[FrancesHinden]

hanp, on Jun 16 2010, 05:42 PM, said:

Maybe time is a bit short for this piece of advice, but I recommend being much better at bridge than the other teams.

this

Quote

56 boards everyday for 5 days in a serious event is a lot for most

and this are true for all events and players, whatever flight you play in.

Having said that, I'm now going to give two contrasting pieces of advice.

1. In my experience one of the distinguishing features of a less experienced/weaker ('flight C' as I understand the term) team is that they don't bid game enough. Meckwell take things to extremes, but the way to win imps matches is repeatedly to bid game and make it. Being better at defence, card play, competitive bidding etc will all help, but that's the fundamental thing.

2. However don't make any radical changes to your bidding system or your partnership style. You want to be comfortable with what you play, not trying to remember last night's change to the responses to 1NT.

[gdawg01]

Thanks Richard, Han, and Frances for the useful advice! I need to particularly remember the "try not to post-mortem between sessions" bit. The "be way better at bridge than your fellow competitors" is powerful advice but it might be a tad too late to achieve that by July 21

[jjbrr]

Nothing tilts me more than being obligated to go to dinner with my team, which of course I don't mind, but then having to wait for them for half an hour after the session while they go over the "Why'd we lose 7 on board 3?"s and then more of "So I held... "s while trying to eat dinner.

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

flight C players will make a lot of mistakes in any form of the game and if you can make fewer, your chances are good.

This.

Just do fewer stupid things and you'll be fine. Just the normal IMP things:
- bid game
- don't double their partials into game unless you think they are going down 2
- don't sacrifice if it's unclear (C players take way too many phantoms)
- corollary: just whack them if they sac, don't bid 5 over 5 if any doubt.
- don't bid grand unless you can count 13 tricks, there's a pretty good chance the other table stopped in game, even though you think that shouldn't be possible for a decent team (i.e. assume other team might not bid small unless like 32+ hcp). This isn't the Vanderbilt.

[hanp]

gdawg01, on Jun 16 2010, 01:52 PM, said:

The "be way better at bridge than your fellow competitors" is powerful advice but it might be a tad too late to achieve that by July 21

There is a lot that you can do in 5 weeks, depending on how much time and enery you and your partner are willing to spend. In terms of partnership agreements it is often easier to improve quickly than in terms of personal skills, but I find that reading a lot of play and defense problems still helps.

[gdawg01]

Han-

That is the plan. Solve a lot of problems, bid a lot online, and especially make sure everything on the CC is understood.

Stephen-

Good points. The bit about phantom sacs is something I have been guilty of (avoided that trap somehow in Vegas though!) and that I will be careful about.

[barmar]

I came in 2nd in the GNT-C 10 years ago. While it's true that you won't encounter lots of teams with fancy methods, there's bound to be at least one. That gives them a big advantage in this field, and when we faced them in the final we had to play well to lose by only 1 IMP. They were ostensibly representing Chicago, but they were immigrants from Poland, and they were playing some form of Polish Club. What made things even more difficult was that they were not very fluent in English, so it was hard to understand their explanations.

For all we knew, they could have been ringers, with enough experience in their native country that they should have been considered Flight B. But they weren't very old, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

So even though this is only Flight C, you can't assume that the competition will be like what you're used to in other C events. To win, you need to be prepared for some tough competition (they did all win their districts, after all).

[jjbrr]

Ya you want to avoid foreign teams for sure in flight C. Very good advice.

[jdonn]

Phil, on Jun 15 2010, 01:36 PM, said:

One day swiss scored on 20 point VP scale. (8 matches x 7 boards? Check C of C) that reduces the field to 16 from 26 or so. Then

Day 2: 16 to 8
Day 3: 8 to 4
Day 4: 4 to 2
Day 5: 2 to 1

The last time I played the gnts nationally was about 5 years ago and they did this:

Day 1: 24 to 12. Divided (randomly?) into 4 groups of 6, each of which played a 62 board round robin to reduce to 3 teams per group. (Maybe there were 25 or 26 districts and some of the round robin groups had 7, I'm not sure)
Day 2: 12 to 4. The remaining 3 teams from each group continued with another 32 round robin with full carryover from the prior day. Then the 2 leading teams played a 32 board head to head match, again with full carryover from the round robins. (I certainly remember this as we advanced with a win by 2 and a lose by 98, then had to start the next round down 98!)
Day 3: 4 to 2.
Day 4: 2 to 1

Has this changed (it's possible I have the days and timeline wrong but not the events)? If that is how they do it still, then it's important to understand the importance of all the boards from the very beginning as those scores would carry with you until there are just 8 teams remaining.

[gdawg01]

Josh,

I looked at the GNT C of C and the format is like what Phil suggested. No idea if scores carryover but I do not think they do.

[Phil]

gdawg01, on Jun 16 2010, 09:44 PM, said:

Josh,

I looked at the GNT C of C and the format is like what Phil suggested. No idea if scores carryover but I do not think they do.

It used to be as Josh states.

When I played the A in '06 we were grouped into these 4 x 5-6 team groups and you played about 12 boards against each of the other teams. The top three in each group advanced to day 2 with a full carryover from the previous day and played a round robin. The 3rd day (I think) you played a head to head match against the other last survivor with still a full carryover from teh prior two days. I remember one team (might have been Josh's) that was stuck like 99 IMPs.

How's that something to look forward to for the next 64 boards?

[JanM]

Shameless plug - but serious - spend some time next week watching the US Team Trials and the European Championships on BBO Vugraph. Pay attention - think about how you would bid the hands, when a player is taking a long time, try to figure out what s/he is thinking about. Don't just hang out and be entertained .
When I say this is serious, I mean it. I watch a fair amount of Vugraph, often as a commentator. Chip used to think this was my entertainment, then he noticed that after watching and especially commenting (so I was forced to pay attention and think about what was going on), I played better.

I'd also second everyone else's suggestions - try to avoid as many stupid mistakes as you can (everyone makes mistakes); be sure you know what you're playing (practice bidding a bunch of hands between now and then, NOT to tweak your system, but to be sure that you and your partner know what you're doing); read defensive books (I'm probably prejudiced, but Kit's book has a lot of good things about helping your partner that will make a big difference, both because you'll defend better and because you'll get in the habit of looking at the hand from someone else's point of view).

At the tournament, get as much rest & exercise as possible, don't eat too much, don't make any last minute changes to system, try to pay attention all the time you're playing.

[gdawg01]

Thank you for the suggestions, Jan! I plan to watch the trials for sure and will make a special effort to think through the hands.

[dkharty]

It's a safe bet that you will play against at least one young pair that plays some home-cooked strong club system, so it's worth a conversation that goes beyond "Ok, let's play Mathe against a strong club", but I definitely agree that just playing an overcall style where you get in the auction early and often will usually be sufficient to disrupt their planned sequences.

Also, for goodness' sake, have your defensive agreements nailed down. Especially in Flight C, you will have a HUGE advantage over most teams if you play solid defense; the declarer play you face is unlikely to be optimal, and if you can consistently give the declarer problems, it will reap dividends over the course of a long match. And that young pair of college students might have spent six months developing their Piranha Relay Club system, but they probably spent less than an hour talking about basic run-of-the-mill defensive carding situations.

[cherdanno]

gdawg01, on Jun 16 2010, 05:41 PM, said:

Han-

That is the plan. Solve a lot of problems, bid a lot online, and especially make sure everything on the CC is understood.

Sounds like you have the priorities right. Practice sessions online are also very good IF you take every hand seriously and review them afterwards.