1680

It feels good to see my name at the top of the masterpoint list for the Macon sectional. http://web2.acbl.org/tournaments/results/2011/01/1101018.htm#1 Except for a 95ish table sectional in Valdosta a few years ago where I won about 16MP, this is the first time I've been the masterpoint leader for a whole tournament, but that's mostly because I rarely play a whole tournament. No one tried to refer to Meg as Dana, although 2 people who certainly had not met Meg before talked as if they had seen her with me at the Macon club before.

Anyway, here's an amusing hand from our third match in the Swiss. It was a turning point for us.We were at 23VPs on a 20 average after losing to one of the top teams in round 2 and already went down in a makable game in this round.
We had the following auction:
1♣-P-1♠-P; 2♥-P-3♠-P; 4NT-P-5♦-P; 6♠-X-P-P; 6NT-X-P-P; P.
1♣ was a weak NT or any big hand, 1♠ was 8+ with 4+ spades, 2♥ was natural game forcing, 3♠ showed a self-sufficient suit, 5♦ showed 3 keycards. A fairly straightforward auction. My rho, a good player, doubled and Meg quickly corrected to 6NT and we had 12 top tricks as long as Meg's ♣K stayed protected on opening lead. The doubler had like an 11-count with ♣AQ.

Meg had ♠Q, ♥AKJxxx, ♦AKx, ♣Kxx
I had ♠AKJxxxxx, ♥-, ♦Tx, ♣JTx

Doubling 6NT only cost 1 imp because they stopped in game at the other table but passing 6♠ and getting a club lead would have been disastrous to us. The next hand they were pushing and bid a 6♦ slam off 2 cashing aces so we came away with a big win and did not look back after that.

Doubling a slam generally calls for the lead of dummy's first bid suit, but in this case, since 1♣ was artificial, is dummy's first bid suit clubs or hearts? I tend to think the double would ask for a heart lead, but most others think it calls for a club lead. Eh.

Macon Winter Sectional

I'm gonna need a lot more practice before making a regular habit of playing online poker for money. With Robins AFB closed this Monday and part of Tuesday due to icy roads, I took that time to play dozens of sit-and-go's on Poker Stars. It looks like I played about 30 of them with a $3 buy-in and $.25 entry fee and ended up some $40 in red.

Anyway, the Macon sectional starts Friday. This is the 4th year I've been living here and it looks like I'll be continuing the streak of bringing different young players for this tournament, at least the one in January. For the tournament in August, I tend to play with locals or my dad. In 2008, before he started playing and teaching full-time, Robert Todd came for the sectional and we had very mediocre results. In 2009, my GT friend (and best drinking buddy I've ever had although Alli and Mike are close now) Ramesh took the Greyhound bus to spend a weekend playing with me when my canape system was still in infancy. In 2010, Sean, who many of the locals already knew, came to play with me but grabbing all the attention was Dana Berkowitz playing with pick-up partners. From time to time, people here still ask me about her and if there is/was romantically involved with either me or Sean (awkward), and I'm kind of thinking that when the locals see me playing with Meg Myers this weekend, they're gonna think she's Dana. Now, they don't look alike to me, but really - how many attractive white 20-something year old bridge-playing ladies with long black hair very fashionably dressed could I have as friends who would come to a sectional in Macon? They did mistake Sean for another kid last time he was here, even though most of them had seen Sean at least a couple of times before. To be fair, Sean does actually look like John Albanese.