 24 hands. How a player emotionally handles these frequent “bad beats” is part of the skill of the game! Bridge is about learning the correct percentage plays, and not dwelling on any particular result.

Bridge requires a minimum of 4 players, and unfortunately multiplayer games tend to reveal the toxic side of personalities

There aren’t many people to blame when you lose a game of chess. However, if you’ve ever tried bughouse, a variant of chess with 2 boards and 4 players, the old joke is there are at least 3 other people you can blame for the loss.

I’ve been very fortunate to start off early with excellent, supportive bridge mentors. I often cringe when I see partnerships yelling at each other following some bidding or defensive blunder – and all too often both of them are wrong! And remember, we’re talking about fully grown, mature adults…

Chess has physical pieces. Bridge uses a deck of cards.

I first learned chess in kindergarten because of sibling rivalry. My older brother joined the after-school chess club for 4th and 5th graders held in the basement of our elementary school in Cape May Court House, NJ. The board and pieces looked appealing and intriguing, so I wanted to learn! Even in our small town, about a dozen kids came to chess club every week and we had a great time, blissfully unaware of how bad we were.

Bridge came much later. It was yet another card game, more complex than hearts and spades, AND you sit out 25% of the time! Luckily, a teacher at Math Camp patiently taught a group of us one summer in Seattle.

At the end of the 4 weeks, he took us to a local bridge club, my first duplicate game. To this day I have no idea how a huge pack of novice teenagers survived 24 boards. One kid threw the “STOP” card mid-hand and ran off for a bathroom break. Tons of fun, but I sincerely hope our teacher called ahead of time to warn the directors!

Today is the last free practice ACBL tournament before the Fall 2019 NABC Robot Individual tournament. Log in and go to ACBL World to find it, NOT Robot world, even though both worlds are full of robots.

Normally you need to pay $1 per day to rent an advanced bot on BBO, or $1.35 per day to play a 12 board tournament against advanced bots. They are stronger than the basic bots, which are only $1 per week to rent, or free when you challenge a friend. A few lucky and skillful winners in the practice tournament will earn a free entry to the Online Individual, a $40 value (or $34 if you are a repeat customer returning competitor).

According to the CEO of BridgeBase, basic bots perform better than about 90% of human players in the daily daylong tournaments, and advanced bots perform better than 97% of human players. Log in and give it a shot!

ACBL has the standard Mini McKenney and Ace of Clubs masterpoint races for each unit and district, with overall leaderboards for the entire continent of North America. It’s that time of year to check your standings in the Unit 155 Masterpoint Races.

Ace of Clubs counts the annual points won at any ACBL sanctioned physical club game (excludes online points). Mini-McKenney counts all ACBL sanctioned events, including tournaments. The $40 robot online individual hosted on BBO is an NABC event paying red and gold points, which DOES count, but not other BBO ACBL events.

Here in Greater New York, we have our own special race – the GNYBA Player of the Year Award. The bulk of the formula is tied to specific major events such as Goldman Pairs, NAP, GNT, and other tournaments deemed prestigious by tradition. Of course, luck plays a part in all events, but the award hopes to focus on consistent high scores playing in a strong field.

There are three categories with different formulas: individuals, individuals playing team games, and Flight B players. Here are the YTD standings:

Yesterday’s post discussed an ACBL motion to move the Bean Red Ribbon Pairs to Spring NABC, specifically the first weekend. Item 193-63 adds a new 0-3000 Swiss game in the middle of the week, and NAP flights B and C will likely be held on the 2nd weekend. If both motions pass, there will be a clear roadmap of NABC events for flight B/C players staying 9 days.

A few questions to ask:

• Why 0-3000 teams instead of 0-2500? Red Ribbon, Sally Young, and Micro-Spingold are all 0-2500, as are the GNT and NAP Flight B cutoffs.
• NAP finalists should be in a Matchpoints mindset (and practicing conventions and bidding with Matchpoints in mind). Would the 200 Flight B and C NAP district finalist pairs join the 0-3000 teams, or will they prefer pairs events as a final practice?
• Will Red Ribbon pairs become a 6-session event instead of 4-session event? The Blue Ribbon and Mini-Blue Ribbon events are both 6-session, as are the Sally Young 0-2500 pairs during summer NABC.
• With more and more events targeted at “competitive intermediate” players, will future NABCs include a Nano-Spingold and Mini-Red ribbon, for 0-500 players?
• Will all the limited NABC events dilute the playing pool for the daily Gold Rush, Open Pair, and Team events (the regionally rated events)?

The ACBL Board of Directors meeting at San Francisco will discuss and vote on a number of items relating to restructuring the board, handling disciplinary proceedings, financial matters, and tournament modifications.

Today we discuss the pros and cons of Item 193-62, which impacts every player with an unspent Red Ribbon qualifier. If you’ve played enough Gold Rush or low bracket team games during regionals, you most likely have plenty of ribbon qualifiers.

Item 193-62 proposes to move the Red Ribbon pairs event 
from the current time at the end of the Summer NABC 
to the first weekend of the Spring NABC.

Of the 3 annual NABCs, Summer is most popular among younger players, both in age and experience. Limited NABC events include GNT Flights B and C, the Sally Young 0-2500 Pairs, Micro-Spingold 0-2500, and Red Ribbon Pairs. Youth NABC and Collegiate Bowl are also held during the second week. That’s a lot of excellent multi-day intermediate games!

Unfortunately, the heavy concentration of events overlap! A team playing in GNT can only play in the 0-2500 Pairs if they are eliminated in the first two days. Similarly, all mini-Spingold teams in the quarter-finals are not be able to enter Red Ribbon. Strong players from Youth NABC and Collegiate Bowl must miss both events! For two years in a row, District 24 players won the 0-2500 Spingold (pictured above), opting out of Red Ribbon. Many others planned their playing itineraries knowing they could only choose one.

Spring NABC, on the other hand, is considered the serious NABC. It hosts the prestigious Norman Kay Platinum Pairs, and has no limited events designed for Flight B players other than NAP (Flights B and C). Each of 25 ACBL districts send four pairs in EACH of Flights B and C, a total of 400 potential eligible players for 0-2500 events. With NAP on the last weekend of the tournament, is Gold Rush or Silidor Open Pairs the better practice? That’s a good segue into Item 193-63.

Item 193-63 proposes to add a new 4-session, 
Swiss Team 0-3000 event in the middle of Spring NABC.

Every NABC consists of several nationally rated NABC events, most lasting 2-3 days each, that award NABC titles to the winner. In parallel, there are standalone, generic events: the daily Gold Rush pairs, Open Pairs, and team events. They operate more like a regional. Winning does not confer a title, but you get 2 minutes of fame in the next day’s daily bulletin and a trinket if you remember to swing by the prize desk.

The key question is whether NABCs should hold more nationally rated events for intermediate players. Will it entice players on the fence to come to NABC? Does it dilute the prestige of an NABC title? Should we keep the serious Spring NABC and the more newcomer friendly Summer NABC? What effects will it have on the parallel regional events? We shall discuss in depth next time!