D24 NAP Finals for 2023-2024

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Lee Lin

The District 24 NAP Finals are less than two weeks away. As a reminder, NAPs are an all day, two-session pairs event split into 3 flights. Flight A is open to all eligible players, Flight B is limited to 0-2500 players, and Flight C for non-life masters with 0-500.

The location is 110 East 55th Street, 6th Floor starting at 11am. Entry fees are $50/person for the full day, including lunch and snacks for the club.

Flights A and C play on Sunday, October 15th. Flight B plays the following Sunday, October 22nd. Both days begin at 11am with our local favorite, director Alan Miller directing. If there are enough tables, we will run it as a Switch Mitchell, which is a little more complicated, but the math geeks at ACBL have determined it tends to be more fair by evenly distributing the impact of particularly weak or strong pairs.

Generous Gold Point Awards

As usual, NAP pays a very generous amount of Masterpoints for a one-day event. First place overall awards for each flight:

Flight A: 32 gold points + $1400/pair travel subsidy
Flight B: 22.50 gold points + $1400/pair travel subsidy
Flight C: 15 half gold / half red + $1400/pair travel subsidy

The 2nd place pair in each flight also receives a slightly lower Masterpoint award and $600/pair in travel subsidies. The 3rd place team in all flights as well as the 4th place team in Flights B and C may represent the district at the Spring NABC but will not receive a subsidy.

If you choose not to attend the national finals in March 2024, you will not be eligible for the travel subsidy but you may still keep the Masterpoints awarded.

Qualification Double Check

To double check whether you and your partner qualified, go to the D24 NAP qualifier list. https://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/play/NAP_Qualifiers/NAP_D24.htm

There are a few reports the list is not 100% accurate, so if that is the case, try to find the club game result where you believe you qualified. If you can show the game result, you will be allowed to play on 10/15 and 10/22.

Flight B and C to use Basic+ Chart

New this year, thanks to the Competitions and Conventions Committee, Flight C of the NAP and GNTs now use the Basic+ Chart instead of the Basic Chart. Several popular conventions such as Multi Landy and 2-suited preempts are allowed, as well as various artificial responses to a strong club opener. However, transfer-Walsh, opening 1D with no diamonds, and Polish Club are still disallowed.

If the entire last paragraph means nothing to you, then don’t worry, you are in the majority!

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Gold Points: Online vs Face-to-Face

Posted on September 26, 2023 by Lee Lin

Despite a few proposals and motions to the contrary, there is no distinction between gold pigmented Masterpoints won online versus at a face-to-face tournament. That is, you need 50 gold points to achieve Life Master, and you can mix and match any combination including winning all 50 online.

Which Gold Points Are Easiest to Win?

It turns out, despite all gold points being equal, some events are much easier than others to accumulate lots of gold. For a typical non-life master, we rank the various ways to win gold points from hardest to easiest, online options first.

Online NAOBC + Online Individual NABC

The NOABC is likely the hardest way to win gold. You need to survive reasonably far in an online KO event against world class pros. During the pandemic, they had a 0-1500 version which paid generously, but the limited versions are no longer on the docket.

The online individual robot tournaments are still offered 3x a year with stratifications for 0-2500 and 0-500. However, you need to be among the top robot players in the world to win gold this way with any consistency. Titled events are NOT useful gold farms.

Online Regionals

As it turns out, the online gold rush regionals are NOT as generous as most people think. The infamous masterpoints formula is linear in the number of tables until you exceed 60 tables. Beyond 60, the award grows logarithmically (aka, very slowly). Also, the 20% online haircut eats away at both the amount and depth of awards (possibly an unintended bug).

The most recent online regional on July 27th, 2023, attracted 125 tables on Day 1 of the Gold Rush (250 pairs). Only the top 31 pairs out of 250 won overall gold points. A few others won gold by getting a section top, but that’s still only 13% of the field winning gold. Also, only the top few players are taking home any meaningful amount.

Gold Rush Face-to-Face

Face-to-face gold rush events at a regional are much more generous than online regionals. Take a look at the gold rush from our NYC regional. With 11 tables in the daily gold rush, the top 6 pairs out of 22 received gold overalls (27%). As the event size grows, so does the depth of the award, although the percent of winners gradually decreases.

Bracketed Teams

As we have mentioned before, Bracketed Teams pays more gold and also pays a more generous depth of winners. That is, brackets of 8 pay gold to 37.5% of the teams and brackets of 9 pay 44% (sure beats 13%). Even if 125 teams join the event, the director will still place you in a bracket of 8 or so, ensuring the generous 37.5% payout ratio.

