On to the final 8

Tonight we had a good set and won 80-44 against a good team from the UCLA area in California. We knew several of the team members from playing on bridgebase online. After the first 14 boards, we were ahead 11 imps. The second half gave us some opportunities to foul up our opponents big club relay system and we ended up gaining another 25.

We will play tomorrow in the quarter finals at 1 P.M.

Sweeeett 16

Welp, we survived our round robin match. We beat one team and lost to the other. It wasn't pretty but we are into the bracket of 16. We play our octofinal tonight at 8 P.M. I am glad we got through and excited to play a full match tonight instead of a round robin. The hands this afternoon were not too note worthy. I can't even say the bridge was that great, but we fought as hard as we could.

Meckwell is Out

The bracket for the open category is up and it looks like Meckwell-Berkowitz team did not make the cut. Andrew commented after watching them for a few rounds that they were just human. They double making contracts just like us. They eschew finesses when they work, just like us. I'm pretty sure they put their pants on one leg at a time, just like us.

Joe Grue's team must have beat them up the round we kibitzed. The Distirct 14 team will face Joe Grue's team and the Katz team. Good Luck! The brackets can be found at the ACBL results page linked at the right.

GNT 1st Session

We began our first session at 8 P.M. 24 C teams showed up for the McNab Grand National Teams and we were put in eight three team round robins. After 2 sessions two teams from each round robin will advance creating a 16 team bracket. After the first session last night we are beating one team 38-16 and losing to the other 31-46. We play 14 more boards against each team this afternoon before its decided whether we advance or not.

Overall I thought Jeff Buckwalter and I played well. We defended most of the night bidding one slam and one game in 28 boards. I declared only 2 hands all evening, whci probably explains why we aren't doing worse ;-).

One hand that I am not happy about I held AK10xxx, 10xx, A, AQx. Jeff opened a 10-13 NT and I decided to begin with 2d game forcing stayman to get more information. The auction went 1nt-2d-2h-2s-3d-3s-4s and now I decided that the slam wasnt there unless partner held perfect cards. Unfortunately, Jeff held Qx, KQxx, KQxxx, 9x and the slam was cold as the cards were placed. I'm open to suggestions on how to get here. The opponents auction is not worth mentioning but they got there. Luckily this was a non-vulnerable slam and a 6d vulnerable slam we bid earlier opposite the opponents 3NT kept this from being a disaster.

More later this afternoon.

Super A Observations

Before our session began at 8 we had time in the afternoon to kibitz some of the "star" teams playing in the open division that started its first session at 1 P.M. Andrew and I sat down to watch Meckstroth and Rodwell and it just so happened they were playing a 6 board match against District 14's own Bill Kent, Monte Evans, Vernon Evans, and Peggy Kaplan.

We were impressed that Monte and Vernon playing against the famous Meckwell seemed very cool and collected. They fought hard and beat the former world champions by like 12 imps. Way to go District 14!

We also watched Meckwell's teamates. Larry Cohen and David Berkowitz, for one 6 board round. I thought it was interesting that Cohen, the law of total tricks guru, bid only 2H holding Jxx, 8752, xx, KQxx after his partner opened 1H. The auction went 1h p 2h dbl p 2s all pass and Joe Grue made 2s. A 3h Bergen raise seems an ok option to me. It has good chances to make and blocks the opponents out a bit, but I'm not a world champion!

Windy City or Misty City?