Party in the GNTs! Join the Flight A and C Fun

Posted on January 29, 2024 by Lee Lin

Amazing. We matched pre-pandemic levels with 8 teams pre-registered for Flight A taking place this Sunday, Feb 4th (along with Flight C). And what a party it is, we have a huge crowd of GNT veterans joining the mix, including many multi-flight entries. One funny and hard-to-explain phenomenon: Why is it almost every GNT-A team is playing in GNT-B with a different group? You’d think there was some unspoken rule to randomly swap teammates and partners. Nevertheless, let’s introduce a few of the teams.

The Flight “B” Graduates

Last year at the Chicago NABC we sent two B teams, Team Verrier and Team Schwartz. The teams have merged, mixed, and morphed into two new teams (see above). As always, playing up is highly encouraged in the GNTs, so it will be interesting to see how the Flight B finalists do in a 0-6000 field. Hopefully, we will also see everyone at the Flight B finals on Feb 25th, making for an action-packed but hectic KO post season (pre-register please).

The Flight “C” Graduates

You might think a Flight C team jumping all the way to Flight A is an overbid, but this isn’t any 0-500 crew. In Chicago, Team Boge and Team Mandel went all the way to the national finals and won 1st and 2nd place. Also, last year Maya Jonas-Silver and Jack Latta won 1st place in the District Flight B tournaments (then won the District Flight C Battle of the Jacks). In total, they each took home 80 gold and red points in one GNT season, enough to win the national Mini-McKenney race. Let’s see if they can break a new record and win both A and B!

The Spingolders

Among the pre-registered field, this team has the most collective NABC knockout experience, which involves playing behind bidding screens under the ACBL Eye in the Sky. A majority of Team Chang have previously won the Micro Spingold in separate years, then faced off in the 2022 Mini Spingold finals. Now they’ve merged into one team of Micro / Mini Spingold winners. Regardless of who wins the GNT Flight A this year, we hope District 24 can continue our successful Mini Spingold runs.

The Defending Champs

Team Trabulus are the defending champions and should we need a seeding committee, the conditions grant them the top seed position. The Trabulus team has the longest history of success in representing our District in NAP and GNT events, with Charles Bilich and Michael Krevor representing us in pole position for the Golder North American Pairs this year in Louisville. Also, Trabulus is seemingly the only one immune to the mix-and-match bug that has caught on with every other entrant this year. The team is entirely intact with all 6 players who won Flight A the prior year.

How Many Will Advance?

Unfortunately, only one team will advance to the NABCs, unlike Flights B and C where we can send two teams after reaching the 8 team threshold. However, it’s not too late to join and register for any and all flights (even Championship for those who love to play up). Flight B in particular could use some help, but we suspect many players will decide whether to register for flight B after they see the A and C results on Sunday…

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GNTs FAQ and Other Info

Posted on January 25, 2024 by Lee Lin

We have 15+ teams already registered for GNTs but room for plenty of more. We wanted to clarify and answer a few questions people have asked in the past few weeks

Flight C is For Newer Players

Last year our District made GNT history sending two teams to the national finals in Chicago and having them win 1st and 2nd place nationwide! That’s great and has only been done twice in ACBL records, the other time in Vegas by District 21; however that’s not what this event is about.

All 9 of the players across those teams have self-graduated out and will be playing this year in Flight A or B (or both). So the field truly is wide open for any level of players. This event does not allow any life masters or players with over 500 point as of the cutoff in August 2023. That’s even lower than the upper limit of a Gold Rush event.

To be clear, the Flight C event is the friendliest and best way each year to earn gold and red points right here in New York, and you do not have to advance to nationals in order to take home a big Masterpoint prize while having lots of fun.

Clarifying the GNT Schedule, Playing Time, and Ending Time

The opening round is only one day in every flight. Feb 4th for A and C, Feb 24th for Championship, and Feb 25th for Flight B. It will start at 11am and end around 6pm with a short lunch break. In bridge lingo, that is considered a two-session event because you will play approximately 48 boards for the day instead of 24 boards.

In the Championship Flight, the first round of the KO is the immediate day after the opening round. For all other flights A, B, and C (0-6000, 0-2500, and 0-500), the KO round for surviving teams can be schedule at the convenience of the two teams.