NAP and GNT

We need to mention the two special grassroots events, the North American Pairs, and the Grand National Teams. Both are special events that only occur once a year, but for those who need gold points, they are among the most generous awards for limited players.

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NYC Regional Pre-Reg Live, Golden Countess Cup

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Lee Lin

Pre-registration for the NYC Regional is live on ACBL Entry Express. You may cancel up to 24 hours prior to the start of your event for a full refund. However, the system will charge your credit card to confirm your registration.

Note: There is no host hotel. The surrounding area has many hotel options. When registering, the checkout procedure will ask if you are staying at the host hotel, but you can ignore it.

Golden Countess Cup for Newcomers

We are bringing back the Golden Countess Cup, the award created in honor of New York world champion Margie Gwozdzinsky.

On Saturday, October 14th, join us and compete for the 4th ever GNYBA Countess Cup. The top 99er pair and 199er pair will receive trophies and potentially long-lasting fame. For newer players, this is a rare chance to experience the excitement of a two-session pairs event while still winning a generous amount of red points for each independent session.

Barbara Diamond and Erin Boyajian
Past Silver Countess Cup Winners: Erin Boyajian and Barbara Diamond

NYC Regional Details

Astoria World Manor (free parking)
25-22 Astoria Boulevard, Long Island City, NY 11102
October 11-14 (win gold points)
NYC Fall Regional (see flyer)

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The Easiest Gold Points: Bracketed Round Robin

Posted on September 6, 2023 by Lee Lin

We previously discussed various ways to win Masterpoints online. Today’s post is all about getting gold points, the usual last hurdle for most players to reach Life Master. For most players, 500 Masterpoints is easy enough to reach using clubs or virtual clubs. For New Yorkers, the 75 silver can be a challenge, but easier with all of the silver linings weeks, STaCs, and new local sectionals. So how do normal players win the required 50 gold points?

Try Bracketed Round Robin

Bracketed Round Robin at a regional is the most generous and stable way to earn ACBL gold Masterpoints. You register as a team of 4 and the director will put you in a bracket of 8 teams all having a similar team masterpoint average. The top 3 teams will win overall gold points, with the prize proportional to the Masterpoint strength of your bracket.

Put another way, you only need to beat 5 teams in order to win a pile of gold points. Contrast that with a pair game, where there might be 32 pairs and you need to beat 22 pairs just to bring home a few fractions of gold.

Also, pair games tend to have a wide range of skill. An open game has world champions in addition to players who just crossed the 750 mark. Even a gold rush game can have 99ers playing alongside Life Masters with 700 points. With a bracketed team game, you can have a bracket of all players with under 200 points, or a group of 600-900 teams. Either way, you don’t need to worry about the arbitrary 750 Gold Rush boundary disqualifying you from playing in a limited field.

NYC Regional Oct 11-14

For the upcoming NYC Regional this October, we will offer a 0-3500 Bracketed Round Robin every day of the tournament. Any players under 3500 hoping to win gold points should try it out. There will of course also be a gold rush pairs, open pairs, and open swiss. But the bracketed team game is the only event that actively limits your competition to a small group of similarly-skilled teams. In some cases, your bracket could be a little larger, say 9 or 10 teams, but in those cases the top 4 spots win gold, still excellent odds.

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NYC Fall Regional Oct 11-14 2023

Posted on August 8, 2023 by Lee Lin

Pre-register using ACBL Entry Express.

Update 10/11/2023: Attendance was BETTER than expected. We highly recommend pre-registering using the link above to secure your spot, or email tournaments@gnyba.org

Results from ACBL Live: https://live.acbl.org/events/2310123

Information is available for our October 11 to 14 Fall Regional.

Download our Fall Regional Flyer.

Location: 25-22 Astoria Boulevard, Astoria, Queens
Card Fees: $25 per player per session / $200 per team full day

Oct 11th to 14th (Wed – Sat)
Daily 10:15am + 3:00pm
Open Pairs
Gold Rush Pairs
Open Swiss
Bracketed Round Robin (0-3500)

Newcomers Games (0-199)
Oct 12th: 10:15am (0-199 Pairs Game)
Oct 14th: 10:15am (Countess Cup Session 1)**
Oct 14th: 3:00pm (Countess Cup Session 2)**

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Do the Masses Prefer Bracketed Or Swiss Teams?

Posted on August 1, 2023 by Lee Lin

Today, the GNYBA Tournament Committee met to discuss whether to have Flighted Swiss versus Bracketed Teams. There are pros and cons.

