Diary of a Bridge Pro #32

Springfield, April 15

Thoughts on Gatlinburg

March came in like a lion here on the great plain this year, and went out like a feisty lamb. The
recent rains have made the local lawns lush. The birds have been chirping since early in the
AM, and the weather is spring-perfect - it gives me solid satisfaction to zip across West Edwards
to have a coffee and get some uplift, listen to the laughter and bask in the good fellowship of the
congregants at the Discovery House where the Friends of Bill meet daily at 7 AM.

I knocked out three of these "thirty-something columns" yesterday, starting early in the AM. A
few of the other North American bridge pros may have been off at a tournament playing a Swiss
Teams yesterday - no doubt there was a sectional somewhere - but I believe (too slack to
check) that last week was the "off-week" (Bridge Pro Laundry Week?) in the five week stretch
that began just after the Spring NABC.

I will continue to call these NABC tournaments "Nationals", you probably do too.

*****

Gatlinburg deserves a column of its own, or several - for many years it was the biggest (in
terms of table count) regional on the annual calendar in North America. Joan Didion could have
written an amazing article for Vanity Fair or Esquire about the whole bridge scene if she took a
single visit to Gatlinburg to observe and study our quaint tribal customs first-hand. A writer on
bridge for a general audience devoted a whole chapter to the Gatlinburg regional - he
embedded himself among the caddies, which gave him an interesting point-of-view.
Tournament Chairs in particular, and many members of our tribe in general, have had
thousands of shop-talk conversations on the subject of "Why is Gatlinburg so successful?”

There are clearly some intangibles at play, to explain why Gatlinburg draws so well, but here
are some points from the consensus:

1) Easy to get to - the venue is within a few hundred highway miles for many thousands of
bridge players

2) Tons of Cheap Rooms - This is a big plus for our rank-and-file - many of our members are
on fixed incomes and the cost of attending Gatlinburg remains a fraction of the cost of attending
a similar tournament in, say, Chicago.

3) Tons of Places to Eat Near the Venue - hot dogs and soda available at the convention
center, and quite a few casual bars and restaurants nearby.

4) Tons of events, convenient starting times, a new KO every day:

In this manner, Gatilnburg was able to leverage their own success. Once the annual
attendance became reasonably substantial, decades ago, Gatlinburg always offered both pair
events and team events daily. Not just at the standard (1 and 7?) starting times, but also in the
mornings, and late nights, and even a "Dinner-bell KO" which was held "horizontally" across four
afternoons, roughly 5 PM to 6:30.

Contrast this to a small regional, like the one I attended in eastern Washington State a few
years ago - there in Pasco, with well under a hundred tables in play each day, the organizers
could only offer either a pair game or team game each day - not enough attendance to offer
both.

This capacity to "leverage their own success" is what lifted the Gatlinburg Regional from a
medium size tournament in a small place into "The biggest regional in the country" (nowadays,
Penticton and Palm Desert also compete for that title).

Key to the Enormous Table Couunt in Gatlinburg: Bracketed KO’s.

Bracketed KO's were, and probably still are, a big factor in the tournament’s success. Many
readers will already know how bracketed KO's are conducted, for those who don’t:

Hypothesize an entry of 200 teams that sign up for a KO - they are "bracketed" in groups of 16
- so, say you were the fiftieth "best team" (based on your teams' aggregate masterpoint
collection) - that would put you in the "Fourth Bracket" - your masterpoint award would be
based on all the teams below you in the event - essentially, as though you were playing in the
top bracket of a 150 team event.

The master point awards have changed over the years - a factor called "Strength of field" was
introduced in the 90’s. Regardless, the Bracketed KO's in Gatlinburg were legendary. A
reasonable player from anywhere nearby (or anywhere in the world, for that matter) could attend
the Gatlinburg regional, often for a modest cost, and expect to come away with more
masterpoints, on average, than they could expect from three or even five regionals in more
competitive environments like Philadelphia or LA.

And that's how Gatlinburg became such a huge regional. Try it sometime!

*****

Initially I titled this column "Coral Springs Ballroom". I changed it to "Thoughts on Gatlinburg"
when I realized that Gatlinburg starts today - my new bridge agency, WBS, has a pro there,
even. But I anticipate that I'll always think of those tournaments together: South Florida, San
Diego, Gatlinburg - for many years they were consecutive on the annual schedule every April,
and a handful of pros and other bridge enthusiasts would embark on the long drive north and
west to Tennessee.

840 miles, 1352 KM -

https://www.travelmath.com/drive-distance/from/Fort+Lauderdale,+FL/to/Gatlinburg,+TN

Either a short or long drive, depending on your point of view.

This year in Gatlinburg, starting tomorrow, WBS Senior Executive Paulo Brum will be playing
with new client Alex K.

