...from the Atlanta NABC

There are a lot of things I have to complain about and a lot of crap that I've had to deal with during this tournament, mainly arranging teammates, failing at arranging dinner plans, and most recently having a date scheduled and her not showing up or calling. I really could go on and on about those frustrations but this will be a happy post.

The first three days, I played with Jule and Sean and we were 3rd/4th in a KO. It was a pleasant enough time, complicated greatly by bringing my dog with me and driving around Jule and Jim Wall and his wheelchair. I was glad to assist and those three days were actually pretty fun.

Tuesday through Friday, I played with Cristal Nell and it has been rather pleasant. Coming in, I didn't really know what to expect bridge-wise, but she is a fine partner and we got along great. I've found myself trying to be more aggressive than usual because it was immediately clear that she, like me, is typically a conservative bidder. I believe that over 9 sessions there was only 2 bidding misunderstanding both surrounding transfers over doubles. 41st in the Wernher Open Pairs. Tonight someone commented that she keeps moving on to better partners: from Mitch to JDonn to me! I'm sure there will be a repeat, but I am disappointed I didn't get to play an NABC event with Sean, given all of our recent success in regionals.

Today some of my favorite bridge people and Arjun won the 0-5000 spingold - Max Aeschbacher, Alex Dezieck, and Josh Parks. Yay!

While I still think 10:00 is too early to have to be playing bridge, I do really like the bar atmosphere better with these starts. there's a lot more time to relax at dinner without being concerned about having to be back at a particular time and with games ending at 6:30 there's just more time to socialize. with the traditional start times, bridge doesn't finish until 11 pm and if you play midnights, there leaves very little time to chatm find out who won what, and enjoy the hospitality before playing again.

I'm tired and I probably should have gone to sleep hours ago, but it's hard to turn my brain off.