Monday, February 22, 2016

CBAI win Peggy Bayer Trophy for 1st time ever


Link to Peggy Bayer website

Last weekend Feb 19-21 The CBAI under 20 squad won the Peggy Bayer Trophy for Home International Teams. I don't think CBAI have ever won a junior event before. These events are usually dominated by England teams and from time to time Scotland put in a spoke.

However this year CBAI had developed a capable foursome who were quite surprised back in 2013
when the breakfast chef interrupted their 4 month old bridge game to offer some advice.
Nobody had told them about former CBAI President and very capable bridge player Commandant
Eddie Fitzgerald. Eddie has been the B&B host for several schools bridge participants including
some of the winning team above.

Conor Boland Michael Donnelly Stephen Barr and John Connolly along with NPC Thomas MacCormac another former CBAI President.  Nice dicky bows lads .. as well as several dominating
performances after a sluggish start in rounds 1-4.

These lads and several others were each assigned a trials level and beyond mentor. Mentors include
Pat Quinn Gay Keavney John Phelan Thomas MacCormac Karel deRaeymaker Kelan O'Connor and I won't mention anymore just yet as I am not 100% certain. Will add more as soon as I know.


as I am not certain of my facts.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

IBU Trials boards 61-80

So after 60 boards of nip and tuck Team BJ O'Brien led by 5 imps much to my surprise. How could a team playing in top level competition for 2 years and in full training be struggling to put away a team playing inside Ireland at a lower level and with less visible training/practice ..

Well the lid was about to come off the pot in a big way.. and new vugraph operator Galligan was there to see the action.

The gladiators in my room were

North : Ranald Milne ... regarded as Dublins 2nd best bridge teacher after Paddy English....
English just keeps churning out brand new players year after year ... Milne is more for the advancing player.. Peter Pigot is also receiving good mentions in the bridge teacher world ..

South .. BJ O'Brien who turns up at every bridge game

East ,, Mark Moran who played junior for Ireland in Budapest some years ago and also has won some
Camroses as player and possibly NPC.

West ..Rory Boland ,,,,,a really great natural bridge player but maybe needs to learn some of this centurys new bridge tricks..

So we started with 19 and a flat part score.

Then Moran declared 4S and needed to divine a KQ of hearts stiff with Milne following with K on first round so not much hope and down he went and 12 imp to O'Brien

Boards 1-4 saw 5 small imps go to Moran and they trailed by 12 overall
Board 5 saw Milne O'Brien attempt a 50% 6D slam but it went off but no problem as Hanlon McGann floundered in a hopeless 4S ... 3 imps to O'Brien ..now by 15
Board 6 saw Moran gain 4 imps for getting contracts down in each room. Both 2H and 3N can make one will say as double dummy says it but look at the plays needed for this and if you making these the police will be keeping an eye on you. You might even make it into a Michael Clark bridge video.
Board 7 ..4S in both rooms but Moran team doubled it and 5 imps to O;Brien up by 16
Board 8 saw Milne roll home a double dummy beatable 3C for 470 and 8 imps
Board 9 saw Moran and McMaugh  make 8 tricks in NT but Moran was in game so 6 more imps to O;Brien.
Board 10 saw Moran down in 4S while MacCormac rolled home 1NT and Team O'Brien had opened up the gap to 39 imps
Board 11...An imp to Moran
Board 12 13 were flat
Board 14 saw Moran make 9 tricks in NT partscore while his teammates sacked in 2H

Board 15 saw Moran defend a hopeless 3NT holding AQJT32 of Hearts and thinking this was the road to victory got distracted from Bolands 5th highest spade lead and 3NT rolled home and
11 imps to Team O'Brien now ahead by 47 imps
Moran got 4 back on 17 after a flat board 16 and we reached the final board in this session board 18

Grand slam was available to double dummy folk but several things lay well to allow 13 tricks
Hanlon McGann took a low road in 3NT for 720 ..,, and after 2 passes Boland tried a Galligan style 2S opening ..Milne doubled with his truckload of 25 hcp and BJ puffed out his chest and passed with his KQxx of trumps. As North South can make 4S or multiple grand slams Boland was doomed and squeezed out 3 tricks for -1100 and 9 imps in the bin.

So O'Brien by 52 imps with 20 boards to go

At this stage Team O'Brien who might not have planned for this amount of bridge seemed to have a small problem. 2 of their team still needed more boards according to the regulations .. All players
needed to play 50% of the boards ...So we paused for a short break ..

