Nationals Recap and Whatnot
Mar. 26th, 2012 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jianantonicThe tournament is over. It was definitely my best NABC ever, in terms of...everything. No real drama, moderate success at the table, time spent with good friends...all good. I wasn't really sure if I'd want to go to the summer nationals in Philly, but now I feel like I definitely want to. The logistics of that will be interesting, since it butts up to Falcon Ridge, and possibly our family vacation...but I'll make it work. Packing will just be a bitch.
Anyway, here's a very brief summary of each event I played:
Day one, Charity Pairs with Max: 65ish percent, 4th overall, 1st in B. Was great, no stories. Second session of the day was a bust. Also no stories that I remember.
Day two, IMP Pairs with Max: Felt like a bad first set, but still had a positive score at halftime and a slight scratch. Platinum points! Woo! Evening set was atrocious. Max played great. I was still finding my footing, or, rather, failing at trying to find it. Did not Q.
Day three: Played a Compact KO with Max, Brian, and Todd. Finished 2nd. Can't remember why we didn't win. Don't care.
Took two days off to work. Actually got work done. Yay.
Day six, Mixed Pairs with Ankur: Had just met Ankur a few days prior. He's a fairly new player from Texas, about five or six years younger than me, and is awesome. Lots of potential, but still coming into his own as a bridge player. Each of us had our share of whoopsies to finish the first set with about a 38% game. Not so good. The evening set was better, and there was a stretch of boards in there where it felt like we were actually carrying the 60-65% game we would need to Q...but it didn't last, and we had another sub-50% session. It sucks to not play great bridge, but Ankur is a really fun partner, and I'd play with him again any time. Best story from the Mixed: Ankur was declaring...
Ankur: What is your carding?
Opponent: (blank stare, then) What? I don't understand the question. Here, look at our convention card.
The card says "We play standard carding, but most discards are NOT signals." This was a national event, right?
Day seven: Picked up Tree and Chuck for a CKO since they also missed the cut in the Mixed. Drew a surprisingly decent team in the second round to get knocked out. Entered the Swiss and sucked in that, then in the last round, we were somewhere below average, expecting to get matched up against some team of chumps, and the fucking Dutch national team sits down at our table. (Pro tip: if your opponents have European accents, be afraid.) (Note to self: work on phony European accent.)
Story from the first round of the CKO: we were playing against two ladies from Florida, and pretty much having our way with them. On the fifth or sixth hand of the set, I opened a very borderline 1S, and Ankur made a very borderline invite, which I declined. Playing in 3S, the tricks just aren't there, but not only do I not have the tricks, I can't even save undertricks, because every card on the hand was in exactly the wrong place. It was comical how bad this hand was. I was down three or four or twelve or something, but whatever, 2S will also be down plenty so it's not like it's a major swing board, and even if it was, I felt pretty confident that we had about a 200 imp cushion, so no biggie. Ankur and I both laughed as we put the cards away, because, like I said, it was comical. The opponents were really impressed that we were able to smile after such a miserable result. (In bridge, miserable is relative. Down a million never feels good, but I knew it wasn't bad on this particular board.) They complimented us on being very pleasant opponents, and really praised us for how nice we were to each other and to them. I consider this very high praise, and I'm proud of it, so pardon me while I toot my own horn.
Day eight: Cristal and I were planning to play the Women's Pairs, but Cristal informed me basically at game time that she'd really rather not. I don't blame her -- she'd had a family tragedy earlier in the week and was emotionally spent. The last thing she needed was a high-stress women-only event, which adds many layers of bitchiness to the stress. I was bummed not to play the event (I have a very high finish in this same event from a previous national, and was optimistic I could build on that), but there will be others. We opted to play the Red Ribbon pairs instead. We had a 50% session in the afternoon and a 60% in the evening to qualify comfortably and earn a seeded table in the finals. I know there are stories from this event, but I don't remember any of them.
Day nine, Red Ribbon Pairs Finals: We were non-awesome, but we did get to defend a freely-bid 7N with two aces (doubled, obv.) My hand was Kxx some red cards AJx, and their auction went (uncontested until I doubled at the end): 1S - 2H(game forcing) - 3D - 3S - 4N - 5D (in order for this auction to make ANY sense, they must've been playing 3014) - 5N (with two keycards in spades, I am now completely salivating) - 6D - 7N. I double-checked that I was on lead, doubled the shit out of this, and led the Ace of clubs, only to see a 10-point, balanced hand hit the dummy. I later scored my KS, and Cristal scored the AH and a random Q to collect a nice 1100 on the board. Have I mentioned I'm glad that I'm no longer eligible for this event?
Day 10, National Open Swiss: We had arranged to have Max and Bill Aeschbacher as teammates, but Jeremy and Bob Fournier showed up looking for a team as well, and we were all happy to add them to our roster. Some stuff happened and we Q'ed.
Day 11, National Open Swiss Finals: I have never ended a national tournament in a national event. Usually I'm tired and over it by the end, because I'm in some meaningless event and I just want to go home. But it felt SO GOOD to be in a major event. We had some ups and downs, some ridiculous shit happened, and we hung onto an average score which was good enough for one of the last overall places in the event. Tie for 41-42, with 43 teams making the overalls. Phew. There are stories, but I have exhausted myself writing about everything else thus far and I'm going to go back to sleep now.
