Grand National Teams

The ACBL (American Contract Bridge League) is the overseeing entity for competitive bridge in North America. They make the rules as far as what conventions are legal and not, they track player stats, they run tournaments, they take your membership fees, etc... Each year they run 3 very large tournaments (formerly known as the Nationals) called the NABCs (North American Bridge Championships). Each of the 3 NABCs has a different slate of major events that take place at them. One of the events at the summer NABC is the Grand National Teams event. This is a qualification only IMPs event held at the very start of the NABC before anything else starts up.

How does qualification work? Well, the ACBL divided North America up into 25 different districts. Each district holds a qualification event on their own to determine which team they're going to send. So only one team from all of Florida can participate in the GNT even if a lot of good teams exist in Florida. What district do I live in? Well, that would be good old District 2 which spans all of Ontario, half of Manitoba, and (for some reason) Bermuda.

Why do I care? Well, it turns out the summer NABC for 2011 is being held in downtown Toronto from July 21st to July 31st. A week and a half of highest quality bridge events held in Canada for the first time in 10 years. Sure, I can show up and play in a bunch of random events over that span, but wouldn't playing in the big opening  event be cool?

Of course, trouble then becomes actually qualifying. After all, district 2 spans an awful lot of area. I'm not really in the mood to fly to Bermuda to try to qualify for this thing, after all. Where is qualification taking place? Oh, it's on Yonge street, the street on which I live. I go right by the club on my way to work every day. (Well, right under it anyway...) The qualifiers are April 2nd and 3rd, on a weekend.

So the big event is 30 minutes away by subway and the qualifier is 15 minutes away. So it's very feasible to physically get there. The next problem is I'm just not that good. I haven't played a lot of bridge in a long time and I haven't played much competitive bridge. Expecting to beat the best players in Ontario, Manitoba, and Bermuda seems a lot presumptuous.

What's that? There's actually 4 Grand National Teams events? So district 2 gets to send 4 teams, not 1? And those teams are split up by overall experience on the team? And the lowest level event requires everyone on the team to both have less than 500 master points and not be a lifemaster? So pretty much anyone who actually has a lot of experience in big events isn't even allowed to play in the event? And anyone who's had a reasonable amount of success at any level for several years is excluded too? Now you're talking...

Obviously this makes it not nearly as prestigious as making it in the championship class event but it makes it a lot more feasible. I probably wouldn't want to put in a lot of effort to qualify for the C level event in Rhode Island or Kentucky. Vegas... maybe. Downtown Toronto for sure!

The only hitch now is actually getting a team of 4-6 people together. If only I knew some people who played bridge, aren't lifemasters, live in or around Toronto, and want to be the best at something...