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Deal of the Week
by John Dickenson
A Psych In Vain
Had heard good things about the Monterey Clambake Regional from the Glassons, and Lisa Mita had a “buy one, get one for $99” certificate from her American Airlines credit card (which comes with a huge number of blackout dates, meaning you can only redeem it when no one else is flying), so decided to give it a try.
Like many regionals and the NABCs, Monterey has abandoned two day knockout teams for one day bracketed teams. First day, we are in the top bracket – we only have 20,000 points as a team, but Alison Shoemaker’s partner John McAllister has won two NABC+ events so is treated as if he has 10,000 points, therefore we are assigned 25,000 for the team. There are 9 teams in our bracket – two with 25K, 2 with 35K, and 5 pro teams with 6 figures of points. We start strong, beating Mike Passell’s team 20-0 for 18 victory points. Later, we managed to lose to Grue/Hampson/Hurd/Miniter by only 2 IMPs which was a moral victory. We finished 3-4-1 with a dead average 80 VP out of a possible 160, a great showing considering we were the bottom seed in the bracket.
After Monday, we were playing in the second bracket and once in the third where the going was a lot easier. Along the way this deal came up, all vulnerable:
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