So the last two weeks I've been playing a lot of bridge. Last week was in Toronto, I played the whole week with my mom, sometimes as teammates sometimes as partners. We won the fast pairs early in the week by getting 3 tops in the last round to win by 1 match point. Then in the main event of the regional, the SHEARDOWN KNOCKOUT, we lost by 1 in the semi finals after I fought to make the matches 28 boards instead of 56... kind of ironic. The problem with the event was it was set as a 3 day event, but not enough teams entered. So what ended up happening was they scheduled a 56 board semi final for day 2, and a 56 board final on day 3. The issue was, it was only worth 22 master points for winning this really tough bracket that takes 3 days, so I got all of the teams in the semi finals to agree to shorten the event to 2 days.
On the weekend, my documentary aired on Canadian National Television. It was so interesting looking back on a very important period of my life and having it all taped. They did a good job putting the documentary together so that it can be interesting for non-bridge players. Obviously when its a 44 minute documentary there are going to be lots of things I don't like about it. They got a lot of the bridge facts wrong, but that would go unnoticed to a non-bridge player. One issue was, I was the only one of us who talked about my mistakes in front of the camera... so when it came time to put the blame on someone, the only thing they could do was put it on me. It was very sentimental watching it, and it made me really miss playing with Vince (I know that might surprise you if you've seen the documentary). He really is and was one of my best friends and even though we had rough times, we also had some awesome times. I look forward to the chance to play with him again later this year as he is back from Australia.
This week in Gatlinburg has been one of the most excruciating weeks I can remember. We have a house rented in the mountains which is fantastic, but it means for an extra 10 minute commute 5 or 6 times a day. I've been playing on a 4 handed team in bracket 1, 3 sessions a day. So we have played a lot of tough opposition and really gotten drilled. Somehow we have about 60 points just from winning a couple 1 session board-a-match's and making the semi finals of the first KO. We only planned on being here until Saturday so today there is nothing to play for us. I will play a side game with Melanie Tucker (my partner for the week) this afternoon and tonight we will try to win a 3rd B-A-M.
I have lots of interesting hands to come from these 2 weeks, I just really have been too tired to post on here.
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7 comments:
How much is the life of a bridge pro dominated by the rate of return of masterpoints?
winning is important, but the rate is by the session.
Is the documentary available online and/or are there any plans to broadcast it in the US?
working on getting it on youtube, otherwise I'm not sure
It was broadcasted in USA - one of advantages of living in Buffalo is getting couple Canadian TV channels and lots of Canadian beer...
I would say it is pretty cool documentary and very entertaining (for bridge players and wannabe bridge players). To me it looked like Vincent is the “bad” guy, demanding too much…shows that partnership is not just a simple addition of two good players. Hmm I wonder may be I should be easier on my partners.
Justin Lall got it up on youtube. It's called 'Bridge Documentary Part 1' and 'Bridge Documentary Part 2'.
actually it was Alan Crank who did it.
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