Summary of the Spring “NABC Columbus” Meeting and Special Meeting in May 2020

Report from your District 6 Director Margot Hennings

Prologue:  This report is somewhat delayed in being readied for posting to the D6 website.  As with all events affected by the Coronavirus, the pace of activities at ACBL has been fast and furious with a great deal of effort having been expended on getting Virtual Club Games up and running.  Going forward, now that face-to-face tournaments have been canceled through the end of 2020 and most face-to-face club games seem unlikely, the emphasis will be on creating special games for clubs, allowing “local cohorts” when running online silver and red/gold point games, and working on team games for all levels of play.

The information that follows is slightly outdated, but I thought many of you would be interested in some of the “back story” of what has led to the many recent announcements by ACBL of online games, guidelines for club re-openings, and cancellation of face-to-face tournaments.  The information below covers both the “regular” Spring NABC meeting, held online over five days on the days that the Board would have met in Columbus, and the first of two Special Meetings held since then, on May 28 and continuing on May 30.  For the most recent news, please see my June Special Meeting Report, also posted to the D6 website.

Overview of Board Motions from the “Columbus” Spring Meeting

All motions can be viewed on the ACBL website under Administration, Board of Directors, Meeting Motions and Minutes, Columbus Minutes. 

201-47:  ACBL Board Reorganization

Perhaps the biggest news out of our Spring Meeting—at least to me, since I have had the privilege and pain of chairing the Governance Committee for the past three years—is the passage by a vote of 20-4-1 of the proposed plan and accompanying Bylaws for reducing the size of the Board of Directors (BOD) from 25 to 13.  Currently, there are 25 districts with one person elected by each district to serve on the ACBL BOD.  The new organization merges eight districts into groups of two, two into groups of three, and leaves three as stand-alone new “regions.”  D6 will be together with D5, which includes the western part of MD, western PA (e.g., Pittsburgh), far western NY (e.g., Buffalo), northern WV, and northern Ohio.  According to the latest membership numbers, D6 has 6,891 members and D5 has 3,095, so our combined Region size at 9,986 would make it the third smallest region population-wise in the ACBL.  District 9—all of Florida—is the largest at 18,230 and our long-time partner in the Mid-Atlantic Bridge Association, D7, is the second largest at 13,610.  Most region combinations are between 12-13,000. 

A great deal of time and attention were giving to creating reasonably “equal” regions, taking into consideration geography as well.  This was a difficult proposition—districts were to retain their current configurations so that grass roots events such as GNTs and NAPs would remain unchanged, and district treasuries, officers, and units would all be left intact. 

No reorganization proposal would be without opposition, and some still favor expertise rather than geography in electing ACBL BOD members, but a significant majority of the Board believes that “regional representation” is most important.  Some are afraid that the smaller district that is combined with the larger district to form a region will “lose its voice.”  I strongly believe that district boundaries have always been somewhat arbitrary and now the region boundaries where districts are “combined” simply combine two or three arbitrary chunks of territory into one, and that the two districts together will elect one person to represent a larger chunk of ACBL members living within those districts.

This motion involves important changes to the Bylaws and all Bylaws changes require two readings, so this plan is not fully approved until after a second reading and vote during the upcoming “Montreal” meetings.  Then, it must pass the Board of Governors as well.  ACBL is incorporated in New York State, so all Bylaws must be in accordance with the NY not-for-profit law.  Hence, even if approved this summer, the Board will only gradually reduce in size as elections occur for the current District Director positions.  Those elected this year will remain on the Board for the entirety of their three-year term, as required by NY law.

Other Motions:

Appointments were made as they are every spring, to the Committees for the Hall of Fame, Competitions and Conventions, Disciplinary, Ethical Oversight, and the Laws Commission.

A small number of members requested transfer from D11 (in WV) into D6 based on geography and access to club play (Item 201-45).  This transfer was unanimously approved.

A number of changes were made to the Code of Disciplinary Regulations (CDR) that passed unanimously in most cases or with very little opposition in others.  These changes—Items 201-01 through 201-07—include allowing a Charged Party in a disciplinary hearing to retain an advocate; permitting sharing of information among members of the Ethical Oversight Committee from cases in order to understand lessons learned from one case and apply them to another in the future; allowing for a negotiated resolution of a charge against a member; and clarifying grounds for suspension, including administrative.

