WWTBAM Bored

I arrived yesterday in Las Vegas to begin competition at the Summer Nationals in Flight A of the Grand National Teams event. The event starts with a two-session qualifying event in the Swiss format, with the top 16 teams qualifying for knockout play. We finished third of the 24 teams that started the event, so we had third choice of opponents from among the bottom half of qualifiers. Next up is a two-session knockout match against our selected opponent. —Bob

Bob78164 wrote:I arrived yesterday in Las Vegas to begin competition at the Summer Nationals in Flight A of the Grand National Teams event. The event starts with a two-session qualifying event in the Swiss format, with the top 16 teams qualifying for knockout play. We finished third of the 24 teams that started the event, so we had third choice of opponents from among the bottom half of qualifiers. Next up is a two-session knockout match against our selected opponent. —Bob

Break a slam or whatever!

Giada's restaurant is overrated.

By the way, if anyone wants to follow our progress in this event, we’re the Piken team from District 23. This link should take you to the bracket. We qualified third to get into the 16-team knockout bracket, so we got third choice of our opponent from the bottom half of the bracket. This link should take you to the bracket. https://live.acbl.org/event/NABC192/GNTA/0/bracket

I think they post each quarter’s scores as they’re reported. —Bob

Be still my heart.

Bob78164 wrote:By the way, if anyone wants to follow our progress in this event, we’re the Piken team from District 23. This link should take you to the bracket. We qualified third to get into the 16-team knockout bracket, so we got third choice of our opponent from the bottom half of the bracket. This link should take you to the bracket. https://live.acbl.org/event/NABC192/GNTA/0/bracket

I think they post each quarter’s scores as they’re reported. —Bob

Watch out for the Prawn team from District 9.

It was a nailbiter at the half, which saw us clinging to a 1 IMP lead. We managed to remove most of the suspense in the third quarter and turned it into a laugher in the fourth quarter. Next up, the quarterfinals. —Bob

It was close for a while but we never led and never won a quarter. We’re out of the event after losing in the quarterfinals. That was good for 19.13 gold points.

Tomorrow (and, I hope, Sunday) I’ll play the national 0-10,000 point pair event. —Bob

We qualified for the second day of the national event and are sitting third overall going into the finals. What’s more, the 8.03 gold points for yesterday’s efforts, combined with the 19.13 gold points already in the bank from the team event, pushes my tournament total to 27.16 and my lifetime total above 5000. So I am officially a Diamond Life Master.

Well, to be technically precise, although my points are in the bank thy won’t officially be awarded until the events conclude today. So I’m actually becoming a Diamond Life Master on my birthday. —Bob

Our game today was at best mediocre. Thanks to our carryover, we did manage to hold onto a spot in the overalls, but our section awards from yesterday were worth more than the overall award, so I didn’t add any points to my tournament total, which remains at 27.16. Finishing in the overalls did convert 0.78 points from gold to platinum, bringing me that much closer to the 200 platinum points I need to be eligible to play in the Platinum Pairs.

Next up, regionally rated events on Monday and Tuesday. —Bob

Bob78164 wrote:Our game today was at best mediocre. Thanks to our carryover, we did manage to hold onto a spot in the overalls, but our section awards from yesterday were worth more than the overall award, so I didn’t add any points to my tournament total, which remains at 27.16. Finishing in the overalls did convert 0.78 points from gold to platinum, bringing me that much closer to the 200 platinum points I need to be eligible to play in the Platinum Pairs.

Next up, regionally rated events on Monday and Tuesday. —Bob

We had a good first session in today’s regional pair game but failed to back it up with a reasonable second session. Missed the overalls but scored 3.88 gold points for the first session, bringing my tournament total to 31.04 points. Tomorrow will be another regional pair game, and then it’s on to national events. —Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:Our game today was at best mediocre. Thanks to our carryover, we did manage to hold onto a spot in the overalls, but our section awards from yesterday were worth more than the overall award, so I didn’t add any points to my tournament total, which remains at 27.16. Finishing in the overalls did convert 0.78 points from gold to platinum, bringing me that much closer to the 200 platinum points I need to be eligible to play in the Platinum Pairs.

