Totally Unauthorized

Bruce, Danny, Jack, Bob and Mike

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where taste, class, style and fine dining go to die.  That’s where the Unit 499 Travelling Squad is this week.

The Gatlinburg Regional is the biggest in the nation–in the course of 7 days, there may well be 10,000 tables, more than many 11 day national tournaments.

People don’t come here for the glamor, or nightlife, or fine accommodations.  They come to play bridge where it doesn’t cost much.  There isn’t a host hotel, there isn’t a hotel at all.  There are a multitude of cheap motels, perhaps the best of which is a Hampton Inn.  Micky B stays there.

What the rest of the team does is rent a house.  We have a 5 bedroom, 5 bathroom “cabin” up in the hills.  Completely equipped, with pool table, hot tube, wireless internet and satellite television.  $1800 for the week–and we split that 5 ways. Then make your own breakfast and lunch.  Then realize  that an expensive restaurant dinner will set you back $25, and this is the cheapest tournament going.

Further, some enormous percentage of the US lives within a 6 hour drive of Gatlinburg. Flying here isn’t the greatest–you either fly to Dallas and then Knoxville and drive an hour, or fly to Nashville and drive 3.5 hours.  I was up at 4:10 this morning to catch the early flight to Dallas, where I met Mike and we flew here with Mike Passel, Eddie Wold, Roger Bates and Bob Morris.   That’s about 150,000 masterpoints on the plane.

Bob, Bruce, Jack and Danny flew in yesterday through Nashville.  OAK to LAX to Nashville and then driving, they got here at 11:30 last night.  Of course, they stopped for the traditional grocery store run, where grown men go slightly berserk and buy everything they want.  Munson need ice cream with every meal, and is inexplicably drawn to mint chip.  We have peanut butter with no jam–I’ll have to go to the store tomorrow to pick some up.

Since they got here yesterday, the four of them played a one session A/X Swiss this afternoon, taking second in the X strat.  Tonight, the 6 of us entered a KO, and tomorrow we will start another one.  Knockouts here can have 30 or 40 brackets, and the payouts are impressive.  There are pair events, too, but they are small and only play 24 boards.

After the game, there is no hospitality or entertainment.  In a redneck tourist town, I suppose you could go out and get drunk and rowdy and tattooed, but that just isn’t our style.   We’re more into endless re-hashing of hands and eating ice cream.

So that’s the early report from G’burg.  Time for bed.