A number of Bridge motions—Items 201-20 through 201-29—having to do with clubs and teachers as well as sanctions for club games were deferred until the Summer meeting.

Two new events to be held during the Spring NABC where there are not many national-level events for lower-masterpoint players met with mixed fates.  Item 201-62, which added a two-day 0-2500 Pairs Event on the second Thursday/Friday of the Spring NABC carried unanimously.  A similar motion—Item 201-61—which would add a four-session Swiss Team event for 0-2500 players on Tuesday and Wednesday of the Spring NABC was deferred until the Summer meeting.  Item 201-60 was put forward by the Board of Governors, requesting that the BOD reconsider the start times for the Atlanta Fall 2023 NABC (they had been approved for the “early” schedule of 10/3) to the “traditional” times of 1 and 7:30.  This motion was deferred to the Summer meeting.

Board Motions from Special May Meeting*

20S-01:  Discontinuation of Board Stipends for rest of 2020

22/2/1, motion passed, after amendment to limit not receiving the stipend to just this trimester 7-18-0.  I voted against the amendment and for the motion.

20S-02:  Districts/Units Running Online Sectionals/Regionals

20/5/0, motion failed after much discussion.  I voted against the motion.  I have included two excerpts at the end of this report: the first, comments on this motion from Management; and the second, a column in the D4 Newsletter by D4 President Meyer Kotkin that pretty much sum up the arguments of those of us opposed.  In short, supporting clubs as the lifeline to Member recruitment and teaching, and supporting the ACBL as many expenses continue but tournament income is curtailed, are the two priorities for the foreseeable future, i.e., for the next six months.  (Note—As we all know, much has changed in the past couple of short months and these decisions are continually under review.  Whether or not and how to hold “local sectionals” and “local regionals” both online and face-to-face will be a key topic at both the July “Montreal” meeting and the Special Meeting at the end of August.

20S-03:  NABC+ and GLM Qualifying Events

25/0/0, motion passed.  Cleanup of a motion from the Fall 2018 meeting where any win of an unrestricted national event or any world event would cause the winner to receive the equivalent of 10,000 masterpoints for flighting, stratification, or bracketing in NABC events,  i.e., no more playing in 10K or second bracket KOs with an NABC+ win.  Motion had passed 14/10/1 in 2018 but wording was clumsy and needed to be tightened up to ensure intent.*

20S-04:  Online (Bridge) Ethical Oversight Committee (OEOC)

25/0/0, motion passed.  Created committee equivalent to Ethical Oversight Committee, which was created in the wake of the cheating scandals several years ago, to rule on ethical infractions committed online.  Behavioral issues would still be referred to Appeals and Charges (A&C). 

20S-05:  CDR—Online (Bridge) Ethical Oversight Committee (OEOC)

25/0/0, motion passed.  Makes changes to the Code of Disciplinary Regulations (CDR) to add OEOC wording where appropriate.

20S-06:  Appeals and Charges Committee (A&C) Hearing Report

25/0/0, Hearing Report was accepted.  The Board does not approve A&C rulings but rather accepts the reports.  There were three cases heard by A&C (I am on that committee) and all three had to do with online cheating—all FTF charges that were pending were dealt with during our Columbus meetings.  All three of these cases involved Flight B- and C-level players, two couples married and obviously consulting with one another in the same house, the other two in separate nursing homes (!) on the phone texting (!).  All three pairs admitted guilt during the required Negotiated Resolution hearings conducted by Management and were suspended for anywhere from 3-4 months and are on probation for 2-3 years.  In committee, we made one aspect of the settlement harsher and made sure that masterpoints were taken away for the month of March.

