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This past weekend was GNT weekend.  GNT stands for Grand National Teams.  This competition takes place every year at the summer bridge nationals.

We go to tournaments all the time, and usually a tournament has a large variety of events you can enter at will.  There are a few events, though, like the GNT, where you must qualify in order to enter.  First, we had to qualify at the local club (This is not difficult to do).  The next step is to qualify at the district level (that was this past weekend).  There are 24 districts in the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL).  Ours is District 7, and covers North Carolina, South Carolina and parts of Georgia (including Atlanta).  For each flight and for each district, one team is sent to compete at the national level.

There are four “flights”: A, B, C and Championship.  They represent exactly what you would guess they do.  A, B and C is the bridge world’s way of trying to identify how much experience you have.  Flight A consists of a lot of good players, but most of the well-known bridge personalities are over-qualified for it.

Ten teams showed up to compete for the District 7 Flight A spot.  This is quite a paltry showing, considering we cover most of 3 states.  But, the district final was held in Greenville, SC.  I guess people don’t always want to travel to play in these things.

We did.  Weeks ago, Lance and i planned to make a long weekend out of it.  Greenville was hosting a sectional bridge tournament at the same time, so we decided to go a day early and warm up.  The district finals would take place on Sat/Sun, but there would be bridge events on Friday.  It would be a fun trip for just the two of us.  Sure, we’d have friends there, but we’d get to go back to the hotel room alone and talk about hands and share the king-sized bed.

Or so i thought.

In the week or so leading up to the tournament, we were very excited.  Played some online BBO and had chat sessions with teammates.  Our teammates are two friends who are also excellent players.  One is 23 and the other is 28.  Lance and i are 33 and 31.  One teammate has played bridge professionally and represented the US in some Junior events years ago.  The other is still technically a Junior and is somehow a better player than all of us despite having only played for a year or two.   This is a very young team, compared to most of the other teams, and a very good team.  We might even have been the favorites to win going into it.

[Flight C was also having their district finals competition at the same time.  I mentioned our team was young, but some of the Flight C's were younger.  One kid was only 9.  Two teams of all kids competed for the final spot on Sunday afternoon.  Congratulations to those players, who are the future of bridge.]

The day before we were set to leave, i suddenly get a ping at work about whether it’s OK if we have a roommate.  Our 61-year old buddy M was also going to compete for the District 7 spot on a different team, and it worked out that he would have to get a hotel room just for himself, which he didn’t want to do.  I was not particularly pleased about this.  Suddenly our bridge weekend which i had semi-romanticized didn’t seem so great if this guy (who has been known to tax my patience after spending significant time with him) would be tagging along and we would never have any privacy.  Despite not being thrilled about it, i agreed.

All went as planned; we got to Greenville safely after a 4.5 hour drive.  M was pretty well-behaved the first night.  Lance and i got up to play bridge in the morning session at 9 am Friday.  We played all 3 sessions on Friday, with nothing of note to report.

During lunch, M, Lance and i went on the hunt for food.  We just went in one direction, looking for something, anything.  It was an empty stretch of road.  Until, we came upon a dingy little brick building with an old sign that said “Carolina Fine Food Restaurant”.  It was the only thing in sight, and i had a feeling this place would be “my people.”  Sure enough, this dive had the atmosphere of a hometown BBQ restaurant.  We went back to this place for most of our meals throughout the weekend.  I highly recommend it if you’re ever in Greenville.

Friday night was once again uneventful.  M behaved and we got a decent night’s sleep.  Well-rested before going into “battle.”

Saturday the GNT competition started.  It would span two days.  On the first day, we played a round-robin, where every team played against every other team.  It would eliminate the field from 10 teams to 4.  The final four would play a knockout to determine the winner.

The first half of Saturday, it seemed like we couldn’t really do anything wrong.  In our first 5 (of 9) matches, we won big thrice and lost small twice.  We felt confident at dinner.  But then right after the dinner break, we lost big.  The good news is that the team we lost to was not one of the teams in contention.  Which is both good but also a little embarrassing.  All of a sudden, we were back in the middle of the pack, with 3 tough rounds to finish the day.  We managed small wins in all 3.  We ended the day 6 and 3.

We finished 2nd overall for the day, which means we would get to advance to the final four.  The 1st place finisher got to choose their opponent, and they chose the easiest team left.  That left us to play M’s team in the semi-finals.

