The meeting, leagues, collegiates, BAM, spins

These past two days have been too much fun to sit down and blog about, mostly because it seemed silly to spend time writing when there were matches to watch, games to play, and people to see. Now that the collegiate team match is over and we got knocked out of the Spingolds, it's time to write an entry.

For all my pent up anger about the way the ACBL should listen more to juniors, the meeting with Rick Beye, the Chief tournament director, couldn't have gone better. There were only two juniors not from our road-trip there (Jeff from UCLA and Andrew Dubai), but Rick was totally cool, upfront and willing to listen at the meeting. Future collegiate events will probably either have 8 teams qualify again, and/or have some sort of playoff between bracket runners-up, or just be an unbracketed Swiss. If he acts on what the people there said, it will be a much more fun and legitimate event down the road.

Another thing that came up in the meeting was an idea I had pitched to Alex and Eric months ago but was independently brought up by Jeff: a year-round internet ladder for colleges that is sanctioned by the ACBL. Eric and I are supposed to draft up a "Conditions of Contest" for Rick sometime in the next few weeks. If it's successful perhaps even open it up to juniors who are not students. This could be a great thing next year, and you heard it here first!

The collegiate finals between UCLA and Stanford were close until the very last quarter, where UCLA got a couple of big swings to edge Stanford out. They qualified for the all-day final by being in a round robin in which they each tied with about 46, while Princeton and Queens college each had about 18. I was playing during the finals, so I didn't get to see the match, but by all accounts my friends played well and it was a tough loss. Princeton obliterated Queens in the consolation match for 3rd, and I watched some of that - you could tell that Queens was a little shaky. Seeing any mediocre team of course made me wish Yale had been there to show our stuff, but at least Stanford made us look like a good team by finishing so far ahead of two other qualifiers.

We celebrated merrily Saturday and Sunday nights with various groups of juniors. There was plenty eating, barring, and still more gaming: no bridge of course, lots of Mafia and Taboo and creights. It's just such a blast to hang out with nice people who play bridge when there's no schoolwork to go back to or to put off. I'm know there are some readers of the blog who would be making it even more fun if you were here: you know who you are.

What's actually happened at the bridge table? Well, on Friday night, we played in a one session Swiss with Jon Ullman (from Princeton) and Lovey and Argenta, and got third C, which was just fine. Sunday afternoon we played in a B/C/D Swiss with Mike and Lovey, Niel and Helen, and Argenta and I as a 6 person team... and we played awfully. Let's not talk about it, we just thought to compress all our bad results into one match. So far, a bit whatever.

Then Sunday night came the one-session BAM(!). It was the first BAM(!) for all us, and we had no idea what to expect. Now, one session night events usually draw losers from the morning session, so they are often easy to do well in, but we were some of the only B or C pairs there, so we thought we were going to get creamed. Playing with Lovey, and our new friends Niel and Helen, we racked up a 60% and a C section top and good overall B award, which was really fun.

For those who don't know, BAM is a format where you play 2 boards against each other team, and whoever does better (no matter by how much) on a board gets 1 point. If you lose, you get 0, and if you tie, you get .5. So it encourages you to take ridiculous risks, since losing by 1000 is the same as losing by 10. We did take this too far in the beginning though, including doubling a couple making contracts for zeros and overbidding for a slam with no play. Then we got the message and started playing for plus scores and overtricks, which worked out great. It's such a trip: like matchpoints, but more so.

Today we got knocked out in the Itsy-bitsy-Spingolds in a three-way match where only one team survives, playing with Ullman and his partner David. The scores were 67-48 and 69-66 against us. Our opponents were really pleasant, so it was fun, but I think we could have beaten both of them on a better day. In the closer match, we bid a 6NT that was 75% but going down on the lie of the cards for a 26 IMP swing, and in the other match we made plenty of errors and quasi-unlucky calls. On the first board of the day, I overcalled 3C over 1S holding

x
QTx
KQT9xxx
xx

and they cuebid 4C, Lovey bid 5C, and righty bid 6C. Now what do you do? I doubled, showing extra length, and when it went around to righty he bid 6S. I couldn't help myself, I bid 7C, which I should probably let Lovey decide to do. But he was holding:

xxx
9x
Jxxxx
Axx

and promises he'd have bid 7C anyhow (what a good partner). Down 5 for 1100 appeared to be a good result, but since their diamonds are 4-4 and the heart jack in is righty's hand, 6S would go down. Our teammates bid 7S - unlucky, but irrelevant for minus 16 IMPS. By my reckoning, from my hand 6S is on about 70% of the time if pard has an ace (winning 8 imps for 5.6 in expectation) and is off 30% (-4.8 in expectation), for a slightly positive action not counting that it might cause them to bid 7S and go down no matter what. If we have no aces it's obviously always right. I think my only mistake is not to bid 7C immediately to confuse whether or not to bid 7S, but on this day, we started out down 16.

Tomorrow, we try some fast pairs, and maybe a little nuplicate with Argenta and her Mom, which should be hilarious. Nationals rocks, I'll write again soon.