Small-Group Breakout Sessions—Key Topics:

• Communications (or lack thereof) with all Stakeholders including the Board was a main topic of discussion
  • A Communications protocol (who should be copied on what kinds of emails and informed when decisions are made) was proposed and accepted by Management
  • President attends weekly Virtual Club telecoms and reports to the Board
  • President will attend weekly Management/Staff meetings and report to the Board
  • How many emails to Members is too many emails?  Recent “Save the Date” combined notice about The Longest Day, the Endless Summer Regional, and the Robot Individual (fondly called the “Pajama Game” and held in advance of every NABC, a contractual obligation with BBO), details pending on all
  • What do you want to know?
• Online bridge is not going away any time soon, but decisions must be made to ensure that current marketing approach to tournaments (e.g., number of masterpoints awarded, frequency and type of events held) is quickly replaced by a plan for upcoming events in 2020.
  • A Management Operations Plan was approved in principle, will be updated biweekly, and will extend timeframe quarterly
  • Management plans to hold one online major event monthly to provide revenues for ongoing operations activities—timeline to be ready prior to the next Special Board Meeting (June 17)
  • Boundaries re Management action without Board approval if outside the regulations contained in the Codification discussed
  • A Task Force whose mission is to recommend to the Board what the future for pigmented points in online bridge will look like was appointed by the President
    • Members include Jay Whipple (Chair, The Common Game), Greg Coles (ACBL Director of Bridge Services), Susie Cordell (ACBL Director of IT), David Moss (ACBL BOD), AJ Stephani (ACBL BOD), Pete Misslin (Gatlinburg Regional TC), Lamya Agelidis (Palm Springs Regional TC), Nancy Strohmer (BOG), Silvana Morici (Owner, Sagamore Bridge Club), Donna Compton (Owner, Dallas Bridge Academy)
    • TF will meet weekly and conclude its activities by the end of August
    • TF will consider near-term and longer-term recommendations for when a “hybrid” world of both online and FTF bridge exists—How much “appetite” for online bridge will there be once people start back to work? How quickly will players return to FTF Clubs, just because they can doesn’t mean they will.
  • “Ethics Guidelines” are being developed by National Recorder Robb Gordon based on the “Sky-Blue Book for Online Bridge Play” published by the English Bridge Union.  The Sky-Blue Book is being used as the basis for the current USBF “Invitational Teams” that are replacing the canceled Team Trials (no world bridge events until June 2021)
  • Innovative techniques such as Zoom Rooms to simulate screen-mate play and reduce possibilities for online cheating are being considered for team games but are high-maintenance; may be attempted during “Montreal” NABC timeframe if team games are possible
  • This is the time to look at numbers and scheduling of all tournaments, assuming a hybrid world of bridge in the next several years
• Fall NABC in Tampa and other major events being held FTF is uncertain.  No one has a crystal ball, and all decisions are educated guesses.
  • Financial considerations are paramount, state reopening guidelines are key
  • Re Tampa, the convention center and all hotels but one are willing to waive cancellation penalties if ACBL re-books (same for Montreal), but when and is it wise to schedule NABCs seven years in advance when the future of FTF bridge is unknown?  The one hotel is holding out for its $300,000 fee—negotiations are ongoing.
  • Meeting Services together with Conference Direct is currently renegotiating attrition allowances in Tampa hotel contracts to ensure that, should a smaller NABC go forward, we will not end up with attrition penalties for lower hotel room bookings
  • Will the locals support Tampa?  Will national players fly?  Will international players want or even be allowed to attend per federal regulations?
  • What is the minimum attendance required to break even? 
  • Even spacing out tables does not change the fact that four people sit in close proximity to each other at a card table
  • How much will safety precautions such as thermometers, on-site hand sanitizer, pre-event sanitizing of all equipment, etc., cost?  How will water stations be controlled?  How much are venues willing to do?
  • Requiring masks in order to play should be pro forma
  • Players attend tournaments for the sociability as well as the competition—how much of this will be lost when groups cannot/should not intermingle, some restaurants may be closed or severely limit number of patrons
  • Tablets at the table being considered in lieu of bid boxes and cards—this culture change may be less onerous in a post-COVID environment
  • Safety of employees as well as players is at risk—will TDs go if assigned?
  • Atlanta is seriously considering holding its annual Labor Day Regional—if that tournament is actually held, there will be many Lessons Learned (both good and bad) that will be available from that experience

