Senior Camrose with Jack and Train Crash

Still ploughing away in the Senior Camrose tourney with my trusty Jack partner. Bearpark and Curran have by now made their debut and are feeling their way into this new level of event for them.

Lets be very clear here ...there are plenty of well known opponents in this field most of whom are full Camrose internationals and even more. Tony Priday is a legendary English player of the past.

Victor Silverston and Willy Coyle are legendary Scots of the 60s/70s..last century like.

So Steve and Brendan are in there with the big stuff.

Their current score of minus 8 cross imps a board equals about minus 1.5 normal imps but watch this space and we should see them go plus. A couple of missed spelling errors results in two McGowan and Hallberg pairings. 

Anybody who owns Jack or any other program is welcome to have my files .

Meanwhile with directing duties on the back foot for the summer I was able to venture out and have a game of bridge. I partnered Train Crash and as can be seen from the sheet we had a few pieces of red and some other small losses. However victory was secured in the end despite a rapidly tiring Train Crash.

We played in Malahide Regional Bridge Club which is probably the 2nd best venue for bridge in the country. I think Templogue has to count as number one. Templeogue is so good it has paint marks on the carpet in case the bridge tables move out of their designated position. You don't see the paint if the tables are positioned correctly. Interesting idea. 

We don't have paint in Malahide but we have 3 TVs on the walls to display anything from Results to Rugby matches to Bridge Lessons. Some nights we even display Karaoke words for sing a longs.

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Coming up very soon we have the European Championships of Bridge. We will have Open Women and Senior Teams in action. This takes place in Croatia.

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Anybody who fancies checking out their bridge prowess could do less than check out Brighton Summer Congress. It was my favourite destination for several summers as I learned more about the game.

I recall one time having KQ8764 of trumps and feeling duty bound to double the little old ladies 4H.

10 tricks to the little old lady later I learned my lesson. That was Irene Robinson I think.

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The M50 Teams competition will take place in Westmanstown on about June 21st ..

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I suffered a little of how my partners often feel last week. I was playing a game of DON and despite winning every game comfortably my partner had no time for my bridge like counting and signalling. He said thats why women play bridge and men play DON. I don't need to signal or count or even look at cards indicated the legendary DON player PHIL MARKS of Rivervalley. 

Some nighr I will introduce him to a chap I know who plays DON for 100 euro a corner down in the Liberties. As in bridge one cannot play without counting or signallng.

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My Don playing friend Declan McKenna a man of many talents continues to be INTRIGUED by bridge.

Declan is an expert fly fisherman , a top class DON player, a man who seems to win at the bookies and on Friday evening he even fetched up in Croke Park at the One Direction concert in full waterproof fishing gear. The teenagers were no longer laughing at the old lad in waterproofs when the rain poured down.

Declan is the first person I have ever met who uses the word intriguing to describe bridge.

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Last week I saw the same Declan slipping 50 euro to another lad who was down on his luck.

He noticed I saw him doing it. Declan says "Look and learn Eamon ..I am nobodies fool. I did not give him the money until he was going home. That means he will still have it for the weekend.

Declans parting comment to the chap was "And if I see you in Ladbrokes over the weekend I will knock the head off you.. I am well able to lose money in there without giving it to you to lose for me"

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One meets the nicest chaps in the strangest places. The same Declan came to Malahide Bridge Club one night and kibitzed Maurice Quinn from a distance. He is still talking about the old lad in Malahide with no flies on him. I noted this week on the internet that Maurice Quinn played in a European Teams event before I even started playing bridge.

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Galligan plays Telscher Trophy virtually

I made a tournament on Jack to play the Telscher Trophy. Currently I have 3 matches played and hopefully with the imminent entrance of Steve Bearpark and Brendan Curran into the event I can do better. The table below is cross-imps against the real players with me partnering my trusty computer Jack 5.0 playing Acol type system.

Meanwhile up in Sligo Irelands decorated Tournament Director Fergal O'Boyle runs Sligo Congress.

I am tipping the McGloughlin Lillis McConville collection to go well in the teams.

I am told the horse is playing well these days.

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If any Jack users want the files for Telscher let me know.

Sligo Arklow and Junior Fiundraiser

Up in rainy Sligo they (thats Mairead Fergal and a whole gang of Sligo bridge players) hold the Sligo Bridge Congress this weekend. So if its a nice soft day ye can go to Sligo and stay indoors and play bridge and look out at the rain and all the non-bridge players getting soaked.

http://cbai.ie/competitions/documents/YeatsCountryBridgeCongress2013.pdf

And I think they have an old spree as well after the bridge. Just in case its still raining. Also I think Fergal is the next CBAI President so he will be directing at loads of Congresses next year so watch out.
He won't know what hit him. Every weekend he will be away directing some Congress.
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Down in rainy Arklow next Sunday they (Arklow Bridge organizers) will hold the Arklow Cup.
Thats Sunday May 25th. I was supposed to attend this event with Michael McGloughlin but then he decided
he would go to rainy Sligo instead.
I might get there yet but no plans at the moment. Its a lovely place and a bridge player recently told me that his uncle owns the Woodenbridge hotel.

http://cbai.ie/competitions/documents/ArklowCup2014_000.pdf
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Jack is the best bridge program I know for anybody who likes to study bridge with a computer.
http://www.bridgeworld.co
m/indexphp.php?page=/pages/bookstore/itemdetailpages/itemdetailpage_1906.html

There are loads of other software and bridge books available from
http://www.bridgeworld.com
at good prices. Even a subscription to the Bridge World is only about 6 euro a month. Not much more then
the price of a pint or the cost of a game of club bridge. See what the big boys study and play.
Eventhough its a magazine I never get through the whole mag in a month.
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Closer to home one could subscribe to the IRISH BRIDGE JOURNAL
This is a fine publication with lots of information about Irish bridge and some international
contributions.
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Meanwhile down at the Regent Bridge Club Declan continues to get busy ...

