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 17

Rosenberg, Gitelman, Weinstock, Ivaturay, Henner, Christensen win Mixed Teams

A decisive and popular victory was scored by a team headed by Debby Rosenberg and including the three founders of Bridge Base Online. An especially big week for Fred Gitelman, who was inducted into the Bridge Hall of Fame on the first night of the tournament.

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The 88th Summer NABC pivots into the final weekend today, with eight teams remaining in the marquee event, the Spingold Teams.

Extensive results are available here, click below for this link to today’s ACBL Bulletin:  

Interesting bridge hands are thick on the street – readers can find many at that link. I’ve been inviting players to share their interesting deals with me, and I’ll continue to.

Certainly that is part of what we value so much about our sport – if the deal we just played wasn’t fascinating and challenging, the next one is likely to be – and then certainly the one after that.

I’ve spent part of my time this week looking around the playing room where I’m competing – what makes the experience so extraordinary? In a world where it takes so much to prod us into action – in a world where we mostly don’t do, rather than one where we do – what is it that draws us to attend these tournaments, for as long and as often as we can?

It is the large tournaments in particular that we are drawn to – sometimes I imagine that this phenomenon is like metal filings, drawn by their magnetic charge to congregate together – in the same fashion that half a million souls were drawn to the Woodstock Music Festival, 57 years ago.

As individuals, we are drawn to these tournaments partly by our desire for glory, Whether the glory is of the immense and historic type enjoyed by the winners of a major championship, or the somewhat less radiant type enjoyed by the winner of a limited event in the basement exhibition hall, certainly it is the desire to win – the desire to be recognized as a winner – that is one element that draws people here to these tournaments.

For the pro players, who make up the vast majority of what we cover here, and a big portion of the readership of these dispatches – not as big a portion as you think, most pro bridge players are avid and enthusiastic in their anti-intellectualism, their general membership in the non-reading class – for the pro players, of course, it is the need and desire to make a buck – you try to get a good offer, a high fee – if you can’t get a high fee, you try to get a decent fee – if you can’t get a decent fee, you take the best fee you can get. 

And if you can’t get any fee at all, you try to scrape together the funds to get to the host city and try to make a contact so you might get paid next time.

Of course, pro players make up no more than 1% of our total membership, and no more than 3-5% of the attendance at these major congresses. For the rank-and-file, the question of “Why We Play” is even more intricate, more nuanced still. After all, for pro players bridge is a job – we don’t need to ask why people go to work at their jobs – it’s self-evident – they want and need their paycheck.

Regular players speak to the question in interviews published in the various bridge publications – the intellectual challenge of our sport, the stimulation, the pleasure we take in competing, the fulfilment we get from the social element.

I find myself fascinated by this desire to compete – it seems innate to the human condition. These people here – our friends and colleagues, literally thousands of them – people who don’t feel compelled to compete in other aspects of their day-to-day lives – ardently want to compete at bridge, compete in these bridge tournaments (and sometimes simply in the local duplicate games available in their host city or online daily at BBO or the other internet bridge sites).

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  WHY WE PLAY

For some time I’ve been looking forward to writing some columns, or addressing the question in my bridge blog, of “why we play” – certainly I’d like to hear from individual readers, by email or in person, on their own personal motivations. 

  I guess this is an obvious one:

  “Because it’s so much fun!”

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Another Reason: Bridge, as I’ve been trying to articulate in these columns, is a tool for personal growth. And to cite the teachings of Vince Lombardi, the legendary football coach (American gridiron, not soccer – how topical that, with the World Cup Final, Argentina versus Spain, due to be played this weekend).

Lombardi is often quoted (misquoted, really) as having said: “Winning isn’t everything – it’s the only thing.”

People love that quote, but my understanding is that Lombardi really said something much different – that what he said was, “In organized competitions, it is the single-minded and wholehearted pursuit of winning which is the only thing that matters.”  

This is closer to my own view – that what makes these tournaments meaningful – what makes them so meaningful – isn’t just the good (outstanding) fees they generate (hey, I like eating and sleeping indoors as much as the next guy).

And it is not just because the results here are “deemed to matter” – so they do matter (though that is a major part of why we play, or at least why I play, on a core existential level).

To be part of a social contract, with my partners, teammates, and opponents – a social contract where I agree to try my hardest, and to make my best effort – and they agree to do the same – being a participant in that vast social contract is a major motivator in what draws us here to these large congresses, that makes us want to participate in these tournaments.

Around the time the US entered World War II, legendary filmmaker Frank Capra was called upon by the US government to produce a series of short documentaries under the title, “Why We Fight”. Many historians believe those films were instrumental in motivating soldiers to perform to their best ability, which led to the victory of the Allies in the war.

That’s a link to one of the seven Capra documentaries. A modern audience may find them too slow – a few of our readers may enjoy viewing that.

Since the subject of this “Dispatch” has been largely why we gather at tournaments in this fashion, I’ll close with a link to Joni Mitchell’s great song about that largest of all gatherings, the Woodstock Festival:

Woodstock, Joni Mitchell

  And that’s all for me this morning – Roth Swiss at 10.

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  Your Man in America – 

  Glubok