Unfortunately, the confirmation email is a little confusing because one might think that it is two days when the dates read: Feb 25th to Feb 26th.

Teammates Do Not Need to Play Same Convention

For any pair, you and your partner must play the same conventions. You can’t have one person playing transfers but the other does not. However, there is no restriction on the conventions your teammates at the other table play. You and your partner are welcome to play standard while your teammates play 2/1, for example. Sometimes it’s fun to ask how the bidding went at the other table when you play a different bidding system from your counterparts.

Flight A and C are Separate Events

The players in Flight A with 0-6000 Masterpoints and the players in Flight C who are non LMs with 0-500 points will not be playing together. They will physically be in the same space at the same time, but the events are completely separate and you will not play a single board or be scored against anyone in the other event.

Why The Weird Name? Grand National Teams?

Despite the intimidating name, GNTs are split into four groups: Championship, A, B, and C. Flight B and C are designed to be extremely generous for intermediate and beginner players, with large gold point payouts and restrictions on both the Masterpoints of your opponents and the allowed conventions they can play. District 24 includes ACBL members in New York City and Long Island.

It is social and fun; you can enjoy it without doing anything grand or national.

What Conventions Are Allowed?

For the first time ever in GNTs, this year Flight B and C are both governed by the Basic+ Convention Chart. It allows plenty of cool conventions, probably all of the favorites you play, while disallowing most of the weird and crazy conventions seen in pro levels of play. As usual, Flight B limits players to a maximum of 2500 Masterpoints. Flight C has a 500 Masterpoint limit and no player can be a life master (in case there are members grandfathered at the 300 point Life Master cutoff).

Do You Take Apple Pay or Credit Card or Venmo?

Sorry, we are low tech and require the entry fee to be in cash at the playing site.

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Grand National Teams 2024 (District 24)

Posted on January 11, 2024 by Lee Lin

Here is the GNT Flyer for 2024 and the full conditions of contest for GNT 2024.
Click to pre-register your GNT 2024 team

Championship (Open) Flight – Unlimited Masterpoints
Opening Weekend – Saturday, Feb 24 + Sunday, Feb 25
Flight A
Feb 4th  
1st Place:
40 Gold Points		Flight B  
Feb 25th   
1st Place:  
33.50 Gold Points
$1000 travel subsidy   		Flight C
Feb 4th  
1st Place:  
20 Gold/Red Points
$1000 travel subsidy
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Advisory Council Meeting Fall 2023

Posted on December 3, 2023 by Lee Lin

Today is another meeting of the ACBL Advisory Council, formerly the Board of Governors.

ACBL Funding for Units: The 5-5-5 Plan

Executive Director Bronia Jenkins outlined the new 5-5-5 plan focused on membership recruitment and retention.

In the past, all ACBL units received 11% of a member’s annual dues. That is, of the $49 per year you pay in dues to ACBL, a little more than $5 goes to your unit. For NYC, we have 2429 active members in Unit 155, giving us $13,092.32 a year of funding paid quarterly. We then lose approximately that amount sponsoring regionals.

Starting Q2 0f 2024, the money paid to Units will be based on a sliding scale from 5% to 15%, depending on how actively the Units fulfill their membership recruitment and retention goals. First, all units receive 5% no matter what (down from 11%). Then, units receive another 5% for retention and another 5% for recruitment. They have some fancy new software to monitor how each unit is doing, although for now it’s a complicated dashboard that is hard to read. More instructions to follow, I’m sure. Thankfully, for Q1 2024 all units still receive their usual 11%.

Conflicting Tournament Sanctions

The ACBL Board of Directors passed a new motion detailing procedures for determining and resolving conflicting tournaments. The gist is, no two sectionals may be held within 200 miles of each other, and no two regionals may be held within 400 miles of each other. There use as the crows flies miles, not driving distance.

For Unit 155, we always try our best to cooperate with our neighbors in New Jersey, Tarrytown, and New England who often hold tournaments. The 200 and 400 miles distance might find us conflicting with a lot more New England tournaments, but in practice we would normally avoid trying to hold any regional during any of their regionals. Things get more complicated when we consider GNTs, NAPs, and STaCs. Does one flight of GNTs conflicting with the final Sunday of their sectional count as a disallowed conflict?

