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Letter from a Player
New Gold LM story, long but worth reading.
New Gold LM story, long but worth reading.
By William Golush
William Golush GLM
Note to Joann, other editors.
There is probably a lot more here than necessary. Since I still work full time and have a long and complicated tax return and fiduciary return to submit, and yada, yada, yada, it is the best use of my time to throw all the thoughts out on the table, and YBTJ as Marty Bergen Sez, about whether to include all of it unfiltered, some of it, or even none of it as you see fit. The significant named parties will have had an opportunity to review the material. Some of the parties referred to are, sadly, deceased. Since bridge is a partnership game, and the human element is critical some names can be part of the article.
It is not my intention to dissemble, or ramble.
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As those folks that have read the writings of Mike Lawrence well know, valuation is based on the SHELL, and the BOX.
I think about the SHELL of the rank as the pigments (silver, red, gold, platinum), and the BOX of the rank as the total masterpoints, such as 500, 2500, 3500, 5000 etc. Perhaps since many of us have colorless points, minimum required black points should also be considered as SHELL.
So after this preamble, here we go.
The SHELL
My shell reached gold life master level many, many years ago, so my discussion starts from the beginning. Of note, the current SHELL appears to be complete for sapphire rank, as a result of significant gold accumulation in the last two years. With regard to diamond rank, a further 108 gold points are needed, which is not unreasonable as the BOX would need about 2500 points.
Here are in numerical order events and people that led to the shell completion.
0. My parents were not members of the acbl, but they would invite their friends for an evening of rubber bridge at micro stakes. Goren on bridge was on the bookshelf, I would sometimes play a rubber with the adults.
1. Nine years into my career, in 1987 I started to play duplicate at the Plainsboro bridge club. (Plainsboro is the next town over from Princeton NJ). Two thursday evenings a month, it was a tiny club. My mentor was William Cleveland, Princeton university class president 1946. A player of some note in the unit, particularly at pairs.
2. I was unemployed for 6 months starting in September 1989 during a hard regional recession. I would play in a bigger day game one day a week where I met HOWARD. He was working on director license and further along into life master acquisition. Howard introduced me to his friend SUSAN. Susan, an adorable and kind divorcee was also unemployed. Susan drove me to the Lancaster regional, where we found a nearby hotel with two vacant rooms. We booked in, called in our unemployment, and played a free 0 to 20 game. We both had a few points "on the shelf ", common in those days. A chance comment from susan about she played a swiss team and it was a lot of fun was a landmark point in my bridge career.
Edith McMullen was the director in charge in those days of a big 0 to 300 program. I still have many of her useful materials. I share them with players. I won a 0 to 20 trophy with susan. Howard and his fiancee, or Howard and his mentor, also HOWARD played a couple of swiss events with us. Howard took us up to Rye NY one evening for a pairs session. A couple of months later at the end of February 1990 I started my still current work assignment in denville, and susan left a message on my answering service she was now square dancing as her primary activity. How boring is that!!
3. Next up, Howard referred me to Henrietta. Henrietta at that time was about 80 years old, and was returning back to the acbl after a membership lapse. Henrietta had many, many, friends in the unit, as well as in the community.
Henrietta, and her son Robert were going to become very good friends to me. I played with Henrietta for about 7 years every Sunday at a big pairs game in whitehouse station. Henrietta was old school, no nonsense. She would tell me in no uncertain terms if I wanted to get anywhere in bridge, I would have to play better, a lot better. Sometimes I would be awake until 2am after a lecture from her. Up until the end of 1993 I pushed Henrietta to the limit. I insisted we go to the 4 Sunday swiss team events in Allendale, and 4 sunday swiss events Woodbridge. Eventually the swiss days were too long for Henrietta, and I found many other substitutes for swiss including Horia. After I moved away to denville in 1997, it was a big loss for her, but we remained friends and I played with her son Robert once a week in an evening game in milltown, and mentored him.
4. 1994 was a key year for me. With my mighty 180 total points, all silver, and red accumulated, the next step was the 25 gold points for life master. Henrietta cautioned me that gold would be "difficult", that many of her friends with 1000+ points kept getting "knocked out".
Well, ahem, ahem.
I played a swiss in manhattan in February with a partner from Plainsboro club and pickup partners at the desk. Unremarkable game session, but placing in B for my first GOLD. Then Flight A knockouts at the summer regional in East Brunswick NJ with my mentor Bill Cleveland, the brilliant Jim Strachan and his mentee Ken. In a stunning upset defeated the Glasson Team ( David Tredwell, Daisy Goeker, David Better, Steve Williams) for GOLD. Finally, in December of that year in Manhattan with a very eccentric pickup partner who was permanently barred from future play at this event after our final match, and team mates Lou S. from Plainsboro NJ duplicate club and his wife, we finished 2nd in the B bracket, which then was enough to accumulate the 25 gold points for the life master shell. Boom.
