Evaluating My Standing

• Master Points

  First, what exactly is this Life Master title, and what do I need to achieve it? To become an ACBL Life Master requires 300 Master Points, of various colors.

  Okay, on a more basic level, this is how the ACBL site defines Master Points, "Players receive masterpoints for winning and placing in club and tournament games as they strive to become a Life Master. Members advance through ranks as they earn the required number of masterpoints for each of 14 categories — Rookie (0-5 points) to Grand Life Master (10,000 points). Three hundred points are required to become a Life Master."

  I have less than one-third that amount.

  ACBL gives more details about winning Master Points, "There are formulas for computing masterpoint awards for all ACBL-sanctioned events. These formulas take into account various factors, such as the class of the event, the size of the field, the number of sessions and the level of competition, thus ensuring maximum uniformity throughout the ACBL in determining masterpoint awards. Additionally, masterpoints are “pigmented” to reflect the level of competition."

  Clearly, the most points are available at the largest events -- National and Regional tournaments.

  Here are the pertinent Masterpoint details as of today; "NABC" is a North American Bridge Championship, that is, Spring, Summer, or Fall Nationals:

  
  

  Masterpoint Type/Color			How Won	Needed for LM	What I have	What I need
  Platinum			national-rated events with no upper masterpoint limit	0.00	0.00	0.00
  Gold			overall placings and section tops in regional and NABC events of at least two sessions	25.00	11.41	13.59
  Red			Regional tournaments and regional events at NABC	see next	45.01	see next
  Gold	or	Red	NABC, Regionals	25.00	n/a	0.00
  Silver			events at sectional tournaments	50.00	21.98	28.02
  Black			sanctioned club games and unit games	see below	17.39	see below
  Unpigmented			online play	0.00	0.00	0.00
  any			n/a	200.00	0.00	162.60
  TOTAL			n/a	300.00	95.79	204.21



• Where I Stand among all ACBL Bridge Players

  I am NOT a world-class Bridge player. Not yet, anyway. Acording to curent ACBL statistics here, I rank at about the 39.84 percentile. Reaching Life Master will not put me anywhere near World Class either; if I were at Life Master rank today I would rank at about the 59.19 percentile. I would have to have 5,000 Master Points to be among the top one percent in the ACBL.



• Playing Strength

  I know I need improvement in counting on each hand (often-time World Champion Eric Rodwell said it took him over three years to acquire the expertise and discipline to do this). I know I need improvement in signaling on defense, and in squeeze play as declarer. Others more skilled and experienced than I will be able to point out other areas where I need improvement. I have learned play from practice, and some from books, including Watson's classic "Play of the Hand at Bridge," and Sheinwold's "Five Weeks to Winning Bridge." I'm now studying Kantar's "Defensive Tips for bad card holders," a door prize I won at the September sectional.



• Bidding

  I learned to play decades ago, when the standard was much less sophisticated. I remember four-card major suit openings, and the standard notrump opening being 16-18 HCP with no "worthless doubletons." I remember the "Rule of 500" as the basis for opening preemptive bids. The first bridge book I studied was Howard Schenken's "Better bidding in 15 minutes, expert bidding in a week." I learned the basics of the Kaplan-Sheinwold system, and the Precision Club system in its infancy. I've picked up the five-card majors, 15-17 notrump opening, and negative doubles at the bridge table, through lectures for novices, and the ACBL Bulletin. To modernize my bidding and understand what the good players are bidding, I plan to learn more of the two-over-one bidding system, through Max Hardy's books, "Standard Bridge Bidding for the 21st Century" and "Advanced Bridge Bidding for the 21st Century."