• Role and Status of Units and Districts were discussed in terms of financial obligations and key activities during the pandemic.
  • Survey of DDs re “financial distress” of units and districts in the current environment revealed a few isolated cases where units own bridge clubs and have arrangements with directors/club owners who use the space and sufficient income is not returning to the unit; and where districts employ “paid staff” and/or have had several financially unsuccessful regionals and depend on regional income to make ends meet
  • Major expenditures of districts are newsletters (mostly online), websites, and support of Grass Roots events—all reported they are “fine” for the moment.
  • Major expenditures of the units are similar—newsletters, websites. 
  • Units receive 11% of membership fees.  This distribution to units was done to provide funds for education and promotion of the game.  The Codification addresses this, but it’s a suggestion, not an obligation.
  • Any additional funds distributed should be directly tied to education and marketing programs—club and tournament players have been provided their “fix” through online games, but little is happening “on the home front” to grow the game of bridge; many teachers are actively engaged in online teaching programs and units and districts could sponsor these, too.
  • ACBL Educational Foundation has several grants it is considering (I have no details at the moment but will learn more).
  • ACBL is continuing its recruitment bonuses for new players who join or renew, and will soon be rolling out a free 60-day membership—details TBD.  Recruiters must be registered but can be units, clubs, teachers.
  • Before “profit-sharing” activities can be seriously discussed, the ACBL needs a solid financial plan and an analysis of the cost of this kind of distribution, not just in $$ distributed, but also in staff needed to compute and process payments

Bits and Pieces from the May 25 Management Status Report

(Excerpts copied directly, only items not specifically addressed elsewhere in this report)

Business Intelligence

We worked with the Accounting Department to get payments set up to process club funds coming from BBO and to process refunds for the cancelled Spring NABC room reservations. We also implemented changes to BBO masterpoint processing to accommodate the SYC and Virtual Club Games reports to ensure that correct masterpoints were awarded.

Infrastructure & Operations  

We continued working on a voting application(s) to support the ACBL Board of Directors’ paperless efforts. We have repaired the current system and have begun designing a new voting platform for the Board and the Board of Governors.  An environment will be ready, supported via Microsoft Teams, for utilization at the May 27, 2020 Board meeting. 

Finance

Efforts by the ACBL CFO to pursue benefits from the CARES Act have paid off.  The Finance Department is working with the ACBL’s payroll provider to use Employee Retention Tax Credits to partially offset our federal payroll tax liability.  This tax credit will be utilized in the ACBL’s July 2020 tax filing.  We will continue to monitor the potential for funding the ACBL through new and revised stimulus packages passed by the Federal government.  

The Finance Department is continuing to monitor current revenues and expenses and is creating a revised forecast for 2020.  We are working on a plan to align ACBL’s expenses with forecasted future revenue.  Even with the CARES Act tax credit and the success of online games, the estimated loss for 2020 will be close to $1M.

Human Resources

The ACBL furloughed a total of 11 employees from headquarters and 23 tournament directors. We received and processed 21 unemployment claims, 18 in United States and three in Canada.

The 20% reduced pay/four-day work week has been eliminated effective May 25, 2020 due to the increased workload of continuing to adapt to major online activities.  The reopening of corporate headquarters is tentatively scheduled for June 15, 2020. 

Marketing

Marketing created a new, shareable newsletter about online bridge opportunities for members to share with their friends and family.  We also created a Teacher Feature to support online learning through social media promotion. 

We are working on a Statement of Work and expected ACBL resource utilization for the Phase I execution of an ACBL Educational Foundation Social Bridge Project, a revenue generating project for the ACBL.

We are drafting guidance for the resumption of in-person play at clubs and tournaments. 

Marketing is finalizing a new ACBL logo and branding development with RedRover.

National Recorder

Due to the explosion of online bridge and the ethical challenges attached, we are busier than ever with Player Memos and cheating investigations.  While the total volume of Player Memos has not risen since the shutdown, at this point every online Player Memo is investigated and processed by the Office of National Recorder rather than being consigned to the various Districts.  If and when Districts start holding their own events, those Player Memos will be forwarded downline, except for cheating matters, which will remain with the National Office. Recently Jess Stuart of District 4 was recruited as a volunteer to help with cheating investigations.  Jess was District 4 Recorder for several years, stepping down at the end of 2019.