5. In 1995 I went to my first NABC in Atlanta. I took a couple of days away from that tournament to visit some friends.
6. In most of the subsequent years I would take a week of vacation at an NABC, meeting players such as Pat (yet another connection from HOWARD), Jerry, Shirley, and others from different units in various parts of the country well outside of the northeast metropolitan area. Generally speaking it is fair to say that more often than not, the players I met were at least as good, or even ahead of me at bridge.
Focusing on midnight zip swiss (sadly now defunct) and playing as much imps events as possible the red, gold and black points flowed freely to my account, rapidly developing the shell, many times without hardly breathing. A good learning experience was 2011 seattle NABC. Jerry connected me to Alan, an emeritus professor at Stanford University. Alan was around 1900 points, impressive to us at that time. Alan had sent me our proposed bidding system, which included XYZ and Bennett in passout seat. I got a lot of good education from Alan and Jerry at that NABC. Jerry and Alan are active in the acbl education program.
Jerry is a much more intense player than I am, he has taught me a lot. You do not get rich masterpoint wise playing against the likes of Oswald Jacoby, Norman Kay and Edgar Kaplan. But he did learn much from those folks. He does committee work, and is not bashful. One time we had a bidding question, and he walked up to Bob (HAMMAN) for an opinion.
7. Over the years at the NABC, I would play 3 sessions a day, but often taking off on a Tuesday and/or Thursday, traditionally pairs play days, especially when travelling with a girlfriend. My favorite day is Wednesday for the swiss event. Several big swiss results over the years, such as 1997, 23 gold points las vegas, and another similar big award years later in phoenix. These were all with pickup partner at the desk, and pickup team mates. (These later wins can be viewed as BOX accumulation for gold life master, and SHELL accumulation for sapphire life master.)
8. Most recently atlanta NABC was a bundle of gold points with a pick up partner I will play with in Toronto this summer after the GNT flight A games.
Enough on the shell.
THE BOX
FAST FORWARD
After playing one evening a week in new Brunswick with Henrietta's son Robert for a number of years,
I transferred my club play to the Essex Bridge Center in Livingston. At this time the box was a little below silver level (1000).
1. Essex was a revelation. Al, who is one of the leading players at the club, close to gold life master at that time was accepting new partners, and agreed to play with me on Thursday evenings. I learned a whole lot about pairs play from Al, and we continue to play speedball pairs on BBO on Tuesdays and Thursdays now that sadly essex closed after the pandemic. He is a nice man. You can well appreciate how much I learned because we won almost 10 gold points at pairs a year ago at Fairfield, which was a very exciting experience for me.
2. At essex, after playing for some time with Al on Thursdays, I gradually came to know a whole string of many different players, SESHU, Steve, Ron , Tom , Phyllis and Charlie to name just a few. Many of these players I would rotate for play on the Tuesday evening. So, I had two games a week, Thursday with Al playing in A, and Tuesday evening playing with initially B rated players. Very nice!
3. The icing on the cake was the essex 8 is enough swiss game, which came to be the replacement for the loss of my sectional swiss games.
4. The Box continued to accumulate with continued play at NABCS, and the Fairfield regional.
Pointwise my biggest Fairfield year was a few days of play when the Late Larry Samuels and Nancy agreed to Play with me and Kim who was working on life master. Wow, we won 18 and a half gold. One day when we did not qualify, we were in the consolation. That was a side room with about 20 tables. At one of those tables, when playing with Kim our opponents were none other than Kit Woolsey, and his buddy from his phd days at the university of Illinois. I quietly introduced Kit as a well known expert on backgammon and bridge to Kim.
We did get a helping hand that match. Against us, the auction 2/1 was Kit, open 1 spade, partner 2 hearts, kit 2 spades, 3 hearts, 3 spades by kit. His partner passed 3 spades in tempo!! Kit quietly said 3 spades is forcing, I can have 19 points. An area where I need to improve is to not make these "I hate you type sequence bids" . While from a technical point of view "correct", why flummox your partner? Either quit at 3 hearts, or bid 4 spades, or if you want 4 hearts. Ahem. Ahem.
On the next deal kim understood my western cue bid auction, making 3nt with careful play. We won that match easily, and in fact the consolation, being posted as the winning team way out in front. 8 black points. Not bad vigorish for a single session.
5. The final key event to the BOX was based on Discussions with Tom, I decided to move ahead with some play of instant IMPS and more recently acbl daylong IMPS on the BBO platform. This is actually the most significant enhancement to my routine, since susan first discussed swiss teams as a fun game !
