National Pairs Weekend 2018 and more Donplayer stories

This weekend in Athlone the 3 National Pairs events take place.

For the Inter Bs we have the Civil Service Trophy. For this event my 2 horses picked before the event were No 52 Dorothy Arthurs and Beatriz Brain along with No 61 Giles Murnin and David Connolly.
I have no idea who pair 61 are but I have seen the names before and the Connolly chap anchored the Great Mullall team to victory in the Fun Teams some years ago as a novice. Anybody who can keep the reins tight on the Great Mullall must know something.
Arthurs and Brain are from my home club and seem to do well there. However it is tougher out in the real world where many card playing cute hoors lie in wait for unsuspecting soft bellied Dubs.

For the inter As we have the Laird Trophy. This Trophy is called after Graham Laird a former CBAI President from Donegal. Here I chose pair 44 and pair 47 as my horses. Pair 44 as I have seen the names before and they are stabled in Declan Byrnes magnificent stables in Waterloo Road. I think he calls it the Regent Academy on tour. I think some of them turned up at Elm Park Charity night a few Wednesdays back. Elm Park Charity night raised 12000 plus euros for Brother Kevin.
Unfortunately my Regent Academy horse is not fit for purpose this weekend.
My pair 47 is from Malahide Regional Bridge Club but would hardly be match fit for an event of this calibre with so many hardened cute hoors around.

In the secondary event for Monsters my selections were  deRaeymaker Boland and and the in-form Delaney Brady recent dominators of the Clonmel Bridge Congress Pairs. As an aside Madam Delaney annexed the Clonmel Intermediate event. My 2 selections are running 1st and 5th after 2 sessions. In the lower regions of the Davidson we note former Regent Bridge Club star Conor O'Hara partnered by Malahide No 1 David Terry. David Coyne and Jeannie Fitzgerald are also under performing so far but might rise into the top 10.

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Meanwhile here at home Galligan is getting into training for the DNR Kirwins League.
A leading pair from the depths of Clare played the Vanderbilt 2018 hands recently and I made up a tournament using the live play and some robots and the Clare humans for some practice.
After 20 hands here is the situation

I am using cross imp scoring .. The Clare pair played against GIB robots on BBO.
Eamon is playing against off line Jack robots.

I used the bridge program Jack from Holland
www.jackbridge.com

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Meanwhile on www.bridge-now.com Declan the Donplayer continues his search for Bridge mastery.
I spent a few hours in the local pub sitting with Declan as I took on Murphyslaw on BBO in our regular BASH. That night we had famous bridge teacher Thomas MacCormac kibitzing. Thomas agreed with one of Murphys comments .. " GIB is an idiot"

Declan the Donplayer really loves the game. Recently he has ascended to scoring regularly past 50% on www.bridge-now.com .   He knows the part about putting the opponents out of their comfort zone.  One time he wanted me to bid 4S but I was vulnerable …
Declan said .. " Bid 4S ..don't listen to everything you hear on the news .. Its not all true "
Vulnerable does not matter … they cannot see your hand … Put them under pressure … They will bid 5H and we will take them down .. As it happened 4S was hopeless but 5H went down ..

Declan the Donplayer is moving forward

As some people might know I taught Declan the Donplayer how to play bridge. I never realised how far this project would go. Now it has grown legs and is running fast. The Donplayer was offered an 8% handicap advantage and somehow wheedled it up to 10%. Now we play on Bridge Now and I have to outrun Declan the Donplayer by 10% to win the week. We score a month at a time but I am losing most months. This week my 63.05% was not good enough to defeat the Donplayers 53.76%.
Last week my 63.5% had no chance against the Donplayer 57%. Now I need to win the final 2 weeks of March to get a draw for the month.
Meanwhile Declan the Donplayer also points out that he is looking down on CBAI Treasurer James Mullally regularly these days without any handicap. I was directing with the Great Mullall in the Elmpark Charity event on Wed night. I mentioned Declan the Donplayers and Great Mullall indicated that he is too busy to be playing bridge all day as he has a business to run and clients to service so he only logs in between clients and does not focus fully on the bridge.
Declan the Donplayer replies …"Well I would like to see Great Mullall hanging off a ladder playing Bridge Now on his phone.
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Meanwhile my other protegee Shane the Unblocker has gone quiet. However he thinks he is being smart by stopping at 19 boards on a bad week and going past 19 when he has a decent score.
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Out in Dublin North Region Mary Kelly Rogers is running a large Masters League with 18 Teams participating. Team Dave Terry started off by getting a hiding off the Joe Coyne powered  Team Timoney before reorganising and getting a move on. Team Timoney is still out in front but Team Terry got a 19.3 in round 2 followed by 13.9 16.11 and 14.3 to climb into the top 4. In the final match of the Swiss last night Team Terry found Conor O'Hara and Dave Terry on form and Team Gibney got badly mauled on a score of 19.3.... or 63 imps .. The Bearparks put up a decent struggle for Team Gibney.

DNR Masters League Results
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IBU Trials completed with Jack

This evening a few minutes ago I finally completed the IBU trials final.
Unfortunately I confirmed that Hanlon McGann Garvey and Carroll are better than myself and my trusty Jack robot. However I confirmed for myself that although Rory Boland can defeat me at drinking I managed to keep ahead of him at the bridge despite him having a stronger partner than I did.

I thought Hanlon McGann had a big Sunday but it looks like Carroll Garvey got into the zone in the final 2 stanzas. Coyne actually led early on Sunday morning after a slam went awry at the Boland Moran table. They bid a small slam OFF 3 key cards .. Totally bizarre.

Now the scoring I am using is cross imps where one compares with the other 3 tables and averages the imps. Moran and Boland had the misfortune to play all the hard boards so their score is worse for this reason.

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Over the last 2 nights I played a couple of BASHES against Murphyslaw. In real life he is Noel Murphy and he beat me on Thursday night but I recovered all on Friday night. Murphy is an A2 player but he does not understand that it is almost impossible for an A2 to defeat me at bridge.
THEREFORE he should be very proud to beat me over 28 boards … You don't get lucky for 28 boards so he must have some talent.
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Last Monday morning I partnered Leaping Michael … so called as he always Jumps the bidding any chance he gets. There is a leaping michaels convention hence the name.

Out in Malahide we also have Lightning Murray who fancies himself at the bridge. However it must be played FAST and FURIOUSLY … No stopping for tea or pause for thought or anything else.