I remember March 14th-16th very well, not just because it was the last weekend prior to Covid-19 lockdowns in NYC. It was also the weekend of the most recent Spring 2020 Online Individual NABC. At the time, these special NABC-related robot tournaments were the only way anyone could win pigmented points on BBO, with the bonus that they were gold/red!
Are These Bot Tournaments Still Special?
Ok, so we’ve all been sheltering at home since roughly March 17th. Since then, we’ve had two massive online gold point regionals, and a massive Silver Linings Week. There are many black point virtual private club games daily. Is this bot tourney even special anymore?
It will be interesting to see whether the online individual is still popular. I suspect it will be and have already registered for it ($40 early bird, $34 for returning participants). You get 3 days of fun, playing 24 robot boards each session. It is stratified and broken into sections of about 15 players. In other words, you have a very good chance of winning some gold and red.
And yes, the online individual NABC is still very special. It’s the only 3-session ACBL robot event, held only once each NABC (so 3 times a year). At 72 boards, equally weighted across the 3 days, the ultimate winners tends to be more than just lucky, and more than just skillful at tricking robots. Historically, the winners are extremely strong face-to-face players.
Why The Luck Factor?
Usually, robot tournaments are a crapshoot. Long term good players will average out a better score, but luck plays a big factor in the daily 8 and 12 board daylongs. Remember, you do not get the same boards as everyone else. For security reasons, only 35 or so other people play each board.
To score well, you need the kinds of boards that are tricky to bid and play. A straight-forward board is going to net you and everyone else a 50%. Ideally, you get a board with multiple viable lines of play; if there is any justice, you pick the better line and it works! But as we have all experienced, sometimes the better line fails, the mediocre line wins a top, and we smile and realize this is a part of duplicate bridge.
Standard Rules
By now it should be familiar to everyone. It’s Best Hand, meaning your hand always has the most HCP at the table. Human Declare, meaning you will declare for your partner if the auction would have made you dummy. These two rules together ensure you have an interesting bidding decision to make each hand, and you will end up declaring about 80% of the boards. Hope to see everyone register!