Downsides of Swiss

A Flighted Swiss allows you to choose your bracket. However, the bracket could be very large, and you end up not playing all of the other teams (you play a team with similar cumulative Victory Points). Also, the depth of awards is less generous in a Swiss. With 32 teams in A/X/Y, which we had last October 2022, the top 8 teams in “A” received gold points.

Granted, 6 other teams received gold via “X” and “Y” strats, but that doesn’t always happen when some of the “X” and “Y” teams also hog the “A” awards. As always with strats, if you win both the “A” and the “X”, you only get the “A” award, and no one ends up getting the “X” award. Put another way, in a swiss you might need to beat 24 teams to win gold, whereas in bracketed teams you only need to beat 5 teams to win gold.

Swiss is also less fair in the way matchups are done. You don’t face every other team, so some teams might get lucky and play easier teams while your team might face all of the hard teams.

Downsides of Bracketed

Now we get to the pain points in Bracketed Round Robin. Yes, you usually play everyone else. There are no swiss gambits. Everyone SHOULD be around the same masterpoints. Also, usually 3 out of 8 or 4 out of 9 spots will pay gold. However, there are three annoying problems with bracketed round robin.

You can’t play up, unless you are willing to play top. Many players have a clear track record of playing stronger than typical players at their masterpoint level. However, bracketing must be done by Masterpoints, and an underrated team often dominates the entire bracket. Neither the winning team or opponents have much fun in this situation.

Second, there are no stratifications. After all, a bracket should only have at most 9 teams. If the bracket happens to have a clump of strong teams and a clump of lower rated teams, there won’t be a lower strat prize.

Lastly, you don’t know what convention chart you will play. There is a little-known quirk in the ACBL convention charts when it comes to bracketed teams. If every team in the bracket has a Masterpoint average of under 299, that bracket plays the Basic Chart (it used to be 750, which is even more awful). If every team in the bracket averages to under 1500, you play Basic+. If every team in the bracket average above 3000, you play Open+. Otherwise, you play Open. It is a bit awkward when you find out that you bracketed into a lower bracket than expected and suddenly can’t play certain conventions.

Best of Both Worlds

Thankfully, we have a solution that gives the best of both worlds (we hope). For the Oct 11-14 regional, we will run an open swiss with stratifications (open / 8000 / 4000). Concurrently, there will be Bracketed Round Robin for the rest (0-3500). For newer players, you can play in a bracket that is filled with 7 other less experienced teams. For the underrated, stronger teams, they can choose to play the top bracket in the round robin (with other players who have 2000-3500). Everyone in between can play their bracket. The top tier teams and those who want an extreme challenge can play in the open swiss.

For those trying to reach Life Master or any other ACBL rank requiring gold points, the Bracketed Round Robin is your best bet. Your bracket will probably only have 8 teams and 3 of the 8 will win overall gold points (the rest get red points for match awards). It is much better odds than a pairs game and much easier for players who are no longer able to play in the gold rush pairs. If you have over 750 masterpoints but need gold, go for Bracketed Teams!

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D24 GNT Dates for 2024 Season

Posted on July 30, 2023 by Lee Lin

Our District just finished our most successful Flight C GNT run in history, taking 1st and 2nd place nationwide! Even though Chicago NABCs just concluded, we already have dates set for the next year NAP and GNT District Finals.

Championship Flight:
Round 1: Saturday Feb 24th
KO Phase 1: Sunday Feb 25th

GNT Flight A (0-6000 Masterpoints):
Round 1: Sunday, Feb 4th
KO Phase: Saturday, Feb 24th

GNT Flight B (0-2500 Masterpoints):
Round 1: Sunday, Feb 25th
KO Phase: TBD, the Unit will consult with semi-finalist teams

GNT Flight C (0-500 Masterpoints, Non-Life Masters only):
Round 1: Sunday, Feb 4th
KO Phase: Saturday, Feb 24th

Changes to Conditions

This year we will see a few interesting changes to the conditions. Most notably, Flight C for NAP and GNT will follow the Basic+ Convention Chart. For the last 4 years, Flight C and all 0-750 events followed Basic, disallowing Multi-Landy 1N-(2D) showing an unknown suit. Also, opening 2N showing both minors with 8-12 HCP is disallowed in Basic. Strong 1C followed by an artificial response of 1H, 1S, or 1N was disallowed. Thankfully, all of these are ok in Basic+.

You are still not allowed to play transfer walsh, or most transfer oriented systems unless it is a game-forcing response. Polish club showing an ambiguous strong or average hand is also disallowed in Basic+ and Basic. Opening 1D that could be as short as 1 or 0 is not allowed because all 1D openings must be quasi-natural.

