The NABC Summer Nationals – Dispatches From the Front

BRIAN GLUBOK

Brian is a highly accomplished American bridge player hailing from New York City. Glubok, an alumnus of Amherst College, has consistently excelled in North American Bridge Championships, securing numerous titles, including wins in the Jacoby Open Swiss Teams, Reisinger, and Spingold events. In addition to his domestic success, Glubok came close to victory in the World Mixed Pairs Championship in 2010, finishing as the runner-up.

Brian will be writing for IMP about the Summer NABC in Minneapolis. This is the fourth of the series.

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For details about the Summer NABC in Minneapolis, look here.

MINNEAPOLIS, July 12

The world’s best bridge players are gathered here in this midwestern American city as play continues today to crown champions in two major and several lesser events. The von zedtwitz Life Master Pairs is down to 78 partnerships from an original entry of close to 400 pairs – American phenom Zack Grossack leads the field with his partner, Andrew Rosenthal.

In the Grand National Teams, after six months of play nationwide, Florida, composed of a veteran squad of mostly transplanted New Yorkers will face a team of California Asians in today’s Grand Final – SoCal and St. Louis were eliminated by those two teams yesterday.

Ron Smith and Oren Kriegel lead the field after one day of the two – day national pair game, made up mostly of pairs who didn’t qualify for the second day of the LM’s – and including the dozens of players whose flights from NYC were canceled Thursday night due to thunderstorms.

In the LM’s, Netherland’s own and frequent IMP contributor Marion Michielsen is no longer second but remains in the top ten. I’ll invite her here to share any interesting deals she plays and I’ll pass them along to this readership.

Bridge legend Zia Mahmood, leading after Friday’s qualifying round, also remains among the leaders. Zia graciously agreed to provide me some interesting deals he plays with Bart – Zia can’t go an hour without playing an interesting deal – he’s that kind of bridge player.

This writer qualified for the final with partner Ed Zuckerberg – no longer in the top 3% but pleased to be among the 20% of the original field to qualify for the final.

Bridge giant Bob Hamman with partner Jack Oest of Chicago, had two magnificent games yesterday to climb from their spot near the bottom of the semi-finallists into a top ten position.

For a complete list of qualifiers and other news from Minnesota, click here.

I’ll be partnering Hamman in the Spingold, and competing against him in today’s LM Finals, so – if I can’t get access to him for some bridge stories from this tournament, then – I’m not trying hard enough. Along with Zia, Zach, Marion and Finn, that provides me a great core of players to follow – I’ll be asking them for interesting deals as the tournament continues.

Some bidding problems

Here’s a couple of bidding problems from the very first day of the tournament:

A) Jx, AJ, 107xx, QJ10xx – 1 on your left, 1 from partner – Pass on your right – I had this hand opposite Bob Hamman in the Warm-Up Swiss.

B) xx, AJxxx, 10xxx, Qx – 1 from partner – 1 on your right – ? (Favorable  Vulnerability)

With B), I was able to bid 2, since partner and I play that as non-forcing. The bidding continued 4 – 6 – Pass – Pass – 6 – 

We were cold for 6 but beat their sacrifice 800 after my bad opening lead – think about your own choice and I’ll look to provide details in my next “Dispatches From the Front”.

If you’re here in Minnesota, or reading this elsewhere and have an interesting deal or thought to share for this column, speak to me directly or write to me at: Brianglubok@gmail.com

Gotta head over to the playing site shortly, so, we’ll close with this link to Bruce Springsteen’s late/early period (from 1984, his career began in the mid-seventies), Glory Days:

And that’s all for today.

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Signed,

IMP’s Man in America,

Glubok