I hope to report later this week in a forthcoming blog entry on their success there.

Here's a deal from Coral Springs, Board 22:

Consider the deal from my point of view: I held xx, xx, T9x, AQTxxx.

Vulnerable against not, Partner Opened One Diamond, and my RHO passed.

Using basic Wilsonovich, I would respond with a jump to 3C - this bid shows 7-9 HCP, and six card club length - the 1NT response here shows 8-10.

A One Heart response shows four card length, though sometimes it’s the best option with only three.

With our example hand, 3C is a stick-out, on a "least of evils" basis.

Walter, my partner on this hand, plays only portions of the method - I asked him later what he
thought of a 3C response. He was distinctly un-enamored with that bid, so I stipulated “What if
the range ran as low as 6-9?”

He didn't care what the range was, he hated the idea of bidding 3C. So I shelved that thought
and responded 1NT, the bid Walter would want me to make.

It looked for a moment like I might play there, but LHO, Sandra Rimstedt, the lovely and
talented Swedish immigrant to these United States, overcalled Two Spades. This was a bold
and winning action, with Sandra eventually landing as declarer in 3S after this auction:

(P) 1D - (P) -1NT - (2S) - P - (P) - 3C - (P) - P - (3S) - P - (P) - P.

Partner led a small club and this dummy was tabled:

KJxx, KTx, Kxx, Kxx

I won the club queen at Trick One. Sandra followed low, and I considered the defense.

This was one of the few hands of the hundred (104) that I played with Walter over the two days
which required much thought. Recently I had a reader request that I try to walk the reader
through my thinking, let me try that here:

1: After winning the club queen at trick one, with declarer following small, I have to first think
about the layout of the club suit - is there any chance that partner led a singleton?

Answer: Since Sandra's Two Spade bid leaves partner with at most 2 spades, then the only
way that partner could have a singleton club is if their pattern was 2=4=6=1 or similar, with six
diamonds and four hearts.

With that pattern partner would bid 3D over 2S, not Pass, so I quickly concluded: Effectively
zero chance that partner has a singleton club. More likely that all the molecules in the room will
go out for a smoke at the same time, creating a vacuum and causing the ballroom to cave in
upon itself.

Presumed Club Distribution: Partner has three clubs, declarer has a singleton.

2: What should I play now? Could it be right to play the ten of diamonds? Answer: Yes, it could
clearly be right to play the Ten of diamonds, With dummy holding King-third, we need merely
assign partner the hypothetical holding of Ace-jack-fourth - or, better still, Ace-queen fourth -
give them a heart holding like Queen-jack fourth - and now we have a diagram that requires a
diamond shift from our side at Trick Two, in order to develop the second diamond trick before
declarer drives out partner's ace of hearts and establishes a heart winner for a discard of
dummy's third diamond.

Answer: It might be right to play the ten of diamonds, if partner has Qx, Axxx, AQxx, Jxx, to
stop the overtrick when this is the layout - we might even defeat the contract with this play, if
partner makes a trick with his queen of spades.

3: Can it be wrong to play the Ten of Diamonds? Initially, it appears that it can’t cost - but could
there be another play that is even better.

Answer: Yes. We may need to play a heart now. If partner has both major suit aces, we might
have to play a heart, to establish a third round heart ruff while partner still has the ace of trump.
Is it a good idea to shift to a heart into that tenuous holding in dummy? It might help declarer, if
they have a two-way heart guess (Queen-nine fourth opposite dummy's king-ten third, say).
Is it worth the risk to shift to a heart?

If partner has both major suit aces and the defense has a slow or fast diamond trick (on this
deal we had a slow one), then we need to play our heart here, to get our ruff.

Which lay-out is more likely? There is one, highly specific lay-out where the ten of diamonds is
the right play - and even then, all it does is stop the overtrick.

There are myriad layouts where partner has both major suit aces and we also get a diamond
trick, so the heart switch will sometimes stop an overtrick, and also will often defeat the contract.

So I flipped back the eight of hearts - probably my biggest tank of the tournament, that one.

*****

Before they moved the tournament to Coral Springs, there were many Aprils where the
regional was hosted at the old Bahia Mar Resort, right opposite the beach on Highway AIA in
Fort Lauderdale. The regional must have been held there for 20 years or more, until around
2015. I attended a handful of times, and was invariably pleased that I had - the bridge was fine,
the money was fine, the weather was fine, the food was fine - and I always got at least one, usually several chances to remark that I thought of that area, South Florida, Dade / Broward
County - as an extension of NYC, what I liked to call "The Sixth Borough".

In case someone quizzes you, these are the other five:

The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan (Manhasbeen).

Next Up, Blog #33: Wisdom from Compton, Up Against the Wall:

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