Pending Litigation – 3 Lawsuits

Unfortunately, ACBL is currently in the middle of 3 separate lawsuits.

First is the ongoing class action lawsuit between ACBL Directors and ACBL, and whether or not they qualified for overtime, hourly pay, or exempt salaried pay, and various labor law considerations.

Second, there is an emotional distress lawsuit between a former Advisor Council member and ACBL after being disciplined for inappropriate behavior and body language on a zoom call.

Third, the Sheraton host hotel for the Phoenix 2022 NABC is suing ACBL for some dispute in the contract’s attrition clause. Not enough players booked rooms in the host hotel, and somewhere along the way the hotel and ACBL had a disagreement about how to handle the attrition that spiraled into a lawsuit.

Advisory Council Meeting and Bylaws

Procedures and bylaws problems are never fun, but given how much the group has changed post-pandemic, there was a discussion of whether Advisory Council meetings should be held later, after a full preparation of meeting minutes and results from the ACBL Board of Directors meeting (that’s the smaller meeting of the 13 regional directors and ACBL Management, think of it has the senate while advisory council is the house of representatives).

Apparently, our bylaws now require meetings are held electronically on Zoom, in conjunction with the NABC tournaments. Although “in conjunction” is somewhat ambiguous, the AC chair believes it should be held on the final Sunday of NABCs at the latest. However, for the next NABCs, people will try to informally organize a chance for some face-to-face meetings.

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Annual ACBL Unit 155 Membership Meeting

Posted on November 27, 2023 by Lee Lin

Active ACBL Members of Unit 155 are invited to attend our annual membership meeting on December 18th, 2023, at 8:30am ET via Zoom (link below and on gnyba.org).

The agenda includes:

Election of the 2024 GNYBA Board of Directors
Discussion of recent and upcoming tournaments
ACBL Advisory Council and committee reports
Latest news from local clubs

Zoom link

Proposed Slate of Officers

President: Melanie Petsch
Vice President & Secretary: Alan Davidson
Vice President: Lee Lin
Treasurer: Jeffrey Rothstein
Tournament Co-chair: Philip Lentz
Tournament Co-chair: William Sigward

Proposed Board of Directors

Deborah Tormey (*)
Jeff Bayone (**)
Jack Boge (*)
Stephannie Culbertson (*)
Alan Davidson (**)
Mindy Fleder (*)
Jin Hu (**)
Maya Jonas-Silver (***)
Marla Lawson (**)
Phil Lentz (**)
Stephen Levine (**)
Lee Lin (**)
Richard Marchione (**)
Mark Mariaschin (**)
Rachel Moller (**)
Adam Parrish (**)
Melanie Petsch (**)
Amy Rhodes (**)
Tom Romeo (***)
Jeffrey Rothstein (**)
Allison Rudary (**)
William Sigward (**)
Aaron Silverstein (**)
Katherine Todd (**)
Deborah Tormey (*)
Norman Trabulus (**)
Barbara Ullman (*)
Gail Wallach (**)
Mee Warren (**)
Abigail Weinshank (**)


(*) Beginning a new 1-year Term
(**) Completing a 2-year Term
(***) Beginning a new 2-year Term

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District 24 GNT Dates for 2024

Posted on November 26, 2023 by Lee Lin

As a reminder, District 24 GNTs will be held face-to-face at 110 East 55th Street, 6th Floor, at 11am ET each of the following days:

Championship: Saturday Feb 24th + Sunday Feb 25th
Flight A (0-6000): Sunday, Feb 4th + Complete all KOs by Apr 14th
Flight B (0-2500): Sunday, Feb 25th + Complete all KOs by Apr 14th
Flight C (0-500, nlm): Sunday, Feb 4th + Complete all KOs by Apr 14th

See this year’s D24 GNT Conditions of Contest

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Should NAP and GNT Both Have Four Flights?