Next up, regionally rated events on Monday and Tuesday. —Bob

We had a good first session in today’s regional pair game but failed to back it up with a reasonable second session. Missed the overalls but scored 3.88 gold points for the first session, bringing my tournament total to 31.04 points. Tomorrow will be another regional pair game, and then it’s on to national events. —Bob

Yesterday’s good session got upgraded by what was described asa “score correction” to 4.43 gold points, so my tournament total going into the day was actually 31.59 points. Today we had a below-average first session. Our second session was quite good, netting us 5.40 gold points and moving us to 17th overall in the event. The section top was worth more than the 3.50 overall award, so my tournament total is now 36.99 points.

I’m not sure yet which national event we’ll play tomorrow. Most likely it’ll be the Wernher Open Pairs, but there’s some chance we’ll be introduced to good teammates and play the Freeman Mixed Board-a-Match Teams instead. Either way, I’m hoping to finally finish in the overalls of an open national event. —Bob

Partner and I didn’t play well this afternoon. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that our score, nonetheless, was a little over average. We had a much more solid second session, racking up 55%, good for 1.88 platinum points and comfortable qualification for the second and final day of the event. My tournament total now stands at 38.87.

Tomorrow, the finals of the Wernher Open Pairs. —Bob

Actually managed to lose points yesterday. A score correction reduced our award for Wednesday’s evening session from 1.88 to 1.79 platinum points, so my tournament total is 38.78. Partner and I had two poor sessions so we didn’t add to that total. We did get to play a round against James Holzhauer and his (hired) partner, though. We chatted a little, and I introduced myself as the inventor of Shore’s Conjecture. He seemed pleasant enough.

Tomorrow is the first day of the tournament’s last national event, the Roth Swiss Teams. I’m playing in one of my best and most established partnerships with probably the best teammates I regularly play with. I hope we do well. —Bob

Bob78164 wrote:Actually managed to lose points yesterday. A score correction reduced our award for Wednesday’s evening session from 1.88 to 1.79 platinum points, so my tournament total is 38.78. Partner and I had two poor sessions so we didn’t add to that total. We did get to play a round against James Holzhauer and his (hired) partner, though. We chatted a little, and I introduced myself as the inventor of Shore’s Conjecture. He seemed pleasant enough.

Tomorrow is the first day of the tournament’s last national event, the Roth Swiss Teams. I’m playing in one of my best and most established partnerships with probably the best teammates I regularly play with. I hope we do well. —Bob

Holzhauer didn't do very well in the WSOP last month despite partnering with Mike Sexton.

This one was really, really frustrating. We were in great shape at the halfway point, but we lost all four of our evening matches by just enough to finish a smidgen below the cut line. This is the first time I’ve been able to play this event with a team I was happy with. We just didn’t get it done.

We won three matches to add 1.59 platinum points to my tournament total, bringing it to 40.37. Tomorrow we’re playing a regionally rated Compact Knockout Teams event. —Bob

Got knocked out of the Compact Knockout in the second round by losing a couple of winnable matches, for a match award of 1.34 red points and relegation to the evening “loser Swiss.” We won three of our four matches in the Swiss, but our loss was big and two of our wins were small, so we only picked up match awards of an additional 0.75 red points. That brings my tournament total to 42.46 points with one day to go.

Tomorrow we’re playing a two-session regional Swiss, then it’s time to hit the road and head back home. —Bob

We finished 15th overall, good for 5.22 gold points and a final tournament total of 47.68 points. We did have one match of note. After the lunch break, we sat down against our new opponents and exchanged the usual pleasantries, typically including, "Where are you from?" Upon learning that partner and I are from California, the player in the West seat chose to volunteer, "Well, I know you're not fans of Trump in California, but I am." No response from anyone at the table.

The play was another story. The West player had several decisions to make during our seven boards against that team, and got pretty much every one of them wrong. It was truly a pleasure to administer a 52-1 drubbing to that team.

I'm home now after a long but smooth drive. All in all, I was a little disappointed by my results but I've certainly had worse tournaments. --Bob