This morning early while doing the Wbridge5 hands I spotted an unusual name in the list that I had not noticed before. Give_Up_Eamon. One has to presume with some pride that somebody from Ireland has started playing Wbridge5 and is going to get some better scores than I. Nobody can beat BJ at collecting jam and persuading robots to misdefend. This morning he managed to persuade the West robot to play the only cards to let out 6S on board 1. I was there planning how I would roll home 6S but suddenly it dawned on me that I needed some robot help and it was not coming.
Not so with the incredible BJOBrien. The robot quickly plays the first 2 tricks into BJs large maulers and BJ quickly wraps up 6S. Now I am not giving anything away here as all declarers play 6S as this is the way Wbridge5 sets it up.
Even Give_Up_Eamon went a quick 3 off like myself but we all got 33%.
A quick glance at the overall monthly scores indicates that Give_Up_Eamon scored 65% on his/her only play so far so possibly a recent recruit. 65% is a good score unless you are the jam factory that is BJOBoru as he regularly rolls home 70+% scores. I will be paying attention to Give_Ups scores for a while to see how it does. Regardless of comments made about BJ or Give_Up Wbridge5 in my humble opinion is a good tool for any bridge player to play some hands and get 400 comparisons as to how they rank up. The site only has 16 boards a day and a player can play 0-16 boards per day and the site will give you a monthly report to your email address. All sorts of strange measurements like how good is your defence or your bidding or declarer play compared to the field and double dummy.
Meanwhile out at the cutting edge of bridge which is the US Nationals ...these days it should be called the US Internationals as the top games are packed with legends of the game (well only the living legends) ..the folk who have passed on cannot obviously be there ...but I suspect if there exists a spirit world then the ghosts of former great players meet up in the ceilings of the bridge halls at the US nationals 3 times a year.
When I attended the US Nationals in San Francisco in 2007 they held a memorial night for Paul Soloway.
Paul played in the first Buffet Cup in Dublin in 2006 despite struggling with illness at that stage. He still turned up and played on the USA team. I recall one time while vugraphing that he fell asleep while playing against Thomas Hanlon and Hugh McGann. The Irish lads did not know what to do but somebody gave the table a little nudge and Paul rejoined the world and promptly followed suit. I think I have it on video but its an old video camera and one would have to trawl through several tapes to find it.
Meanwhile back in the present there have been some small shocks in the Vanderbilt on paper. However the field is so classy that nothing is a real shock. Seed 51 is the highest seed still alive but this seems to be a Canadian team and includes several bridge proffessionals. So its not such a shock if they defeat a team of their peers. Round of 64 they knocked off a team with some powerful Icelanders and Norwegians on it.
Round of 32 a strong American team fell to Korbell. Next up is a round of 16 against another on paper seed buster.. the 35 seeded Chinese team who are probably legends in Chinese bridge circles but won't have a pile of ACBL points/results to get a higher seeding.
Another team busting the seeds is the Grainger Team seeded 47th ... at least 3 of these are well known names for those of us who frequent Bridgebase Online at the US after work times ..
Donn Granger and more recently Roger Lee are regular BBO players in high level games and several contribute to the BBO forums ...which are a great place to read about bridge ...
Meanwhile the top 9 of the 10 original seeds remain alive but 7 8 9 and 10 will face off today as we reduce to the quarter finalists. The juggernaut Nickell Cayne and Monaco teams are all surviving comfortably but the 3rd seed Diamond is gone,beaten by the afore mentioned Chinese team.
The Moss Team bowed out to the defending champions Amoils as seeded losing by about 50 imps ..
This is not a severe beating in this league where some teams withdraw after 3 sessions not wanting to receive another pounding on the last 16 boards.
That will do for this morning I think ...well maybe a quick picture of the White House Standings for Juniors
The Irish team of Boyd Synnott Connolly and Somerville are playing ...
I notice they have interchanged partnerships in some matches ... hardly the thing to do during international competition but its probably with their hope of qualification gone and they trying out new partnerships for the future. Maybe some player is getting too old and they need to try out a new partnership for future full Ireland junior teams.
Thanks
Eamon Galligan
