Memorable Atlanta regional

The Atlanta regional last week was one of the most memorable tournaments. Emory was inducted to the Georgia Bridge Hall of Fame, and Bryan and I teamed with Emory and Olin for a respectable showing - 2nd in a KO, 3rd in Sunday Swiss, and just missed overalls in the Monday Swiss. We ended up being the only team to beat Meckwell all week (in the semis of a KO). In addition to the bridge and the ceremony, I had a ton of fun hanging out with some really awesome friends.

 

A critical deal in that match was when Levin and Weinstein had the uncontested auction 1C-1H; 1S-5C; P. What do you think he should have for this 5C call? Basically, is it exclusion or natural? I believe it's exclusion, that's what I thought at the table, and that's what Levin intended. I'd be interested in hearing their post mortem about this. Meanwhile a bunch of good players were pretty much split on the issue but many said they wouldn't bid it without having previously discussed it. Tim Crank had the interesting idea that it should be exclusion but for hearts instead of spades. For spades, you can splinter and then bid exclusion; there are lots of ways to bid clubs (and 5C natural here is a rather unilateral decision especially when the opponents aren't in the auction); but there's not really any way to set hearts and then exclusion for hearts with a club void. You'd have to go through 4th suit forcing and then bid hearts and a 5C bid over that would still be very nebulous.

 

Yesterday I finished up the September D7 News as well so like will be kind of calm for awhile for 3 weeks. After that, the fall looks busy again. I'll probably make to 8 tournaments with 4 or 5 different partners between Sept 26 and the end of the year - all just weekend trips except the Charleston regional at the end of the year.

 

I don't particularly like my column this time. There are a couple of other things I wanted to write about - relationships in bridge including drama with the youth programs/international teams, reasons people quit bridge, the bridge rating/mp system as compared to tennis/chess/scrabble - but couldn't organize my thoughts in a coherent manner.