Saturday night, we celebrated.  Someone had a cooler of beer and we polished it off while talking about hands.  Our teammates had arrived that morning, and were planning to drive across the street to a cheap motel that charged half-price after midnight.  They didn’t have a reservation.  I told them if they were unable to get a room (or it was too scary), they could sleep on our floor.  Somehow, that translated into them not even trying to get a room.  Everyone went upstairs and before i realized what had happened i was in a hotel room that had gotten very small, and i was sharing it with four men.

At first i thought this would be fine, but then the guys fired up their computers and started playing poker.  They were loud and a little bit drunk and telling jokes and one of them was singing.  It was amusing for awhile.  When everyone started to calm down, most of us were trying to sleep, except for one teammate who wanted to stay up and play on the computer.  Between the singing and the arguing about who should be going to sleep, i don’t think i got to sleep until 3 am.  And M, who had been so well-behaved the first two nights, was causing most of the ruckus.

Still, there is a certain camaraderie that comes from sharing close quarters with people.  We were mostly in good spirits the next day despite a rough night.

Sunday morning rolled around (too quickly), and two teams from Raleigh squared off, very likely the two best teams that were there.  We had hoped for a dramatic end and to get to play them in the final match.  This way, though, at least one team would get a head start on the long drive home.

At the half we were up on them, but they rallied in the second half.  Still, we managed a win of 9 IMPs.  It was a swingy set of bridge hands, and any one of them could be called The Swing Board.  This hand was one of them.

The final match was grueling, particularly at our table.  The pace was extremely slow.  Our teammates finished the first half and we still had five (of twelve) hands to play.  The result?  We were down 10 IMPs.  Not a large margin – as i said above, any one hand can produce enough of a swing to turn the tables.  After a pep talk from a teammate “We didn’t come this far to lose in the finals, guys,” we went back to finish the set.  Again, the pace was slow and grueling.  Every decision felt like it would matter.  Honestly, Lance and i did not have a particularly good set the second half.  Our opponents did a lot of things right.

The good news is, our teammates did a lot of things right, too.  They had enough to cover our butts.  And in the end, we won.  By 7 IMPs.

So.  We will be representing District 7 in the GNT Flight A competition in New Orleans at the end of July.  We were planning to attend the tournament anyway, but we wouldn’t have gotten to play in this event.  (In fact, it starts two days earlier than we had planned to arrive, so i had to adjust my travel plans.  I couldn’t assume we would win; that might have jinxed it!) The district gives us each $450 to help offset travel expenses.  The event will start with 24 teams and will last five days.  I hope we’re still there on the fifth day!

Tags: bridge

Bridge Week is finally over.  The Tarheel Regional Bridge Tournament was held from May 25-31 at the North Raleigh Hilton.  22 sessions of bridge were held, plus 3 midnight knockout events.  I played 19 of those sessions (but no midnights).  Lance also played 19 sessions and also two of the midnight events.  He’s crazier than i am.

This tournament is one of my favorite things.  Not only do i get to play bridge for a week (by the way, that’s 456 hands of bridge), but i get to hang out night and day with all the bridge player friends i have.  It’s just FUN.  Everyone has stories about bridge hands, and there’s opportunities to go out to dinner, or have a beer at the evening hospitality.  All the other bridge tournaments i go to are fun, too, but this one is mine.  It’s in my backyard, and i know the people running it, and there’s always someone i know nearby who wants to chat.

Aside from the first session, i played the entire tournament with Lance.  And even in that first session, Lance was on my Swiss team.  He is a great partner, and an excellent player.  It was a treat to get to play with him so much, particularly because we just don’t play that much together anymore.  He prefers day games while the only time i can play is in the evening.

We did well – we finished 3rd in almost every event we entered.  Sure, i would have liked to win something, but finishing 3rd gets your name in the daily bulletin and racks up a ton of masterpoints.  This was our dance card:

• Tues at 1 pm – Swiss teams (1 session) – 3rd place
• Tues at 7 pm, Wed at 9 am & 1 pm – Bracket II knockout – 3rd place.  We got knocked out in the semi-final round against the young pro team.  Since we didn’t qualify for the finals, we did not play bridge Wednesday evening.
• Thurs at 9 am – Bracket I Compact knockout – didn’t place.  This is the only event we didn’t place in.  It would have continued Fri at 9 am, but we slept in instead.
• Thurs at 1 pm & 7 pm – Bracket I Knockout – didn’t place.  We advanced to the second round, but my team sent me to draw our opponents, and i drew Meckstroth, Rodwell and the Poles.  Oops.
• Fri at 1 pm & 7 pm – 2-session Open Pairs – finished 3rd.  And i didn’t even play well in the first session.  If only i had…
• Sat at 9 am and Sun at 9 am – Bracket I Compact Knockout – finished 3rd.  I’m still not sure how we lost the semi-final round.
• Sat at 1 pm & 7 pm and Sun at 1 pm – Bracket I Knockout – finished 3rd.  I was starting to get sick on Saturday, so i was happy to take Sunday evening off and nurse my cold.
• Mon at 10 am & 2 pm – A/X Swiss Teams – finished 3rd in X and 6th overall.