Don't go away as the most exciting 11 boards of bridge are ahead of us as Team Moran hopes the boards contain the required imps to make a comeback. 52 imps is a big ask but they almost pulled back 80 in the recent Camrose Trials but ran out of boards.

Link to pdf of boards 61-80

You can find the hands here

Oh I nearly forgot about Mark Morans good lead on board 4 to threaten 4S but unfortunately the next part of the puzzle failed to fit the jigsaw .. A Heart lead set him up to get some tricks but

Thanks
Eamon Galligan

PS .. www.bridge-now.com    is a great site for getting in some matchpoint practice and a rating




Friday, February 12, 2016

IBU Trials boards 41-60

Reporting on the IBU Trials final after 40 boards the BJ O'Brien squad led the Moran squad by 4 imps. So onto boards 41-60 out of the 100 total. This event was shown live on BBO and the files can be found on www.bridgebase.com with a small amount of searching. Along with Fergal O'Boyles fantastic results site all the information is available for anyone who wishes to examine how the legendary BJ O'Brien wins bridge games.
With 40 boards gone we the general public expected Team O'Brien to fold but they were not going anywhere yet.

Board 1 was flat 4S
Board 2 both sides played in 4S and Team Moran led HA and that was made. At the other table played the opposite way up it was HQ lead which led to 2 heart tricks and presumably a club ruff later on for down 1... 12 imps to O'Brien
Board 3-4 were flat games
Board 5 saw MacCormac McMaugh over reach into 6D and lose 13 imps. 31 hcp and 9 card trumps often is enough but not today.
Board 6 flat
Board 7 saw O'Brien grab 5 imps for 2 downed partscores
Board 8 saw the O'Brien team attempt declarership in spades at both tables. It does not often show a profit. So this time they lost 600 in undertricks some of them doubled and 12 imps to Moran
Board 9 was an overtrick imp to Moran
Board 10 saw Moran win 2 partscores for 6 imps ...You got to play pretty good to go down only 1 in
3H but it got home.
Board 11 flat
Board 12 saw 4 imps to O'Brien for a knock and a small partscore .. 90 + 50
Board 13 saw Moran win 3 imps for a bigger knock of a  contract
Hanlon declaring 3NT as far as I recall played a kind of terminal CT and CK on trick 1 and
went down in a kibitzers cold one .....However even Hanlon nods
However Boland Moran had his back with 200 and 3 imps off 4S

Board 14 saw 5 imps for an impetuous double of a comfortable 6H by Hanlon McGann.
5 imps to O'Brien
Board 15 flat
Board 16 also flat but down 3 at both tables ... in 2S and 4S ..
Board 17 saw Hanlon McGann doubling another cold 1 and lose 10 imps. They were doomed on
this board anyway as MacCormac McMaugh had found the good 5D sacrifice
Board 18 flat
Board 19 saw Hanlon McGann float home a defeatable 2S to cover Boland Morans 4H-2
Board 20 an overtrick imp to Moran

So after 60 boards and Saturdays action completed O'Brien led Moran by 5 imps much to my surprise. However I know one English lad who was not surprised. He holds that Carrot Club is doomed and all the dunces just pile in and interfere with it. He also believes the Boland Moran
bidding system is antique and last played by 1980s bridge players.

However next post we will see what Sundays action brought. Obviously this event is over and I am
writing after the fact.

http://www.fob.ie/sites/default/files/files/IBU%20OT%20Final%20R4.pdf

http://www.fob.ie/national

Hand records can be found above

Thanks
Eamon Galligan




Thursday, February 04, 2016

WEXFORD Bridge Congress IBU Trials 2

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35491852

Looks like the Thai police raided a bridge club and found more then 2 decks of cards

Maybe its an April Fool

http://cbai.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Wexford-Congress-Brochure-2016-1.pdf

Wexford Congress is on this weekend ... GO GO ..

........
Board 1 saw Marcin Wojech bid a 6S slam versus the 4S up 3 by Hanlon McGann.
Looks like a hand played in club bridge at 4S+3 with lots of things working.
However 3-2 club break and 3-2 club break makes it very cold ... and that's 46% odds.
However there are several other small pieces of odds to add into that.. like if trump queen
drops doubleton .. so adding all up probably over 60%...

