Muldoon Cup and stories

This weekend I am heading down to Dun Laoghaire on Sunday to direct the Muldoon Cup. I played in the competition once in the early 2000s with Dario Filjar who was a Croatian visiting worker in Ireland.

Muldoon Cup 2 session event down in Dun Laoghaire Sunday April 26th at 1330 and probably 700pm in evening time ... 2 sessions

Dun Laoghaire Bridge club is in Clarinda Park
http://cbai.ie/event/muldoon-open-cup/?instance_id=194

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There are some new grandmasters in the CBAI ..

I see a picture of the elegant Tommy Garvey receiving his award ..There is also Karel and Anna ..
There is also Father Glynn ...

However the process is somewhat flawed ... and different than in the past .. 40 B points a year for about 25 years gets one over the line ... This amoint of B points is available to any players who attend National events and place in the top 10 regularly ..

However Masterpoints might not make you a better bridge player. There is a chap in Malahide playing bridge since 1973 and he comes out of CBAI as a novice .. Himself and his partner been playing together for 40 years but not affiliated until now ..

They found out that the CBAI might be right ...Same matchpoints as they had before they played the 3 boards

I think a chaps masterpoints should decay after about 20 years rather than be an attendance record and roll call of how many National events you played at. 

Next thing Gordon Lessells :):) will be a grandmaster ... and then maybe some of our Lady Milne team will be on the podium ... Grandmothers of bridge  all.

Now Tommy Garvey made it to grandmaster despite living in London. I do recall he won some English Paits championship with Hugh McGann many years ago so he is probably a good player.

I think he got a silver medal in a European championship too but Hugh McGann helped him there as well. Thomas Hanlon is also a grandmaster and he is nearly as good a player as Tommy Garvey but Hugh McGann helped him win loads of stuff as well.

Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon recently won the European Senior Pairs as well as the Silver medal in European Teams and a good collection of Camrose Trophys. 

Mind you Karel and Anna gained most of the masterpoints in the last 10 years I reckon and are fairly good players but always liable to drop the odd 1100 or 1700 from time to time. Being pairs specialists and supreme bunny bashers ..the odd 1100 or 1700 is the same as dropping an overtrick. 

So there are many different types of grandmasters .. 

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Then there is a man who lives on Southside Dublin and he has the best bathroom collection of bridge books ever. I keep 2-3 books in the bathroom for perusal... I was shocked when in this mans loo to see ZERO bridge books until after washing my hands I spotted 3 shelves full up high.

I had to laugh to myself ..

I would have happily spent the whole day in that loo except I had to go back to the kitchen. 

The lad even had a teapot with a tea cosy ..

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Strangely enough this experienced gentleman does partnership bidding on BBO on his MacBook.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were not even glints in their parents eyes when this chap entered the world 

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Lady Milne and other happenings

Last week while directing in one of my regular clubs I was called to a table and it was pointed out to me that the play was at trick 10 but the dummy had not gone down.
The "dummy" kind of forgot to put down her hand and nobody noticed or said anything.
I left them finish the hand as they were with the dummy still in the ladies hand.

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The weekend before last in Malahide Father Glynn and Gay Keavney won the Moylan Cup.
Some Lady Milne players for this year had won 3rd place and a session prize..and it was indicated that there was hope for a good performance in the Lady Milne..

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So Friday night at the Lady Milne Ireland started well with a 15-5  approx victory over Wales
So all appeared well as Wales had a reasonable team out...
Saturday morning our heroes were crushed by an NIBU team with 2 juniors at the forefront.

Who would have believed what these two hungry looking babies turned out to be some years later.
They have been doing some eating since. They look very innocent as well. The little feckers.

Unfortunately it looks from analyzing the results that the two featured above ended their Lady Milne about 3/4 way  thru the 3rd match after posting a Butler leading X-imps until then.

Sunday morning dawned and the saddened and weakened NIBU team got 2 heavy beatings and Wales climbed from the wooden spoon position on Sunday morning into 1st place on the strength of two wins against NIBU and Scotland.

Our Ireland team went backwards after the good start on Friday against the eventual winners.
I don't know what would have happened if NIBU stayed at full strength but one had to fancy their chances of holding on or to say it another way continuing their strong of match victories.
I did not see much of the Lady Milne as I had the privilige of attending the Irish Open Team training session.

http://www.ebu.co.uk/lady-milne-2015

All results of Lady Milne can be viewed above

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Last weekend the Irish Open team held a training session in the Regent Bridge Club. We played 96 boards which I sourced from past events. All the hands this weekend featured Bobby Levin and Steve Weinstein. They were hands from Vanderbilt 2009 and Bermuda Bowl 2011 where moderate impage was transferred ..won or lost.

During the dealing process due to vulnerability and dealer we played lots of the boards with different dealer and different vulnerability. However as imps were lost/won by top ranking pairs there was still plenty of  action over our weekend.

The lads played the boards in 16 board segments most taking under 2 hours but we had one table go as far as 2 hours 27 minutes for one set which is too long... It must have been Hugh McGann.

As far as I could see the lads all enjoyed themselves and got plenty of discussion/agreements out of most of the 96 boards. Some boards were deemed mamma pappa but the fact remains that Levin Weinstein either gained or lost significant imps on every board.
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I think all Irish teams heading out to international competition need to be doing weekends like this.
I think this is the 4th weekend I attended since this Irish Open team formed itself. Its free learning for me. 96 boards of free learning. There is no reason why Lady Milne and Senior Camrose Teams cannot do a weekend against each other using "awkward hands" ...
I heard one of the Irish Open team at the weekend use the term "awkward hands"
Hands that are awkward for experts test the lesser systems of most Irish pairs.

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Last night while playing in my local club I was defending a 4H contract and with about 7 tricks
to go it was clear declarer had all the tricks on top and we had none.
However she kept on playing intently. Eventually I put my cards in the pocket and she looked at me
in shock. This is player who heads out to play in National competitions.
I said " You have all the tricks so why are you still playing on .."
She said " I like playing bridge and I like playing out the whole hand"
It was not enough that we were conceding the rest of the tricks .. She wanted me to get my cards out again so she could finish the hand.........
Next hand she started bidding slowly on purpose it seemed as she was miffed..
Anyway eventually we got on to the next table ...

Thanks
Eamon Galligan