Support Your Clubs (SYC) / Virtual Clubs / “Silver Linings”

Marty Bley is the true expert on a lot of technicalities of the online club games—she or one of the other “NVBA Collective” Directors sits in every week on the telecom hosted by Jay/TCG, ACBL, and BBO.  The info presented immediately below is financial only, to answer many of the questions that are asked about how much money is being collected, distributed, to whom, etc.  Following that are reasons why support for clubs is so important, and why the biggest clubs were brought online first.

Financial Support to Virtual Clubs—March/April

• SYC Funds going back to Clubs

March: $159,474  Top 10 Clubs* = 8.5% of that ($13.573)

April: $339,784  Top 10 Clubs* = 7.1% ($24,076)

• Virtual Club Funds going back to Clubs

March: $26,572  Top 10 Clubs* = $20,284 (we were just starting out)

April:  $916,590  Top 10 Clubs* = 24.4% ($223,380)

*The “Top 10 Clubs” aren’t really just the top 10 clubs.  The top club is Sagamore on Long Island (Silvana Morici), but they are pooled with 2 other clubs that are normally in the top 15 in the league so it’s somewhat inflated.  Same with Honors in NYC – they are #2 but that’s all three of owner’s clubs plus others.  In “normal”/FTF table count from 2019, the top 10 clubs were 5.8% of total tables.  Another thing that skews the above is that the top clubs tend to charge more per entry.

“Silver Linings” Week—May

• A huge success, far surpassed original estimate of 30,000 tables for the week with final total of 37,639.5 tables
• This was an increase of 51.5% over the previous week.  Day-by-day breakdown of tables and percentage increase over the same day of the week for the previous week:

Monday	6236.5	37.0%
Tuesday	5917.5	42.4%
Wednesday	6059.5	45.2%
Thursday	6184.5	53.2%
Friday	5885	41.1%
Saturday	4105.5	76.4%
Sunday	3251	127.7%

• Online club play for May more than doubled the table count from April—May produced 113,827.5 tables, up 100.4% over April.  This table count includes not only Silver Linings but also three of the four days of the “Stay at Home, Play at Home” Regional held April 30-May 3.
• BBO Virtual Club Games have been successfully rolled out and incorporated into the current technology, Live for Clubs.  This rollout included the addition of a multiplier (1.5X black masterpoints®) and changes to the table sanction fees.

What Fees Are Collected?

• For the month, ACBL will be collecting $302,025 in sanction fees from the clubs, $225,837 of that from Silver Linings Week.
• Breakdown of fees collected:
  • $5 fee for SYC games, all goes to ACBL minus BBO fee, and sanction fee is withheld before remaining monies are sent to clubs
  • For SYC games, originally, monies were held by ACBL until clubs reached $250, now changed to $100
  • Clubs set their own fees for Virtual Club games, including for Silver Linings games
  • For Virtual Club games, 3.5% is now taken off the top for credit card fees, 25% of the remainder goes to BBO and 75% goes to the clubs after ACBL deducts its $1 sanction fee

Why Were the Biggest Clubs Brought Online First?

• Game size and the capabilities of club support staff—first Honors, Sagamore, and Sam Marks’ club in Atlanta
• Two weeks later, other clubs were brought onboard by size and skill set.
• Goal was to get as many people playing as possible as quickly as possible to test the model. Each club manager required hours of training to bring their games onboard.

Online “Stay at Home, Play at Home” Regional

Original Assumptions

• Event was run as a fundraiser for the ACBL—to help support the 60% of the staff that had not been furloughed and who were working only 32-hour work-weeks at 80% pay
• This was a “test” event, rolled out to satisfy demand, but done quickly with the understanding that there were many challenges and that there would be unavoidable missteps
• Fee intentionally set at $15 in order not to compete with clubs—clubs generally charge less than $10 and award black points.  This Regional would, of course, award Red and Gold points, and no travel expenses would be incurred in participating