Posted on November 16, 2023 by Lee Lin

We all love the grassroots events, the North American Pairs (NAP), and the Grand National Teams (GNT). These events begin at the local level playing against familiar faces at the District finals. Then, winners advance to the national finals at the NABCs. More importantly, these events are extremely welcoming to newer players, more than any other national event.

NAPs are pairs games and GNTs are the teams equivalent. However, there is an awkward lack of parallelism: GNTs have 4 flights, Open, A, B, and C. NAP only has 3 flights: Open, B, and C.

Why Is There A Missing Flight?

Last night the Competitions and Conventions Committee discussed the discrepancy and what should be done, if anything. Either NAP is missing a 0-6000 flight, or GNT has an extra flight.

From 1985 onward, both NAP and GNT were in sync. There were three flights in each, called A, B, and C. Then, in 2001 GNT spawned a fourth flight in between A and B. Rather than call it Flight A- or Flight B+, the four flights became Open (aka Championship), A, B, and C. NAP did not receive the same change, creating a discrepancy that has lasted 22 years!

Not Enough Players in Most Districts?

One objection to four flights in NAPs is simply that most ACBL Districts do not have enough players to support it. New York City and Long Island are fortunate to be part of one of the larger Districts with a total of 5000+ active members, all contained in a reasonably small geographical area. I realize Great Neck to Manhattan may seem far, but imagine trekking from Maine or Connecticut to attend a District GNT event in Massachusetts.

Many ACBL Districts simply don’t have the density of players; some already combine all three flights, with Open, B, and C players all playing together in one game (which somewhat defeats the purpose of Flight B and C playing among their peers). Sometimes all players who show up for a certain flight by default can advance to nationals. Can we really support a 4th flight?

On the other hand, it’s not clear that a 4th flight results in a dilution or distribution of the other flights. A new 0-6000 NAP-A could actually attract pairs who otherwise wouldn’t have played at all. For example, the players who know they won’t win in the open flight but have a fighting chance in a 0-6000 field. Also, those of us in D24 love playing multiple flights. We might see lots of players play both 0-6000 and 0-2500, or both Open and 0-6000.

Too Many Grassroots Tables at Nationals?

It could be a budget and logistics problem for ACBL during NABCs. Right now NAP-Open allows 3 pairs per District, NAP-B and NAP-C each allow 4 pairs. If we have a new flight also sending 3 pairs, that’s 14 pairs total, or 28 players from each District! That is significantly more than the 16 players required for all four flights of GNT (1 team per Flight in most cases).

One remedy would be to scale NAP-B and NAP-C down to 3 pairs each, therefore we only have 12 pairs per district, up from the current 11. Better yet, similar to the GNT attendance threshold, we could have an NAP attendance threshold where Flight B and Flight C may only send the 4th pair after crossing an 8-table attendance threshold.

Skill Discrepancy More Demoralizing in KO Events?

Subtle but true — a KO event is far more demoralizing when one team is clearly stronger than the other. You often see a team concede before all the boards are finished in a KO. However, a 4-session pairs event such as NAP is short and sweet. Even if you are on the weaker half of the field, you have plenty of company. Perhaps for this reason, it was important to have a Championship Flight for GNTs, where the field is truly world class. For pairs, there is no problem, we can survive 2 boards a session against Joel and Kent.

NAP and GNT Flights Today:

There have been some tweaks over the years to account for Masterpoint inflation, but otherwise the 3 and 4 flight system has been stable. Today they are:

Flight C: Non life masters with 0-500 points
Flight B: 0-2500 points
Flight A: 0-6000 points, only for GNTs (does not exist for NAPs)
Open Flight: All eligible players in the District

Over the coming months, there will be continued discussions within the ACBL Board and various committees. If you have an opinion, write to gnt@gnyba.org, or your favorite board member. For the Competitions and Conventions Committee, your D24 representatives are Franco Bessagio (voting member) and Lee Lin (non-voting member). We feel D24 has plenty of interest in adding the 4th NAP 0-6000 Flight and certainly wouldn’t want to lose any of the GNT flights.