John Carroll and Thomas Hanlon will attend and take part in a Junior Bridge fundraiser on Friday
May 30th.
http://www.cbai.ie/documents/AneveningwiththeMasters.pdf

In my late 20s after I found the Regent Bridge Club it was the place of choice on a Friday night to tackle the great masters of bridge and have a few pints. We intermediates used to attempt to take down Great Masters like Ruth Giddings and Sean Stack and Charlie Cullen and Joe McHale and BJOBrien and Des Scannell. A chap called Frank used to run the bridge some nights. So Friday May 30th should be a good night.
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Finally last Sunday night out in Elmpark Golf Club the folk from Blackrock took down the locals in the annual team match. However there was a fine spread of cakes and chocolate things and lemon drizzles and other nice things. That was before they produced the sandwiches. I think the plan is that Blackrock are allowed win every year as they bring the best cakes.
The score was about Blackrock 865 to Elmpark 755.

Maybe next year Elmpark will win.
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CBAI win Senior Camrose and Nickell stage a mighty comeback AGAIN

The CBAI Elders took down the Senior Camrose Trophy at the weekend. Backboned by new caps Steven Bearpark and Brendan Curran with the support of old warriors Jackson + Gibson and invigorated by the youthful O'Briain brothers the CBAI team started steadily with a small loss to Wales and piled on 4 decent victories over the next 5 matches. Match 7 saw Bearpark and Curran pound on the NIBU pair and run out 16.5 to 3.5 victors. This set CBAI up to win the event as they now led by about 18 VPs with only 3 matches left. A draw against Wales and a small win against Scotland left the CBAI in the driving seat going into the last round.
However despite suffering a heavy loss as the toll of being Iron men told on the O'Briain brothers CBAI held out to win by 2 VPs.

http://www.bridgewebs.com/cgi-bin/bwoc/bw.cgi?club=nibuimm&pid=display_page12

http://www.bridgewebs.com/fob/

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On Saturday I was in a bridge club with strange yellow markings on the carpet. After making some enquiries I was told that these markings indicated where table legs should be placed. Now that is serious planning.
I am going to tell the Malahide Regional maintenance person about that.

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Finally at nearly 5am this morning the action came to a climax. Yet again Levin and Weinstein famed a few months ago for bidding and making a grand slam off an ace in a US National Teams final , were involved in
another famous Team Nickell comeback. This comeback was only a 32 imp comeback ,not so much when compared with Nickell comebacks of old which sometimes involved 80 imps in 16 boards. One wonders how a multi world champion team like Nickell gets in holes like these. Also the standard of the opponents are much stronger than the opponents of 10 years ago. 10-20 years ago it was just a matter of time until Meckwell put on their Messi boots and landed a few hatricks.
Nowadays the top 10 teams in the world are capable of taking down Meckwell and Levin Weinstein etc
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http://www.bridgebase.com/vugraph_archives/vugraph_archives.php

Last nights comeback saw Nickell only take the lead on board 57 when they got a chance to double 2D and take it down 3 in one room to go along with 4H-1 in other room. There were only 60 boards in the event.

Eric Kokish their coach told me that at one stage they led by 55 imps early on.

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Thomas Roche and David Coyne won the IBU Pairs event held in Templogue on the weekend despite severe opposition put up by the Comyn and Moran men. 

Ireland Open v Senior Training

Round 2 Ireland Open v Senior

Match 1 Open 12.55 Senior 7.45
Match 2 Open 16.09 Senior 3.91

Totals after 4 matches .. Open 65.72  Senior 14.28

Open v Senior Team training session

Good afternoon all

I am here in Regent Bridge Club looking after the Open and Senior training session. They will play 96 boards over 6 matches of 16 boards .

Match 1 OPEN 18.21 SENIOR 1.79
Match 2 OPEN 18.87 SENIOR 1.13

RUNNING TOTAL after round 1 . OPEN 37.08 SENIOR 2.92

OPEN .. Thomas Hanlon Hugh McGann John Carroll Tommy Garvey Mark Moran Rory Boland
SENIOR .. BJ O'Brien Mike McDonagh Rex Anderson Pat Barry Adam Mesbur Nick Fitzgibbon

However the Senior Team appear to be having the better of Round 2 going by my datums and the table scores in a pairs format.
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Last night we played the Cowhie Trophy in Malahide.
Dan and Mary Cowhie are two long time members of Malahide Regional Bridge Club although they only
started the game in their late 50s or so .
I was quite surprised one night when the nearly 90 years of age Dan Cowhie asked me to print out
some sheets for Dan and Mary to do some bidding practice.

We had 16 tables on a Friday night when normally 6-10 tables show up.
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