Later today I'm going to run to Arkansas. It's right over there.
Anyway, here's a very brief summary of each event I played:
Day one, Charity Pairs with Max: 65ish percent, 4th overall, 1st in B. Was great, no stories. Second session of the day was a bust. Also no stories that I remember.
Day two, IMP Pairs with Max: Felt like a bad first set, but still had a positive score at halftime and a slight scratch. Platinum points! Woo! Evening set was atrocious. Max played great. I was still finding my footing, or, rather, failing at trying to find it. Did not Q.
Day three: Played a Compact KO with Max, Brian, and Todd. Finished 2nd. Can't remember why we didn't win. Don't care.
Took two days off to work. Actually got work done. Yay.
Day six, Mixed Pairs with Ankur: Had just met Ankur a few days prior. He's a fairly new player from Texas, about five or six years younger than me, and is awesome. Lots of potential, but still coming into his own as a bridge player. Each of us had our share of whoopsies to finish the first set with about a 38% game. Not so good. The evening set was better, and there was a stretch of boards in there where it felt like we were actually carrying the 60-65% game we would need to Q...but it didn't last, and we had another sub-50% session. It sucks to not play great bridge, but Ankur is a really fun partner, and I'd play with him again any time. Best story from the Mixed: Ankur was declaring...
Ankur: What is your carding?
Opponent: (blank stare, then) What? I don't understand the question. Here, look at our convention card.
The card says "We play standard carding, but most discards are NOT signals." This was a national event, right?
Day seven: Picked up Tree and Chuck for a CKO since they also missed the cut in the Mixed. Drew a surprisingly decent team in the second round to get knocked out. Entered the Swiss and sucked in that, then in the last round, we were somewhere below average, expecting to get matched up against some team of chumps, and the fucking Dutch national team sits down at our table. (Pro tip: if your opponents have European accents, be afraid.) (Note to self: work on phony European accent.)
Story from the first round of the CKO: we were playing against two ladies from Florida, and pretty much having our way with them. On the fifth or sixth hand of the set, I opened a very borderline 1S, and Ankur made a very borderline invite, which I declined. Playing in 3S, the tricks just aren't there, but not only do I not have the tricks, I can't even save undertricks, because every card on the hand was in exactly the wrong place. It was comical how bad this hand was. I was down three or four or twelve or something, but whatever, 2S will also be down plenty so it's not like it's a major swing board, and even if it was, I felt pretty confident that we had about a 200 imp cushion, so no biggie. Ankur and I both laughed as we put the cards away, because, like I said, it was comical. The opponents were really impressed that we were able to smile after such a miserable result. (In bridge, miserable is relative. Down a million never feels good, but I knew it wasn't bad on this particular board.) They complimented us on being very pleasant opponents, and really praised us for how nice we were to each other and to them. I consider this very high praise, and I'm proud of it, so pardon me while I toot my own horn.
Day eight: Cristal and I were planning to play the Women's Pairs, but Cristal informed me basically at game time that she'd really rather not. I don't blame her -- she'd had a family tragedy earlier in the week and was emotionally spent. The last thing she needed was a high-stress women-only event, which adds many layers of bitchiness to the stress. I was bummed not to play the event (I have a very high finish in this same event from a previous national, and was optimistic I could build on that), but there will be others. We opted to play the Red Ribbon pairs instead. We had a 50% session in the afternoon and a 60% in the evening to qualify comfortably and earn a seeded table in the finals. I know there are stories from this event, but I don't remember any of them.
Day nine, Red Ribbon Pairs Finals: We were non-awesome, but we did get to defend a freely-bid 7N with two aces (doubled, obv.) My hand was Kxx some red cards AJx, and their auction went (uncontested until I doubled at the end): 1S - 2H(game forcing) - 3D - 3S - 4N - 5D (in order for this auction to make ANY sense, they must've been playing 3014) - 5N (with two keycards in spades, I am now completely salivating) - 6D - 7N. I double-checked that I was on lead, doubled the shit out of this, and led the Ace of clubs, only to see a 10-point, balanced hand hit the dummy. I later scored my KS, and Cristal scored the AH and a random Q to collect a nice 1100 on the board. Have I mentioned I'm glad that I'm no longer eligible for this event?
Day 10, National Open Swiss: We had arranged to have Max and Bill Aeschbacher as teammates, but Jeremy and Bob Fournier showed up looking for a team as well, and we were all happy to add them to our roster. Some stuff happened and we Q'ed.
Day 11, National Open Swiss Finals: I have never ended a national tournament in a national event. Usually I'm tired and over it by the end, because I'm in some meaningless event and I just want to go home. But it felt SO GOOD to be in a major event. We had some ups and downs, some ridiculous shit happened, and we hung onto an average score which was good enough for one of the last overall places in the event. Tie for 41-42, with 43 teams making the overalls. Phew. There are stories, but I have exhausted myself writing about everything else thus far and I'm going to go back to sleep now.
Later today I'm going to run to Arkansas. It's right over there.