Follow-up

• Attendance proved the demand—average of 1000 tables in the afternoon and 700 at night
• Missteps happened, “Lessons Learned” applied and the next Regional promises to be even “better”
• Details still TBD re upcoming “Longest Summer” Regional to be held June 25-28
• Cost will remain at $15 per session
• Expectation is that there will be “two tracks” every day for the events, to accommodate both East and West Coast players.  One could choose to play four sessions a day (!) if final timing of sessions is such that no session overlaps with another.
• Schedule will include full complement of pairs events during each track (assuming two tracks is the final recommendation)—two or three lower-flight single-session events; single-session side pairs; two session Gold Rush; two-session Mid-flight; and two session Top-flight.
• Number of boards under discussion—Management exploring possibility of 21 boards for the top flight, but this imposes difficulties if “two tracks” are run since end times for the flights would be different, and hence start times for the next session would be affected.
• Time per board is under discussion—Now that more players are familiar with BBO play mechanics, 7 minutes per board rather than 8 seems reasonable.  BBO only allows full minutes per board, no half minutes.

Survey Results—Summary of Comments Received by ACBL President Georgia Heth and the 25 District Directors

(Known or proposed “solutions” shown in blue italics)

• Compliments
• Game proceeded reasonably smoothly. D7
• Director replies were good and reasonably responsive. D10
• Length of the event is appropriate considering it is online. D24
• People enjoyed and were happy to play. D3, D10, D17, D20, D24, BOG
• Players enjoyed to opportunity to earn gold points. D17, D21
• Judy Chvala from D6 made LM at the online Regional. Yay! D6

• Improvement Suggestions—Player Info
• Players should use their real names, not BBO handles. D7, D10, D20 (Being discussed by Competitions and Conventions Committee)
• Players should have convention cards. D10, D20 (Being discussed by Competitions and Conventions Committee)
• Players should include ACBL rank in their profile. D20

• Improvement Suggestions—Masterpoints
• Overall masterpoint awards too high. D7, D24, D25
• Masterpoints were great. D25

• Improvement Suggestions—Pricing
• Price too high, bang for buck too low.  D1, D2, D6, D8, D10, D14, D17, D19, D20, D21, PRES

• Improvement Suggestions—Conduct & Ethics (See separate section)
• Cheating concerns – general and specific. D3, D4, D6, D14, D17, D12, D20, D21, D24, D25. (D6 asked for management report on this to the board)
• Monitoring suggestion – player-initiated flagging system to highlight suspicious activity by opponents. D20
• Need online etiquette tips – for instance people often like to message “please bid” or the like when inappropriate. D10
• Slow play button to call director that would notify other players is a good idea. BOG
• Not enough directors to handle the calls. BOG

• Improvement Suggestions—Systems problems
• Unnecessary 35-minute stoppage mid-game Thursday – would have been better to let people know what was happening. D4, D10, D16, D20
• Sign-in for Gold Rush Friday – 20-minute delay registering and no feedback while waiting. D10
• Sign-in for Gold Rush Sunday.  Full at 2:18 PM. (after 18 minutes!) Missed cut. Pres
• Inability to log on, especially the Gold Rush. Players not happy with capacity limits. D17 (Capacity limits to be partially addressed by two-track schedule.)
• It was not clear how to sign up for Regional while playing in a Virtual Club event. Pres x 2
• How do we give priority to players who were not able to play at future event sign ups? Pres
• What’s the logic for not allowing mis-click in masterpoint games– a player with physical problems that don’t impede face to face play, is not able to do BBO because their hand is unsteady.  League has always worked hard to enable those with disabilities to play – how do we deal with this one? D10 (Can set double-click for both bidding and play under Account/Settings—increases time slightly but decreases opportunities for mis-clicks.)
• Players registered properly on Friday but then were not able to play. D3
• Player with 7500 masterpoints was rejected at open pair registration Thursday, due to it being a “limited event.” D16
• Players dropped from games caused frustration. D16
• Played one pair twice in the same session. D20
• Friday 90-minute delay for game to come up in BBO as an option. During that time no communication, even though player asked BBO and ACBL for status. D4
• BBO deregistered a pair while waiting for second session to start and they were not able to play as a result. D10
• Technical and registration problems on Thursday. D24
• Session sold out too quickly. D24 (To be partially addressed by two-track schedule)
• First day issue of excluding BBO members who had stars next to their names. D6

• Improvement Suggestions—Timing
• 8 minutes per board was way too long. (Do not have to move, count cards, etc.) D10, D14, D20, D21, D24 (Proposed 7 min/board for next Regional)
• Timing of events need to be earlier in the day – avoid the evening. D8, D10, PRES (Capacity limits to be partially addressed by two-track schedule.)
• Regional on weekends so it does not interfere as much with virtual club games. Pres.
• Timing of events need to have a one-hour dinner break, not 90 minutes. Start the first session one hour later at 5PM ET, a benefit to western and central. PRES
• Number of boards is a long enough time. D17
• Earlier start times, such as 1 and 6 or 7 EDT. D25 (Capacity limits to be partially addressed by two-track schedule.)