By the end of the tournament, i was ready for it to be over.  Yes, i love bridge, but i love my normal routine, too.  And my dog, who we had to board because it was just too hectic to go to the house twice a day to take care of him.  (Boy was he glad to see us when we picked him up!)  I seem to always get sick at these tournaments, too, undoubtedly because of all the people and other people’s germs on the cards, combined with the fact that i bite my nails so it all goes into my mouth.

We’re tired, but happy.  We will get to do a mini version of this in two more weeks, when we head to Greenville, SC for the Grand National Teams competition, and try to win a free trip to the national tournament in New Orleans this summer.  We’ll go regardless, but would like to represent our district in Flight A if we can.

A few things learned this week:

• Reverse Flannery is a cool convention.  1m-2H shows 5-9 points and 5 spades and 4 hearts.  Very useful, and we even remembered it the two times it came up.
• Bidding is more fun at matchpoints.  But defense is more fun at teams.
• Ex-husbands will sometimes spend a few minutes talking with you about the legality of bridge conventions when you play similar systems.
• People will ask the darndest questions when you’re sitting behind the partnership desk.  “Where is the bathroom?”  Try turning around; it’s two feet behind you.  “Have you seen my cell phone?”  Um, no?  And you shouldn’t have it in the playing room anyway.  “Where is the ice machine?”  It’s a hotel, try looking in one of the hallways with rooms.
• Don’t open light in 3rd seat, even white on red, holding only 9xxxx AQ xxx Jxx.  You might think they will be afraid of missing a vully game, but they might just come after you instead and get 1100.
• A free hotel room sure is nice, but is probably not worth the price: manning the partnership desk an hour before every session (me) and staying up half the night creating the daily bulletin (lance).  Especially when you only live 5 minutes away.
• The tournament chair wants me to replace him, serving as a co-chair with him in 2 years and taking over after that.  Honestly, i will probably be good at it.

Tags: bridge

The Raleigh Sectional Bridge Tournament started on Thursday (yesterday) evening at 7 pm and will last through Sunday.  I am the partnership person; if you need a partner or teammate, i’m the one you call.  Thus, my name is one of two names on all the tournament fliers and publications.

Occasionally, i get calls that are not related to partnerships, either because people know me or couldn’t get an immediate answer from the tournament chair, which is the other number listed on the fliers.

Thursday night, it’s 8:15 pm when my cell phone vibrates in my pocket.  The bridge tournament is in full swing.  I’m in the middle of playing a hand, but i glance at my phone to see who is calling.  The caller ID says “RESTRICTED”.  Of course i can’t answer it, but whoever it was left a message.  A few moments later, i have a short break and step into the hallway to hear the following message.

Hello, i am not looking for a partner, i just need to get in touch with the tournament chair and i was hoping you could give me her phone number.  I don’t want you to have to pay for this call, so i guess i’ll just keep calling and hope you answer next time.

I am immediately amused by several different things all at once:

1. Cell phones are supposed to be off during bridge games (in fact you are penalized if a phone audibly rings).  It’s a fluke that i even had my phone on and noticed this phone call.
2. It is in the middle of a bridge session!  Even if i had my cell phone on, as i did, i can’t just answer the phone in the middle of playing!
3. Restricted?  How am i supposed to call you back and tell you what you need to know when you block your phone number?  Especially when you don’t leave a name or phone number in your message!
4. What century are you living in?  I live in the 21st century, where people have cell phones, all of which offer free long-distance on most calling plans.  You don’t have to worry about whether i will have to pay for the call.
5. Where did you get my phone number from anyway?  My guess is that it was from a flier or email publicizing our tournament (i don’t know where else it could have been from).  Guess what – the phone number you want is listed there right next to mine.

She did in fact call twice more, and of course i was unable to answer both times.  I’m very sorry, nice lady from the previous century.  I hope you found the information you needed.

