Bermuda Bowl in progress in Lyon France

Meanwhile out in France the various World Bridge championships are in progress. Ireland has no teams qualified for this prestigious event. In order to qualify a team has to be in the top 6 or 7 countries in Europe and that is beyond Ireland at the moment. It was also beyond England and Poland so that's how tough it is.
However despite not being present at this fantastic event I took the opportunity to take on the Worlds best by downloading the BBO files for Match 1 of the event. BBO provides vugraph coverage so I was able to download files from 8 matches across Ladies Open and Senior.
I joined the 8 files together giving me about 8 replays of each board. I then used Jack bridge program to make an imps pairs tourney and sat down to play with my Bessie partner Jack.
16 boards later after a bright start I lost heavily on 2 boards and ended up on minus 5 imps.
This is not so bad as the legendary Eric Rodwell and Jeff Meckstroth were 2 imps behind me.
Brown and Brock the great English ladies pair were on plus 6 imps thus 11 imps ahead of me.

Other software programs can also be used to do the same job as far as I know.

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Meanwhile there is also 

http://bridge-now.com

or 

http://bridgez.net:3002/

Finally if you go on 

http://bridgewinners.com 

you will find links to the World Bridge Championships pages and bulletins.

Bray Bridge Congress Sept 01 2017 ..Go there to play bridge

Greystones and Bray were my first 2 places of residence when I was very young.

Sunbeam Cottage Greystones  beside the railway and near the beach.

Bray Congress 2017
Friday 1st September to Sunday 3rd September
Royal Marine Hotel, Bray

This event will not be possible without our sponsor Revive Active!
Please visit the Revive Active! site for a brief 20 second survey to retrieve your discount code.

http://info.reviveactive.com/revive-active-surevy-1

Last year, our Congress sold out, so get your entries in to
Anne Daly 086 2596889 or

braybridgeclub@gmail.com

Friday 1st September
7.30pm Mixed Pairs
7.30pm Gala Pairs
7.30pm Intermediate B Pairs
7.30pm Novice Pairs

Saturday 2nd September
1pm Congress Swiss Pairs (2 sessions)
1pm Intermediate A Pairs (2 sessions)

Sunday 3rd September
11am Congress Swiss Teams (2 sessions)
11am Intermediate Teams (2 sessions)

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Currently I am playing the Bermuda Bowl hands. I make tourneys for Jack from the BBO records.

If anyone wants them send email to eamongalligan@eircom.net

 That's after 9 boards of Match 1 of round robin. Levin and Weinstein are beating me so far.

However I am beating Fiona Brown and Sally Brock so I would have good chance in Womens event.

Bridge-Now ratings to August0217.. Dublin Summer Congress

Folks
Here are the ratings calculated from http://bridge-now.com up to August 02 2017.
A 2% decay is included for anyone missing a week. Also it takes several weeks of play to build up
a rating from the 1500 points starting point. The formula includes a small adjustment for number of boards played and also bases improvements on current rating. Thus a 1400 player scoring 65% on 70 boards will increase more than a 1900 player scoring same 65% on same amount of boards.

So the image above has the top 130 players or so of 1800 who have played sometime this year.
About 750 folk play 20+ boards each week.
The Great Mullall has dropped out of the rating list due to lack of dedication to the cause.
Declan the Donplayer remains with plenty of work to do on 1444
Shane the Unblocker is further back on 1333.
Great Mullall is on 1676 and decaying at 2% per week.
The magical BJ O'Brien suffered a 49% week and missed a week also to decay his rating somewhat but he will return to the upper echelons shortly no doubt.
BJ won the bumper prize in the recent Dublin Summer Congress Home Instead sponsored Bridge Congress Pairs. Nobody was ever going to defeat the star pair of Adam Mesbur and Michael McGloughlin. Thus I term 2nd place as the bumper prize.
Links to all Dublin Summer Congress events are at
http://fob.ie 
and this link sends you to Diarmuid Reddans Bridgewebs for some results.
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Some world bridge championship starts shortly in Lyon France. 
I will watch out for Australia Open Team as I made them some hands for bidding practice.
The Mark Moran led Irish Open Team will also participate in the Transnationals.

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Meanwhile the well known bridge teacher Thomas MacCormac is on tour in Omaha. 
Look on Facebook for "Great American Bridge Tour" and you will find information about the gang Thomas travels with. 
https://www.yabberz.com/post/between-countries-the-great-american-bridge-tour-heads-to/87643655/?highlight=87643655


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