• Improvement Suggestions—Revenue
• Revenue for this regional should NOT be shared with the Districts. D3, D8, D9, D13, D14, D20, D25 (Some Directors may want to revisit this for future online regionals.)
• Revenue for this regional should be shared with the Districts. D1, D18

• Improvement Suggestions—Publicity
• ACBL publicity for Gold Rush game was not available on time and was not clear – caused delay to figure out – by then event was full.  Needs to be on time, more capacity, and crystal clear how to find the event. D9 (Capacity limits to be partially addressed by two-track schedule.)
• Needed more notice to plan for the event. D17 (Notice for this next Regional sent out over three weeks in advance—received June 1 for June 25 start.)
• Players unaware of the BBO partnership desk. D17
• Lacking ACBL live messaging or posting. D21 (Now available)
• No way for outsider (not playing) to follow their favorites. D21 (No kibitzing is allowed during tournaments.)

• Improvement Suggestions—Schedule
• Number of boards is too few – prefer 24 instead of 18. D1, D9, D10, D14, D17, D25, BOG, D6 wants 21+ (Being considered for the next Regional)
• Suggest stratiflighted events.  D10, D14, D16, Pres (Proposed for the next Regional)
• Suggest future Regionals have a typical Regional “full schedule” each day.  D8, D16, D21 (Proposed for the next Regional, but still only Pairs)
• Players want team games online, and many of those chose not to participate since they were not available.  D10, D17, D24 (Proposed experimentally for sometime in July—at some level and for some limited number; difficult to start all at once where everyone needs to be online before any matches can start; continuing ethics concerns.)
• Districts want to run their own Sectionals and Regionals on BBO. (D25 has a proposal on this.) D21, D25
• Consider making the online Regional “geographically regional “instead of one big event, to better cater to timing of play. Pres.  (To be partially addressed by two-track schedule)
• Adjust next Regional events based on what we learned on demand for this one. Pres.  (Being done!)
• Why were 299er games limited to Friday only?  D17 (Being addressed by more extensive flight- and strat- schedule)
• Consider a fast pairs next time. D24
• Why no 2 session pairs games on Friday?  D24
• Ensure a full path to LM is possible online (all pigments winnable online), with regularly scheduled events on the calendar at a minimum weekly or even daily. Uday Ivatury via D24 (For the moment, too much conflict with club play)
• Consider running daily interesting tournaments such as plat pairs, LM pairs, 0-750 mp games, KO, Swiss. (For the moment, too much conflict with club play, plus ethics concerns)
• Consider automated pigmented daylong games. Uday via D24.
• Would like to see a 5000 + event to accompany the Gold Rush. D6
• Many requests for more Gold Rush. D6
• Open events difficult to seed well. BOG

Appendix I

Management Comment on Item 20S-02: District or Unit Run Online Regionals and Sectionals

With the recent success of Support Your Club games, Virtual Club games and the Online Regional; at a glance it may seem that moving towards allowing Districts and Units to run Regionals and Sectionals would be the logical next step.  Management believes there may be a future where units and districts can run online tournaments but there needs to be a broader strategic conversation around tournaments, both in-person and online. However, if we do decide to go forward without a broader strategy, there are many negative factors that need to be explored to fully understand what the true impact of this would be to the current online play “ecosystem”.

