Preparing for the Atlanta NABC

So, the NABC is coming up in a few days in Atlanta. For me it will be very different experience from previous NABCs, mostly because it's kind of at home and partly because of what I'll be playing in and with whom I'll be playing.

When flying to an NABC there are very few logistical issues because there isn't really a choice - you must fly, you must stay at a hotel downtown, you can't bring your pet. When the NABC is in your home town, there also isn't really a choice - you're staying at home. When the NABC is this in-between distance of 95 miles away from home, there are several logistical options, and I can't decide what to do:

a) Take Winter and staying at a cheap suburban hotel, not unlike what I do for regionals in the district. With the 10 & 3 start times, that would effectively make it similar to my regular lifestyle, only with a much more interesting "work day" and incentives to go out late night.
b) Commute from home. It's about a 1.5 hour drive as long as traffic is okay.
c) Treat this like most NABCs by leaving Winter with my parents or in a kennel while I go all out playing bridge, socializing, eating, and drinking.

The 10 and 3 start times are particularly draining because bedtime doesn't really change. I won't be able to resist going to bars or playing midnight games if I am in the area, so if I leave Winter home alone, I'll be forced to drive home right after the game and no longer be in the area. Basically, this schedule just means we have 4 extra hours after the bridge game to drink and 3 fewer hours to sleep in the morning. This logic is urging me to go with option b, at least for part of the time, even though I know that is not a very practical plan. I kind of wanted to boycott the tournament to express my displeasure with the start times but it's just too damn convenient, and furlough Fridays mean I can play 6 days without using any vacation.

So, I'm playing mid-bracket regional knockouts the first Friday-Sunday. That'll be a possibly welcome big change of pace from the stressful top bracket knockouts I've been playing a lot of in the last couple of months. Monday I'm going into the office before coming back to play the last 6 days with Cristal in NABC events. Good teammates for the Mixed BAM and Open Swiss would be appreciated.

Last time the NABC was in Atlanta in 2005, I had a summer job working on updating the software for a flooring company just outside Atlanta while also working as a teaching assistant at GT. I lived in Buckhead across the street from a Marta station so commuting to the tournament was really easy. Life was pretty awesome. However, I wasn't a particularly competitive bridge player. Being a regular college kid was too appealing.

I think I played a couple of days but I don't remember with whom or anything like that. I do, however, remember going to the awesome Swichfoot concert with Amanda instead of playing bridge one of the Saturdays during the tournament. I had my priorities straight back then. Well, I still have priorities in the same order today - there are just fewer non-bridge opportunities.

8 Ever, 9 Never - LM Pairs Semi-Final

If I blindly followed the 8 ever 9 never rule, I would have never gone down 7, and would have almost certainly made the third day of the LM pairs, and wouldn't have this cool story about how my play from dummy at trick 3 was a 7 trick swing. If you pay attention to me on Facebook, you've probably already seen this.

At favorable vulnerability against Hampson and Greco, I picked up
ATx, AJxxx, QJxx, Kx.
It went P-3S to me. Pass I think is the correct call here (and I even thought so at the time) but I bid 3NT anyway. In dummy I found
xx, KTxx, Axxx, Jx.

We have a heart fit but 4H is still almost sure to go down while 3NT can make. If I pick up hearts for no losers and diamonds split with the K onside there are 9 easy tricks and even if LHO has 4 diamonds, it will become a fairly easy endplay with Hampson having to give me a club at the end. So after the S9 lead, I pondered at trick 1 for a minute or so before playing both major suit aces and then a heart to the ten. Greco took his Q and 6 spades and Hampson then ran his clubs for down 7 and -350.

Since I'm going to need the DK onside anyway to make, it is probably better to work on that suit first. I would find that the preemptor had a singleton diamond and then I would be much better positioned to get hearts right. -350 was worth 1.5 matchpoints while +400 would have been 86 on a 90 top.

