2nd Dublin Summer Bridge Congress

Good afternoon

Just in case folk have forgotten the 2nd Dublin Summer Congress is taking place this weekend in CityWest near Saggart Co.Dublin

Link to Dublin Summer Congress pdf

The Congress will be held in the CityWest Complex. Plenty of parking space near the building venue.
Easy access just off the M7 South take the exit near a company called Meile or something like that
Head towards Saggart and CityWest will be on your right ...Its a long driveway..
Bridge is normally in to the right before the main hotel.

Plenty of refuelling (food) places in the complex and Saggart also has a fine chipper if you are stuck for time. Some people are slow bridge players so might eat into the break time.

Last year I think there was about 119 tables in play at the highest peak but I don't know what the plans are for this year. The Directing Team is top notch though with Fearghal O'Boyle flying in via Knock Airport and Diarmuid Reddan flying in from Shannon assisted by several local Dublin TDs.

Diarmuid Reddan is on some 10 day plan to lose 10 pounds ... He will lose it at CityWest .. Last year on the Saturday I broke my record of walking ...somewhere in the region of  24000 steps. ..that's about 17 kilometres for my short legs

Email Entries to dublinsummercongress@gmail.com
Text Entries to .. 087 9779406
Further information from the Congress Co-ordinator  Rory Egan 086 8192765

Open Pairs on Friday night ..
Open Pairs on Sunday but I am not sure if its 2 sessions ..
Check with the phone number above ..

The venue is great though .. Should be a good event so if you want to play bridge outside the
comfort zone of your local club .. Dublin Summer Congress is there .....

If you are hoping for a high finish in any event a couple of Mars Bars for Fearghal might work but I doubt it. Probably best you eat the Mars Bars yourself at around board 16 or 17 of the event.
Bridge players often indicate they get tired about 3/4 way through an event of 26 boards or so.
However they might not be getting tired ...their glucose levels might be low.

When a large and intimidating partner of mine is playing .. he usually stocks up on a large Gin and Tonic about 10pm on a 730pm game start. One does their best to keep his hands off the dummy at these times as GIN and low Glucose don't add up to securing lots of tricks.
Another chap I know always heads for the bar about 10pm for 2 small bottles of wine ... It just does not make sense. He sees me looking at him and he says its for after the session ... Strange as the bar is still there at 1045pm.

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I almost forgot .. Thomas Hanlon and his team have reached the last 16 of the Spingold Trophy in the USA. 90 teams started out in this event which is a large knockout event. To understand the strength of the field in this event .. The 90th seed knocked off the 5th seed over a 60 board match ...
That's like me beating Mesbut and Fitzgibbon

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Patrick Jourdain a well known Welsh bridge international and journalist passed away last night.
He would be well known to anyone who has attended any Camrose or Senior Camrose events or even
Welsh Congresses. I was in his car once when I played in Portcrawl Congress. I think he played Camrose for Wales in 5 different decades ..

From my email via  Simon Richards

I am very sorry to inform the bridge community that Patrick Jourdain died in the night following a short battle with pancreatic cancer. It was peaceful and he was asleep. Not only is this a devastating loss to the bridge community but it is also a personal loss to many of his friends. It was mercifully quick, however. Only last month Patrick was representing Wales in the European Championships in Budapest and was still playing tennis and golf.