Financial Impact to Clubs – With the first 4-day venture into running a Regional event online, while difficult to specifically quantify, the attendance in club games suffered somewhere around 25% over that timeframe.  The main reason that it’s difficult to quantify is that the clubs were still going through a period of rapid growth at that time, so it’s not as simple as comparing attendance during those four days to the same period for the prior week.  The actual attendance over the four days was down 9.8% over those four days while we had been experiencing approximately 15% growth for the days immediately before the tournament, hence the estimate of a 25% decrease.  Most all our clubs have some sort of overhead, even while they are shut down, with some having significant ongoing expenses.  Most of the clubs that fall into that second category are our largest clubs and the clubs that do a major portion of our new player recruitment.  These clubs are all “on the brink” of financial losses that will lead to them never reopening their brick and mortar clubs.  Even if this financial impact is more imagined than real, the psychological impact on these club owners and managers that have worked so hard to keep their club alive, would be devastating.

Player Impact – Creating lists of players in neighboring Districts/Units along with historical data may all seem well and good but, learning from the club experience, we will be inundated with special requests from players with all sorts of reasons why they should be allowed to play with the partner of their choosing.  Having the ability to make exceptions would be mandatory but, at the same time, would also be almost impossible to manage—at least in the near-term.

Technological Issues – While we’ve made huge strides in development, we are still faced with many limitations within BBO’s system.  The size of these “lists” of a host District/Unit coupled with neighboring Districts/Units and the historical data would be far too large for BBO to handle.  We already have clubs that are pushing the limitations.  Another key issue is that the extra processes that need to happen in the background from both BBO’s side and the ACBL’s are not a linear relationship to table count.  In other words, the things that need to happen to run a 400-table event are only a slightly larger effort than for a 100-table event.  This means that doing more events that are smaller would lead to inefficiencies as compared to running less, but larger, events.

Appendix II

Thoughts from D4 President, Meyer Kotkin (from the D4 May Online Newsletter, the “D4 Spot”):

It is nice to see many D4 players on BBO and even nicer to see a lot of support for the virtual clubs in D4. When there are no face-to-face tournaments, the District and Units have very few recurring expenses. D4 pays a monthly storage bill to a storage and shipping company where we keep our tournament equipment and supplies including, but not limited to, boards, Bridgemates, bidding boxes and tables. Even in the absence of face-to-face tournaments, D4 and its Units are not in any imminent financial distress. On the other hand, the ACBL and our bridge clubs are facing a financial crisis of unparalleled proportion. Virtual games are helping clubs meet some of their fixed recurring expenses (think rent and salaries) but for most clubs this still might not be enough to keep them going for an extended period without face-to face playing and teaching. The ACBL depends on face-to-face tournament and club sanction fees for income, and with no face-to-face sanction income and club sanction fees down, the ACBL reluctantly laid off a lot of employees and directors and those not laid off are working extra hours at reduced salaries. Many pundits on BridgeWinners.com and throughout the bridge community will have opinions about the future of Bridge, but without the ACBL surviving, I don’t know that there is any future for the game.

The ACBL ran a Virtual Regional last month and the afternoon sessions averaged about 1,000 tables and evening sessions about 700 tables. While the ACBL made a large profit from the large virtual Regional, the profit doesn’t come close to the normal profit from a month of face-to-face tour-ament sanction fees. Consider that there were 51 Sectionals and 12 Regionals scheduled for June 2020 that the Districts and Units throughout the ACBL canceled. Many more tables than the virtual Regional produced. In response to that an ACBL Board member proposed that the ACBL allow all Districts and Units to run virtual tournaments with the ACBL taking a 25% cut of the top, and Districts and Units paying for Directors and normal sanction fees. Our D4 Director, Joann Glasson, who is working double time as Chair of the ACBL Finance Committee, asked for my opinion, and I wrote that I was strongly against this proposal. There were several reasons, but the most important reasons dealt with the strain on our volunteer resources to learn about virtual tournaments and the competition with the virtual club games.  51 Sectionals and 12 Regionals in a month will surely impact virtual club attendance.  As an alternative, I proposed that the ACBL get to run one nationwide Regionalbi-monthly and one nationwide Sectional in the alternate months so thatplayers have an opportunity for rank advancement.  Sections in those events can be by Unit or District for the Sectional and Regional, respec- tively.  I doubt this will pass, but as long as we are forced to play virtually, we have to balance the opportunities between the two most important keys to the future of bridge:  the ACBL and the Clubs.