Tags: bridge

This should be a fun project – please take a minute to share your immediate reactions to the statements below.

Bridge kind of has its own language.  Sometimes you catch snippets of people’s conversations, and you know the gist of what they’re talking about.  I’ve been aware at times, though, that perhaps my bridge conversations are NOT easy to figure out.

Another bridge blogger is also interested in this, and has compiled a list of sentences you might overhear in a discussion between bridge players.

So tell me, if you heard someone say any of these sentences, what would YOU think was being said?  Please share your thoughts for any or all of these.

1. I didn’t have the right hand to balance with a double!
2. You’re supposed to have a stiff when you splinter.
3. Why didn’t you try a double strip squeeze?
4. I was five, five, two, one with hearts and diamonds.
5. I was trying to save the beer card.
6. We used the VCR to find the grand.
7. I tried to signal for a club, but I only had high spots.
8. Jack third isn’t a real stopper.
9. It was a two-suiter.
10. I couldn’t make it after I got stuck in the dummy.
11. My righty hit it in the pass out seat.
12. Who won the Swiss?

Tags: bridge

If you know me at all, you know i’m a bridge fiend.  I normally play twice a week at the local club, and then sometimes on the weekends for nearby tournaments.  And then i ALSO use up my vacation days from work to travel around the country playing bridge.  In fact, Lance and i will be attending the San Diego North American Bridge Championship for 9 days around Thanksgiving.  Yes, for Thanksgiving i will not be with family – i choose bridge instead.  My parents don’t understand this, but i can’t help it.

The average age of bridge players belonging to the American Contract Bridge League is about 70.  And that’s with people like me bringing the average down!  Bridge used to be a staple in college cafeterias.  Now, young people may not even have heard of it.  More commonly, “oh, my parents play, but i never learned.”

So anytime bridge gets some press, i’m excited.  I don’t want this game to die out because no one plays anymore.  And recently the Wall Street Journal published an article about bridge. It starts off:

I am not sure if there are clinics that will help you get over bridge, but if there are not, then perhaps some enterprising entrepreneur will take up the idea. I think it would work, but the problem is that we all know what those admitted would do in their spare time. Exactly.

And somehow I feel it would not work. Addicts have to want to change, and most bridge players I know have no desire to do so.

Any exposure for bridge is good, in my opinion.  There are currently efforts to get bridge back in the schools, the most successful being the Atlanta Junior Bridge program.  Raleigh is attempting to start a junior bridge program as well, but we haven’t gotten our feet off the ground yet.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet (shown at right, playing in a tournament) have even gotten involved in supporting youth bridge.  I hope all of these things help revive a fabulous pastime.

Tags: bridge

I am the Partnership Chair for this weekend’s Raleigh Sectional Bridge Tournament.  If you need a partner for any session, contact me, and i will try to match you up with someone else who also needs a partner.  The tournament starts today, and so far i have paired up a dozen people or so.  There will be more work to do during the tournament as people try to find last-minute partners.

It’s somewhat stressful, but i’ve learned that it’s OK to fail.  The partnership desk is a hub, not a guarantee of a partner.  I will match you up with other people who are also looking, but i’m not going to make a dozen phone calls on your behalf.  If you won’t do it for yourself, why should i?

But anyway, based on this year’s tournaments, here is a list of Do’s and Don’t's for Using the Partnership Desk to Find a Partner.

• DO email or call at least a few days in advance.
• DO leave a phone number as well as an email address.  Email will not help me contact you an hour before gametime Saturday morning when time is of the essence.
• DON’T call me from four hours away the day the tournament starts requiring a guaranteed partner for the next three days or else you won’t come at all.  You might as well have just not called, because there is no way i can guarantee you will have partners.
• DO proactively tell me if you find a partner on your own for a time slot you submitted to me.  Otherwise i may pair you unwittingly with someone else, and then everyone gets confused and agitated.
• DON’T ask me to find you another partner because the one i paired you with plays too many conventions.  Have you ever heard of partnership negotiation?  Just tell him you don’t play four-way transfers and move on!
• DO arrive early to meet your partner/teammates and talk about a convention card.
• DON’T show up late for a partnership i have arranged for you and then be disappointed when i found another partner for that person because you were a no-show.
• DON’T expect me to accommodate your exacting requirements for the type of partner or teammates that you want.  I’m just not going to be able to get you the congenial partner who has an instinct for bridge and doesn’t make mistakes and has something to teach you without being a jerk, who also doesn’t have many points so you don’t have to play in the top strat.  I actually know a player who meets that perfect description, but guess what – he has his pick of partners, so he’s probably not going to play with you.  Sorry.
• DON’T call the Partnership Desk and then turn your nose up at players i suggest to you.  Ever hear the expression “beggars can’t be choosers, bitch”?
• DO understand that if you were difficult to please in previous tournaments, i will probably not go out of my way to help you this time.  And i won’t feel bad about it.

