Camrose Weekend 1 2017 and Schools Bridge

Camrose Weekend 1 took place from January 6th to 8th in Coventry. Scotland fielded 2 teams as they are the hosts of the Final Weekend.

Ireland won their first 2 matches against Wales and Northern Ireland gathering in almost
39 VPS out of 40. Then SBU punched them for 5.5. The Irish team responded with a 20-0
hammering of the struggling Scotland team.

Meanwhile England had built up a decent total of about 65.6 VPS to lead Ireland by about a VP going into the final matchup.

One hand apparently provided the highlight of the Ireland England match when Tony Forrester apparently flicked the Club King on the table under John Carrolls Ace. However there has been
some word that the Club King was placed facedown on the table for many seconds before being turned over for Carroll to see. However this is 2nd hand information so unverified.

http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/the-forrester-chops-down-another-irish-tree/

Results and standings can be found on EBU website

http://www.ebu.co.uk/results/554

Meanwhile there are whiffs of brownish smoke emanating from the Vatican that the first weekend team from the NIBU have been retired as Camrose players for the foreseeable future.
Maybe Eamon can offer them some space in the bidding gym. A few memberships are still available.

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Last weekend Eamon Galligan assisted by Thomas "Teaboy" MacCormac ran the Irish Schools
Pairs championship in http://malahideregionalbridgeclub.com/who for the last 5 years have made their facilities available to the Schools Bridge group at a nominal fee. I don't know if the nominal fee is ever collected. However these young players really enjoy their day.
Players come from Laurel Hill Dundalk Belfast Dublin and Kilkenny.

Results can be found on Thomas MacCormac bridge site

Camrose 2017

This evening at around 1900 the annual Camrose Bridge Party starts. I think it should be on Bridgebase Online for all to see.

After a little research I discovered it takes place in Coventry so all should be well for our viewing pleasure. EBU usually put on a good show but in some countries the vugraph operators can be brand new and take some time to get up to speed. However EBU are almost as good as Paul Porteus.

The usual teams will play with Scotland having two teams in action. That probably means all the players in Scotland that can follow suit. Les Steele does not follow suit these days and Victor is probably retired to the Over 50s Telscher bash and some other good Scots players emigrated to USA and England. No sign of Derek Saunders this year. I guess Biff does not play bridge anymore and maybe Liz has retired. I think SBU team will outrun Scotland. Have not seen Jim Hay togging out for a while so maybe match fitness could be a problem.

I have not noticed much movement of the Northern Ireland team since they completed the trials but with Peter Pigot teaching regularly up there in one of the clubs maybe they took the opportunity to get some coaching. The NIBU team is backboned by Ciara Burns and John Murchan along with Grier McKenzie and Hastings Campbell.  NIBU also include honorary players Greenwood and Anderson.
Anderson is quite a good player having gathered about 110 caps for Northern Ireland. He also made a recent appearance in the Seniors Bermuda Bowl in India reaching the quarter final.

The CBAI team of Carroll Garvey Moran Boland Hanlon and McGann will have a shot and I saw them in the bridge gym recently. However Boland has a pulled hamstring in his left arm so could have trouble front loading. Thomas Hanlon has developed into a fine player these days so if he is on form there could be a CBAI win.

Wales have put out an intelligent team this year but no sign of the monster pair of Tedd and Salisbury. He is a nice man that Salisbury chap. I saw that pair do a 3.14 imp set and then some captain sat them out ... I don't understand captains that sitout pairs who are on a hot run.

1/2 England Ireland
3 SBU
4 Wales
5 Scotland
and distant 6th will be Northern Ireland ...

However maybe those NIBU folk will prove me wrong ..