Against the other top seed we played on Saturday (Bob Hamman and Justin Lall), they bid aggressively and went down a couple in a bad 4H contract and then I picked off their spade fit by overcalling with a 12 count and 4 decent spades instead of passing or doubling. That got us -430 instead of -450 and another good score but not enough to overcome all of the less than stellar things we did.

Philadelphia is a very nice city and I would like to have stayed longer but I have used enough vacation this summer and I don't think I could handle the 10 and 3 start times much longer.

Back to reality

The return trip from a long bridge tournament is always sad. At NABCs (and most mid-Atlantic regionals) I can't keep still and rest. It's ten days of non-stop social activity and mental stimulation. Tomorrow resumes a much more mundane life but I still have a lot going on in August including 2 bridge tournaments and a tennis tournament.

Personal totals for the tournament:
26 sessions of bridge, including 8 midnight games
208 deals in matchpoint games
336 deals in imp scoring
32 masterpoints won (3 platinum, 22 gold, 7 red)
3 different partners (6 deals each with Josh and Shaz, the rest with Sean)
34 alcoholic drinks
5 visits to Chipotle
4 meals of Indian food

We managed 2nd place four times (in a bracketed KO and 3 midnight games) but did not win anything so did not come back with any of the maple syrup section top prizes.

A wise top-notch bridge player (jlall) has said that in matchpoints when the auction goes 2NT-P-P, you should double. When the opponents have 20hcp opposite a near yarborough, they go down much more often then they make because of having to lead from hand so often. In side games on the last day, I got a chance to try this theory out twice. Both times dummy hit with a nice 4-count and we wound up giving up an extra overtrick in desperation, scoring -1090 and -690. Maybe next time we'll get +800.

We now have at least one more person on board the Swedish Canape train. Yay.

Sent from my iPhone

Mini-Spingold (under 5000)

I must say I am impressed with the competition in the mini-Spingold so far. It's clearly a tougher field than I thought it would be. The Whipple team, the heavy favorites to win, just squeaked through day 1 and lost in day 2. Our team, who I had high expectations for, narrowly lost in day 2 as well. The Lewis team including David Sokolow beat us by 17 and beat the lavee team (including a world champion and some other low-level pros) by 73 today. We had an incredibly fun match against them. Needless to say I am rooting for them to make it to the finals.

The other team I hope makes it to the finals is the Dezieck team (including my 4 new favorite bridge people Shaz Taslimi, Nicholas Smith, Alex Dezieck, and Josh Parks). They surprised a lot of people making it to the quarterfinals free beating the team that clobbered Alli Howard and Scott Stearns yesterday.

The results from the mini Spingold and all of NABC can be found at http://www.acbl.org/nabc/index.php?a=2011&b=Summer&c=daily_bulletins

I guess I'm playing the nabc fast pairs tomorrow and Friday. Sean and I will be doing something we've never done together before - play 2/1.

As Long as He Needs Me

Things are right with the bridge world, at least in the sense that there's no drama surrounding me and my bridge partners or other potential partners in the other sense of the word. I mean, I still want a do-over for February 26 - March 26. I may have been as insane for that month than I was for the month right after it was officially over with Hillery, which is pretty hard to top. Actually, I want a do-over all the way back to the last weekend of January but I actually doubt I'd do anything differently until about day 2 in Reno. I knew all along that even going to the spring nationals in Reno was a bad idea, but I am stubborn and was insanely optimistic about how well mila and i would do and that I would get along well with her and dana and the other kids. It's too hard to turn down such a seemingly fun trip, though. I guess there was one good part of the trip - hanging out with Alli a lot at the bar, so I at least gained one new friend there. Eh. Why am I even thinking about that today? That's all water under the bridge. Why am I even awake at 3:30am?

So, I'm looking forward to 9 days in New Orleans sans drama, stalkers, sex issues, other similar things. I'm playing 3 days with my dad and 6 days with Sean. It'll be more like a real vacation than another bridge trip. I hope. Looking forward to briefly seeing dana and mila and bryan, and sleeping in every day and drinking a lot, and playing some fun bridge.