Tags: bridge

We’re back from the DC Nationals.  We were eliminated from the Spingold Knockout Teams last night.  The session ended at midnight.  We were home at 5 am.  (I take after my father – a road warrior.)  Lance and Malcolm were a great help, talking to me the whole drive to keep me awake.  Things were getting somewhat bleak and we were all tired around 3:30, but someone started a conversation about women bridge players not being as good as men bridge players.  That got my blood boiling enough to keep me awake the rest of the way home.

As i mentioned in my last post, Lance and i entered a 3-day pairs event, the Von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs.  We played well the first day and made the cut (60% were eliminated) to compete in the second day.  On the second day, we were outmatched.  I take most of the blame onto myself – i did not play particularly well.  But the bridge was amazing.  It’s truly a different game to play with people of that caliber.

Our third day, since we were not in the finals of the LM Pairs event, we played 3 sessions of regional pairs.  Nothing went right for us.  One of the fun things, though, was how many people we knew from Raleigh and the Triad who were also there in DC.  We’d have lunch with some folks, run in to a few others at the bridge table, and drink at the bar at the end of the day with even more other folks.  It was pretty fun.

Monday was our final day, and we entered the Spingold Knockout Teams event, another national event.  83 teams entered.  A few teams got byes to the second day, while the rest of us played 4-way matches.  The event is seeded, so when the top 7 teams got byes, the first bracket is seeds 8, 83, 27, 64.  The second bracket is seeds 9, 82, 28, 63.  We were seeded 58th; our bracket contained seeds 14, 77, 33, 58.  In a 4-way match, the two top teams play the two bottom teams for 32 boards, and if you win, you advance.  If you lose, you have to play a second set against the loser of the other match, and the winner of that match also advances.  So three of four move on to the next day.  We thought our chances were pretty good – we weren’t even the lowest seed in our bracket.

The top (14) seed in our bracket contained Steve Robinson, and his team advanced.  Our squad faced Buffalo Bill Pettis (33) and his team.

You play half the boards and then compare with your teammates to see how you’re doing, then you play the final 16.  Lance and i had an awesome first set.  A mistake here or there, nothing too costly.  We bid our games and slams, took our tricks (Lance had an awesome endplay to gain 6 IMPs) and put up some good defenses.  Our opponents, the Buffalo himself, made a couple of errors – didn’t bid what seemed like an obvious slam, and let me make a vulnerable 3NT (which got set FIVE at the other table, for a swing of 15 huge IMPs).  But despite this huge swing, our teammates didn’t bid that “obvious” slam either, and we gave back some of our lead along the way.  Still, after 16 boards, we were up by 2.

Lance and i played extremely solid in the second set as well.  It’s possible that we made no errors in that second set of 16 boards.  We wanted a win.  Knocking off a higher seed, having to call work to say, sorry i can’t come back yet because i’ve advanced in a national bridge event, getting to play a lower seeded team with real chances to advance again… i could taste it.

Alas, it wasn’t to be.  To use a baseball analogy, we pitched extremely well for 9 innings, but got no run support, and ended up losing the game.  By 2 lousy IMPs.

We had a second chance, against the losers of the other match in our bracket.  They were seeded lower than us, so surely we could outmatch them.  In the first half, lance and i played well once again.  The opponents once again did a couple of goofy things, missed a slam, etc.  We seriously thought we were possibly up by 40.  However, we got back to the table and our teammates said “Brace yourselves, it’s bad.”  We were down by 36.  The number of times they went for -200 and -300 were appalling.  We were unable to get it back in the second half.

And so, 15 minutes after midnight, we were in the car for an all-night drive back to Raleigh.

What can you do?  I admit i am disappointed.  I have never felt so locked-in and focused.  As Lance remarked, “Whoa, when i’m really paying attention, it’s like i can see their cards!”

There will be other tournaments, though, and other big events in which we will play well.  I have a few takeaways from this tournament on what i can do to improve.  And i will prove to those boys that women players are not inferior to men!

Tags: bridge