Can the district make changes to improve the process of rank accumulation, and or enhance play
The many volunteers, officials and organizers work very hard to offer regionals etc.
I would like to thank all of them.
Pre pandemic, and also in the earlier years when I first started playing the full format of 9am, 1pm, 730pm, midnight zip swiss and overflowing partnership desk were a happy sight to see. The latter particularly helped my early advancement.
I think the current revised schedules and events are very sensible, any efforts to continue to improve and grow future attendance are welcome. I miss the midnight zip swiss.
Funny stories
1. At an NABC some years ago on the last Saturday evening, I suppose I had attained my unofficial quota of points, but I walked by the partnership desk. A familiar partner Shirley, was at the desk, and we decided to team up for a single session swiss. A pair of younger ladies agreed to play with us. As I often do, I made the comment, " this is not the bremuda bowl, relax and enjoy. I am the captain, and I will make all the mistakes...".
Well, other than my responsibility to be sure the NS, and EW teams are properly seated properly at the start of each match, I could not possibly imagine anything untoward was happening. All seeming normal, in the third or fourth match a director watched me at the table, and after I had finished playing a hand, interrupted the proceedings with a brief comment. He told me, a director had been called to our team mates table. The opponents were having difficulty playing the match, because our partners were choking with nervous and hysterical laughter speculating what I would say when comparing results for the match! How will Bill react if he is disappointed with the match? etc
2. At a sectional many years ago I was playing with Horia. The opponents came to the table and announced " this is our first swiss team event". So we had a short discussion about swiss, and I commented, as I sometimes do, this is not the bremuda bowl, relax and enjoy. It can be an advantage to lose the first match, and we may lose this match whether or not we want to win or lose it. But, at the same time it is not considered very mannerly to intentionally throw the match.
Well, at the other table the opposing team opened a weak two hearts, and a teammate made a normal takeout double. Doubles are red cards right? To let everyone at the table see the bid. The team mate in passout position either did not see, or missed the takeout double, and passed in tempo.
The teammate that missed the takeout double had a heart void, an EIGHT card club suit headed by the QUEEN, and some side suit values. During the score compare I was choking with laughter, and my partner gently commented you might take a bid to take the enemy out of their two hearts based on your own hand. This was many many years before Mel Colchimaro discussed SOLO flight in his book how to play like an expert...
Oh, yes, yes the opposing team won their very first swiss match !!
READING
I am an avid reader of bridge books, but have made an allocation to spend more time playing BBO.
I am (perhaps ashamed) to admit that when I get the bridge bulletin, I always start from the bottom up, such as card play 101 is my first read. I read the intermediate stuff in the bulletin. I spend a lot of time mostly rereading intermediate level classic books on play and defense. I love to read Marty Bergen, I recently bought second hand copies of some of his books which he signed on the cover page. His volume 1 uncontested auctions (1990?) is terrific. The law of total tricks (to bid or not), and its sequel. Any of the Max Hardy on 2/1 . Better bridge by ron klinger.
Normally, before an important match I prepare the evening before by very fast rereading of some books on competitive bidding (golden rules of competitive auctions by pottage and smith), opening leads, defense, takeout doubles (Lawrence). The idea is to have as broad brush re review of all the basics.
Most recently, I have found that there is all kinds of material available as kindle downloads to the cell phone, which is handy, particularly when travelling, to avoid having to lug books around in a suit case or travel carry on.
Classics such as Squeezes by Clyde Love, are far, far above my current paygrade.
POSTSCRIPT
Bridge is about partnership, and it is critical to be surrounded by good people.
1.I would like to thank Al for playing with me, and improving my pairs game.
2.I Would like to thank Phyllis and Charlie for initially taking me on as a B player in the 8 is enough swiss. Phyllis is a very thoughtful player, and Charlie is a wonderful person. He drove to boston for the final years of his work every week for several years, so Phyllis could be with her friends during the week. How thoughtful and devoted, just amazing! In the most recent swiss, Charlie bid 6, and Phyllis thought, if Charlie can bid 6, I will bid and make 7. They are so "in tune" with each other.
3. I would like to thank Tom. It only takes two words to describe him. "Perfect Gentleman". Very unassuming, he has completed 32 marathons, and has a ton of points from BBO online play. He knows all about virtual clubs, daylongs, instants and all things bbo. He can look a player up and run the stats in the blink of an eye. As stated above, he has convinced me to include a certain amount of additional BBO play to build the box
4. I would like to thank Steve, who keeps me in line with a wrist slap when I open 2 clubs with a hand that he sees as only about a King above a flimsy opening bid, or make a (ridiculous) overcall over an enemy preempt. We became friends, his thoughtful advice helped me through a major health crisis.
5. I would like to thank Jerry. He has taught me a lot, having himself played against the best of them.