Aaaaand we're back (Compression)

Hello again! We (Alex and Jon) have decided to restart this (ex)-Yale bridge blog for the duration of our trip to the Las Vegas NABC. Maybe this will become a regular NABC thing?

This year, we qualified with teammates Dan Wolkowitz and Peter Zoogman for the GNT Cs as the team from New England. For those of you who don't know what the GNT Cs are, it's a "Grand National Teams"... for teams who aren't very good (who roughly have less than 300 masterpoints). The best part about the GNTs is that it's one of the few events where you get a travel stipend. Thanks district 25!

Peter Zoogman had a conflict, so we picked up Dan Recht as our fourth. Dan R started the Princeton club and went to high school with Jon. We got in Tuesday night, iced our Focus water, and synched our sleep schedules with Pacific time for the first day.

The first day of the GNT is a full-day Swiss, with 7 board matches, to compress the field from 23 teams to 16. Compression turned out to be a theme of the day.

In our first match, we enjoyed the full benefit of the VP scale being capped at 20. In 7 boards, we managed to lose 72 to nothing(!!!). Jon and an undisclosed Princetonian each managed to blow enough hands to have us get blitzed individually. For Jon's part, he gave up a trick while trying to cash out a 3NT, and letting a doubled vulnerable contract make when it should go down two. Dan R even managed to pass a Blackwood-asking bid. To top it all off, our opponents bid a 6NT that is only about 9% (if you get the 2-way guess right), which happens to make.

However, the magic of bridge scoring prevents you from losing so much in any one match, or in any one hand, that you can't recover. So we had a good laugh and, having gotten (most of) the bugs out, we managed to fight our way back to above average by the end of the first half. Lovey contributed many good boards, including this one.

Auction:
You Opp Pard Opp
3D-x-4D-4S
all pass.

Your hand:
S Jxx
H void
D AK96532
C Jxx

Lovey underled the AK to Jon's Q, and Jon, holding 5 hearts over Dummy's 6, got the joke and gave a heart ruff, ultimately setting the contract. Lovey thinks this is not that hard but it was pretty dramatic at the table.

In the second half, hilarity continued in match #6. Now you may remember that Dan R had passed an ace-asking bid in match #1. Partner opens 1NT and you (Dan W) hold the following cards:

AKQxxxx
xx
xx?
xx

You bid gerber, and Dan R bids 4H, showing 1/3 aces in their (hastily discussed) methods. Do you bid 5C, asking for kings? Dan W decided that it was too risky and bid 6NT, fearing pard screw up Gerber again and pass. Unfortunately, it was too late for that - Dan W had ALREADY screwed it up! His hand:

xx
AKJTx
Txx
AKx

Dan R had considered opening a heart (and maybe should have, according to some). Quoth the Recht: "For one second, I thought I had bid hearts. Unfortunately, it was for the second I was bidding." 6NT (chosen to avoid a ruff) turned out to be an unlucky decision and opps run 6 diamonds off the top, down 5.

In the almost-as-hiarlious replay:

Op JB Op AL
1H-3D-3S--Pass
4C-P--4NT-Pass
5H-P--6S--All pass

Lovey leads the A from Ax of diamonds, and Jon signals with the J (what DOES that mean exactly, from KQJT9x)? Figuring that our opps would never bid 6S with two dead in the suit Jon preempted, Lovey leads one of his 5 hearts hoping Jon would ruff. However, he had unfortunately forgotten Jon declined to double a 5H Blackwood and overestimated the field a bit. 18 IMPs helped contribute to yet another blitz.

However, we ended up qualifying somehow - 11th out of 16. We were certainly happy that our day of crazy mistakes didn't cost us our tournament lives, and we're looking forward to our all-day match against District 7 (6th seed) today.

In other news, congrats to the new junior USA 2 - Victor, Eric, Kevin, and Roger! They'll probably add two before heading to Beijing in October.