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A New Junior MasterWow, it's been a busy weekend! And since we get the next two days off from work, it's not over yet!Actually, Friday was pretty straightforward: A day of work, a beer bash at the end of the day, and a bunch of Quake after that. Then I went to Borrone where I did some reading, until Lucy showed up to chat. And seconds after she arrived, we were joined by Bill and Julie, who had called Lucy's husband and found out where we were. ("Darn!" I whispered to Lucy. "We'll have to talk about our world domination plans some other time!" she shot back.) But we had a good time, chatting, consuming food, and later browsing in Kepler's.
 But the bulk of the weekend was given over to Bridge, specifically a regional tournament in Palo Alto. I drove up to Subrata's Saturday morning and we walked over to Hobees for brunch. (It turns out that you can get a free meal if you bring a photo of yourself in a Hobees T-shirt at some recognizable location. Subrata has many such photos from his recent camping trip, including one standing under a road sign reading "Extraterrestrial Highway" near Area 51 in Nevada!) Then we met up with Grant and Becky at the Elks Lodge where the tourney is happening. Have I described Bridge tournaments before? This is my third, including getting my feet wet with John a couple of years ago. Not surprisingly, most of the participants are middle-aged or older (basically, the group adheres to the stereotype). There are a few young folks at this tournament, mostly belonging to the Stanford Bridge Club. We all play in a huge room which is divided into sections where different matches are occurring. Unlike my previous tournaments, this particular location is well air-conditioned, which makes playing much more pleasant! It's tough to concentrate for three hours when you're hot and getting a headache! So this weekend we played in something called a "knockout" series of matches. It's basically a single-elimination tournament: Four matches, Friday-through-Sunday. A team of four plays another team of four, each with a pair at each of two tables, and each table plays the same 24 boards. The team which does better at the 24 boards wins the match and advances to the next round; the loser is "knocked out". Master Points are awarded to participants depending on how deep they advance into the competition. This knockout series had 15 teams, so four matches. We had a team of six playing, so four of us were playing at any one time. Grant, Becky, Rollie and Kelly played Friday and advanced to the next round, so Saturday afternoon Subrata (whose regular partner, Ben, is on vacation) and I subbed for Rollie and Kelly, and we narrowly won the second match, advancing to the semi-finals. The third match was our shining moment: Rollie, Kelly, Subrata and I played, and we had what turned out to be a pretty terrific first half, putting our opponents in a deep hole. We widened the gap in the second half, and won the match going away. It's surely the best Bridge I've yet played, and I felt pretty pleased with myself. (I told Mom about it on the phone today, and she sarcastically said, "Oh, I love a good winner!" Well, okay, I'm not the best of winners. I'm also not a great loser. I've only had a little success over time at changing this about myself.) But the key point is: We advanced to the final round! And none of us had expected it, and several of us had other plans for Sunday which we had to hurriedly reschedule! Subrata and I split time in the final match today with Becky and Grant; Rollie and Kelly played the whole 24 boards (a board is a single deal, by the way). Subrata and I showed up for the second half, and found that we were 15 points in the hole (that's a lot; I think there are about 130 available points in a match). We tried valiantly in the second half, but only broke even, so we ended up coming in second. But hey! We came in second our of fifteen! It turns out that this is worth about 5.5 master points for each of us, which is a lot. (Subrata plays a lot and recently passed the 100-point mark; 300 points is the Life Master rating, though there are higher ratings.) I had something like .45 master points from an earlier tournament, which aren't even recorded because I hadn't joined the ACBL at that point. So not only did I multiply my master points by a factor of 12, but in one fell swoop I crossed the 5-point barrier and I'm now a "Junior Master". Woo-hoo! So it's been pretty successful so far. I made a few mistakes, but in most cases had an opportunity to use what I learned on a later board. (For instance, missing Subrata's Unusual 2 NT overcall, or his 2 NT response to my 2H opener.) That was pretty cool. Tomorrow we're playing in a "Swiss Teams" match, which is sort of like knockouts without the knockouts (basically you field a team of four rather than a single partnership). Should be fun...
Subrata hosted some gaming today after Bridge. We went back to his place and sat around for a while, which I eventually decided was all I really had energy for. So I bailed on gaming, and came home and called Mom. Then I went out and got dinner, browsed in a bookstore, and spent most of the evening reading. Pretty much that's all I wanted to do. I spread a blanket over me on the couch, and the cats spent the evening rolling around and jumping on me (plus, Kelly brought their dog - a friendly black poodle puppy - to Subrata's for gaming, and I spent a while petting her, so the cats were fascinated!). By the way, here's that review of Ken MacLeod's The Stone Canal which I promised!
By the way, for the geekily inclined, here are the bidding conventions that Subrata and I are using at the tournament (these are basically what I play with regularly; Subrata plays something more complicated with Ben):
I'm not sure exactly where I'll go from here. I don't have a regular partner, so it's difficult to really make steady, directed progress. Maybe someday...
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