GNT Dates for 2024

As a reminder, District 24 GNTs will be held face-to-face at 110 East 55th Street, 6th Floor, at 11am ET each of the following days:

Championship: Saturday Feb 24th + Sunday Feb 25th
Flight A (0-6000): Sunday, Feb 4th + Complete all KOs by Apr 14th
Flight B (0-2500): Sunday, Feb 25th + Complete all KOs by Apr 14th
Flight C (0-500, nlm): Sunday, Feb 4th + Complete all KOs by Apr 14th

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Mignocchi and Wooldridge Win D24 NAP

Posted on October 20, 2023 by Lee Lin

Kent Mignocchi and Joel Wooldridge delivered two extremely strong sessions scoring 66.54% followed by 66.91% in the D24 NAP Open Flight field of 14.5 tables. That was enough to take 1st place by a margin of over 4 boards above and beyond the next closest pair. Because of an interesting clause in the North American Open Pairs rules, Kent and Joel did not compete in the District finals last year. They didn’t need to after winning the entire March 2022 NAP national finals in Reno, allowing for automatic qualification to New Orleans 2023 (similar to the All Valley Tournament rules in Karate Kid 3?).

NAP-A Qualifiers:
Joel Wooldridge / Kent Mignocchi
Migry Zur Campanile / Andrew Rosenthal
David Gurvich / Michael Lipkin

(1st alternate): Robert Kuhnreich / Elliot Sternlicht

NAP-C Qualifiers:
Kenneth Mandel / Andrew Jeanguenat
Maya Jonas-Silver / Jack Latta
Yuchen Xu / Music Li
Lee Silberman / Joshua Allen

(1st alternate): Yanlai Yang / Yihan Xiao
(2nd alternate): Jessica U / Jingyang Ng

In Flight C, grassroots veterans Kenneth Mandel and Andrew Jeanguenat took first place, just ahead of their longtime teammates and fellow District GNT-C champions Maya Jonas-Silver and Jack Latta. All four are prior NAP-C national finals veterans and plan to compete this Sunday in NAP-B (which may lead to an interesting travel stipend trade-off).

NAP-B Finals This Sunday

All eligible 0-2500 players are welcome to compete this Sunday, even if you have already qualified for Flight C.

110 East 55th Street 6th floor, 11am start time.

1st Place: 22.5 gold points + $1400/pair
2nd Place: 16.88 gold points + $600/pair
3rd Place: 12.66 gold points + invitation to national finals
4th Place: invitation to national finals (points depends on number of entries)


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Reminder: NAP 10/15 and 10/22

Posted on October 15, 2023 by Lee Lin

See more info on District 24 NAPs for the 2023-2024 season.

Flight A: Oct 15, 2023 — 32 gold points + $1400/pair
Flight B: Oct 22, 2023 — 22.5 gold points + $1400/pair
Flight C: Oct 15, 2023 — 20 half gold / half red + $1400/pair

Games are at 11am, 110 East 55th Street 6th floor. Entry $100/pair.
Two-session playthrough with a short lunch break (ending by 6:15pm).

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Tournament Update: Day 1 Queens Regional

Posted on October 11, 2023 by Lee Lin

Thanks for everyone who attended the first day of our Queens Regional. Results are on ACBL Live as usual: https://live.acbl.org/events/2310123

Tournament Capacity Concerns

Attendance was better than expected. In fact, we had 50 tables and that is nearing the maximum capacity we can support. Although the building is massive and spacious, we are working with logistics and the venue to see if we can add more capacity. Therefore, we highly recommend pre-registering using the link below to secure your spot, or email tournaments@gnyba.org.

[EDIT: We have added a 3rd room for the remaining days, so there should be no problems. However, we still encourage and recommend pre-registration]

https://members.acbl.org/tournaments/2310123/detail?gametype=All

Other Notes and Hospitality Improvements

First of all, we understand the coffee situation was not ideal! The event staff underestimated how punctual the bridge crowd is. They will set up the coffee, tea, and water much earlier starting tomorrow (hopefully with decaf). The concession stand will also open earlier than 10 minutes before game time. The stations must be more central, not hidden away in a side patio.

We understand it is difficult to find a temperature that pleases everyone, but generally the Empire Room started off too hot and then shifted too cold. We recommend bringing layers (we are working with the venue on a coat check).

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