That means the chart and allowed conventions for Flight B and Flight C are identical. It will be interesting to see how that impacts the already blurry B/C line in our District.

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October Regional, NAP, Gold Points

Posted on July 28, 2023 by Lee Lin

As we all recover from the Chicago NABCs, there are still many exciting events on the horizon for earning gold points.

Astoria World Manor

It’s happening. We will hold a regional this fall at an all new location, the Astoria World Manor! The venue is accessible by public transit, and for those driving, parking should be MUCH easier to find compared to Midtown Manhattan.

Save the dates of October 11th to 14th. This is the primary tournament each year where you can earn gold points without leaving NYC. We will offer pairs, teams, and newcomer games.

NAP District 24 Finals

We are still in the middle of NAP club qualification and there are still plenty of chances to qualify. In fact, this week is the face-to-face club qualifiers at Bridge and Games, located at 177 East 87th Street.

Save the date for our District 24 finals. There will be two dates. Sunday, October 15th is our Flight A and Flight C finals. The following Sunday, October 22nd is our NAP Flight B finals. Just like with GNTs, eligible players are welcome to play both days. However, you may only play in one flight for the national finals next Spring in Louisville, KY.

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PickleBridge?

Posted on July 25, 2023 by Lee Lin

Very interesting. Today is the Advisory Council General Meeting, formerly the ACBL Board of Governors. ACBL Executive Director Bronia Jenkins revealed the new Picklebridge initiative. ACBL will work with Pickleball clubs and encourage members to play a game of pickleball, followed by lunch, then a game of bridge.

Will it work? I’m up for creative solutions, but I guess the key will be finding volunteers who will teach bridge to a small group of Pickleball players. On a personal level, I am a fan of both volleyball and badminton, but I am not sure if I have ever played both in the same day. Something about doing both physical exercise and mental exercise on the same day doesn’t seem to have so much appeal to me. But to each their own, and I’m happy to experiment. What do others think?

(To be fair, there are a couple of other interesting initiatives going on, which ACBL will announce in the coming months)

The Advisory Council

Btw, District 24 has a VACANT spot on the Advisory Council. Each district gets 5 spots, and currently we have Jeff Bayone, Silvana Morici, Lee Lin, and Philip Grella using only 4 of the 5 spots. If anyone is interested, reach out to your favorite Unit board member and you likely can be nominated to become our 5th. The Advisory Council has been compared to the House of Representatives while the Board of Directors is the Senate. It is an all-volunteer position that allows you to stay informed and keep others informed. You can also give some input with a more direct line to ACBL higher ups.

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Chicago NABC Day 8: 2x NYC Micro-Spingold Semi

Posted on July 19, 2023 by Lee Lin

Another District 24 Showdown?

In an incredible display of skill and stamina, we might see another NYC final KO as two primarily District 24 teams ascend to the semi-finals of the Chicago 2023 Micro-Spingold. The team of Avery Silverstein, Jack Boge, Nicole Hudak, and Benjamin Levine beat Team Cusson in the quarterfinals to reach the 2/3 bracket of the semi-finals. And yes, this is the same Avery and Jack that won the GNT Flight C national championship earlier this week in the Battle of the Jacks Rematch, capping a draining 5-day Soloway style KO.

Over in the 1/4 side of the bracket, the team of Susan Davison, Daniel Lev, Catherine Williams, Sharon Phillips, Jeffrey Schwartz, and Michael Xu emerged as one of two survivors in their difficult Day 1 three-way KO (the other surviving team includes Henry Shi and Ping Hu, who just won the Young Pairs 3 days prior).

Impressive District 24 Mini and Micro Spingold History

In addition to our robust GNT-C history, District 24 has achieved a very impressive showing in the Mini-Spingold II for 0-2500 players (aka Micro Spingold). In 2018, a team captained by Leon Yu from Syosset won the Micro-Spingold in Atlanta in a field of 20 teams. The following year, an exclusively New York team comprising Christopher Moh, Jacqueline Chang, Siqing Yu, and captain Jordan Lampe took 1st in the 2019 Micro-Spingold, hosted at the Las Vegas Cosmopolitan.

Interestingly, these two captains faced off in Providence last year during the more prestigious Mini Spingold I (0-6000), culminating in a dramatic all New York mini-Spingold finals (with David Yoon and Lorraine Cable joining the Lampe roster).

Let’s wish our New York teams good luck in delivering us yet another District 24 final KO.

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