10 imps to O'Brien

Board 3 saw Moran winning imps for defending at both tables ... 8 imps for 5 undertricks

Board 7 saw 4D making and 5D down 1 for 6 imps to O'Brien

Board 9 saw one of the Carveys slip home a 4H with 4 top tricks off it and 10 imps
against the 3H up 1 at other table

Board 12 was a 2H part score up and down for 5 imps

Board 13 saw Carvey attempting a strange manoeuvre declaring 3S with 6 trumps.
Sometimes Irish mentor/coach has attempted to explain for years about holding at least
7 trumps to declare ..unless you are Rueful Rabbit or James 3-1 Heneghan.

James rolled home 4H one time with a 3-1 fit ..

Board 14 saw Woj Marcin  roll home 4S with lots of trumps and 6 imps in versus partscore by Hanlon McGann. In my club it goes  P P P 1S 2S 4S at all tables but my players are not internationals.

Board 15 was the opposite ..partscore v game the other way and 6 imps back

Board 16 saw Carroll Garvey roar to the 5 level and take a chinning ... lose 800
Hanlon McGann got 500 from 4SX ,,but that was 7 imps out

Board 18 saw O'Brien win a part score versus knock 3NT for 5 imps

So fter 40 boards the match is pretty well tied up

http://www.fob.ie/sites/default/files/files/IBU%20OT%20Final%20R3(1).pdf

www.fob.ie

.................
Last night a chap in my club declared 3NT ...
xx opposite AQJTxx and he led a diamond towards the AQ ...

I searched out my singleton Diamond King as quick as I could ...but the impatient declarer
had already called for the Queen as he knew from bidding I owned all high card points ..
He attempted some bluster but I fished out the rule book and recalled Mauricio ...
"ITS ALWAYS A PLAYED CARD " ... when declarer does it ..

One more simultaneous pairs and then we are off to Wexford Bridge Congress

http://cbai.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Wexford-Congress-Brochure-2016-1.pdf






Monday, February 01, 2016

IBU Trials for Budapest 2016 first 20 board set

Last weekend two squads of Irelands best players faced off in a 100 board final for the honor of representing Ireland in the European championships in Budapest.

Team .. O'Brien

1. BJ O'Brien
2. Ranald Milne
3. Wojech Gorchytca
4. Marcin Rudzinski
5. Thomas MacCormac
6. Ronan McMaugh

BJ a continuous podium finisher in almost every dogfight that has happened for the last 35 years and maybe longer. The man went off to Templeogue to play more bridge  after playing 40 boards in  the trials final. Even the opponents expressed amazement at this when they heard.
BJ has also played for Ireland Open many times. BJ is the only npc to have benched a player for winning a match by making a slam on a squeeze.

Ranald .. Dublin Norths 2nd best bridge teacher after the legendary Paddy English put down his
teaching stick and went into battle against 6 of the best players ever seen in CBAI land.
I recall Ranald playing on the Irish Open team with Joe McHale some years back.

Wojech ........ I don't know much about this guy except he seems rather thoughtful. I think I saw him winning a National Mixed Teams recently. Anyway I don't think there are any bad Polish bridge players.

Marcin Rudzinski ... Again I don't know so much about this guy but Marcin has been appearing in Irish trials for the last few years and performing pretty good.

Thomas MacCormac ... One cannot say anything bad about Thomas. Mild mannered away from the table but a very tough opponent at the table. Also a well known bridge teacher and schools/junior ambassador. Never think he is ignoring you if he walks away as you speak to him ...He does not hear too well in one ear so you got to make sure you are standing on his good side.

Ronan McMaugh ... Now this guy is the perfect partner ...Its always his fault ... so he says ..
No matter what stupidity you put on him ...Ronan will say .."Well I could have made it easier"

.................
The opponents and heavy favourites starting off were

Thomas Hanlon
Hugh McGann
Mark Moran
Rory Boland
Tommy Garvey
John Carroll

I don't need to introduce these guys ...

Boards  1-10

Just 3 major swings here ...MacCormac making 4HX on board 10 was 14 imps
Board 6 was 4H made and defeated for 13 imps the other way.

O'Brien by 29-10..............

Boards 11-20

Board 15 saw Garvey make a vulnerable game against Milnes part score for 10 imps
Board 17 saw MacCormac make 4S while Boland went down for 13 imps
Board 18 saw MacCormac defend 3HX for a tasty 800 but unfortunately OBrien Milne
took a higher view and were beaten 5 off doubled for a 600 differential.

9 imps to Moran and the overall score was O'Brien by 1 imp after 20 boards of 100.