Feb 18-19 -- Goodbye, Chicago (GNT District Competition)

Points Summary
♠     ♥     ♦     ♣	Gold	Red	Silver	Other	Total
Earned This Time		0.66			0.66
Earned since last update			0.54		0.54
Earned Earlier This Year	7.00	19.51	1.22	1.15	28.88
Total Earned This Year	7.00	20.17	1.76	1.15	30.08
Earned Prior to This Year	11.41	45.01	21.98	17.39	95.79
Total	18.41	65.18	23.74	18.54	125.87
Required	25.00	25.00	50.00	200.00	300.00
Still Needed	6.59	0.00	26.26	141.28	174.13

Advance Preparation

I lined up E as my partner, and began looking for teammates. Eventually one of the other E's from the Jan 20-22 Regional was able to find a partner, L, and join us for the event. This was an untested partnership. E and I tuned up with two club sessions during the week; as the District was holding a Sectional Tournament at Clubs (STaC), we earned the Silver Points for placing in one of them.

Event Summary

We did great! At least before Saturday's dinner break . . .

Saturday Swiss

Saturday was a Swiss tournament among 13 entered Flight C (0-500 non-Life Master) teams. The top eight would advance to Sunday.

We all arrived well before starting time; I shared the "General Approach" on my Convention Card with my teammates; all agreed it was appropriate for us. "HAVE FUN, LEARN SOMETHING, PLAY WELL, WIN"

We lost the first Swiss match big, but won the next three -- then it was off to dinner. We were tied for second place after four matches; the team which beat us in the first match was in first place. After dinner, we lost three matches -- but we qualified 6th out of 8 for Sunday's knockout matches.

District Local Site Grand National Teams Saturday Swiss Session Summary scoring = Victory Points 7 boards per match
Match	IMPs	VPs	Total VP's
1	6 - 31	1 - 19	1
2	24 - 16	14 -  6	15
3	15 -  2	15 -  5	30
4	39 -  5	20 -  0	50
Dinner Break
5	2 - 17	4 - 16	54
6	15 - 22	7 - 13	61
7	7 - 13	7 - 13	68

Sunday Knockout

In two rounds of Sunday knockouts, the eight were reduced to two, to be joined by one team from the other qualifying site for the semifinal (3-way knockout, one team eliminated) and final knockouts on March 11.

We got knocked out in Sunday's first round. At halftime we were down by 13 IMPs, on one hand they bid and made a vulnerable small slam at our table while our teammates stopped in game but made one more trick -- that was 12 IMPs. In the second half, we won only one board.

Knockout Summary scoring = IMPs 24 boards per match
Match	first half	second half	match total
1	20 - 33	12 - 42	32 - 75

Lessons Learned

We need better slam bidding tools, and more time to work on partnership understandings. On one hand, I had no agreed way to tell my partner that I had two keycards and a void when I was asked for key cards.

North's hand:

       ♠ J x x x   ♥  A x x x   ♦ A K 10 9 x   ♣ (void)

The auction (none vulnerable, E dealer, E-W pass throughout):

South	North
1 ♣ 1 ♠ 4 NT 5 ♠	1 ♦ 4 ♠ 1 5 ♥ 2 6 ♠

1: 3 ♥ would have been a better bid; go slow
2: two key cards, no Q ♠

Partner heard my "I have two key cards" response, and stopped in five of our suit. Having the "extra asset" of the void, I raised to six. Partner went down 1. My raise to six is also an example of undisciplined bidding.

Final Words

Net result: each player out $33, and each gets 0.66 Red Masterpoints. At $50.00 per Masterpoint, Life Master costs $15,000 -- too high for my current budget!

At least we all had fun . . . and I think most of us learned something. At times we played well, and we did win some.

On the way home, E and I agreed to continue playing together, and to take some time to work on further partnership agreements.

Thanks to my partner and teammates for coming out in the bitter cold and playing.