This morning I played a planned 16 board challenge against the man who taught me bridge. He still thinks he is better than me but I think the robots keep taking pity on him.
Anyway we played the 16 boards and the video is below. Happily I won but it was only small and I made a few errors.
Galligan v Bridge Teacher
I got 9 imps for making 4S when the teacher went off in 3S
I got 11 imps for making 4H when the teacher drove all the way to 7H and blamed his robot no doubt.
Last night I was directing in one of the Dublin bridge clubs and a lady told me the hands were too hard. She said she much preferred it when the hands were flatter and dealt by hand. I said so you like nice 4333 hands and 4432 hands with no singletons or voids.
So I said " Well we can deal by hand if your club prefers it but you need to ask the committee. Your club did after all spend 2.5 grand on a dealing machine for ye. "
So I printed her off a copy of last nights hands and said " Here you can study these and get better or light the fire in the morning with it " She said " I don't light fires .. someone else looks after that and cleans it out. "
On Wednesday night I was in the local drinking establishment after bridge directing and I was telling Declan the Donplayer about the above mentioned teacher. Declan Donplayer said .. " Don't forget to thank that man" I said "For What " ..
Declan Donplayer .. " The journey .. thank him for the journey .. if he never taught you bridge then you would never have taught me ..so we both got a journey out of it .. Tell him Declan Donplayer loves the game and thanks "
Teacher mentioned above thought that he was the only Donplayer left in Ireland ...but I was able to inform him that every man over 50 in this establishment can play DON. Teacher was amazed.
We play DON in Rivervalley Community Centre every Tuesday from about 2130.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Galligan v Mr Noname 10 boards
Today played a challenge on Bridgebase against a friend of mine. I had a few bad boards but its no good if you play a few bad ones and then decide not to bother publishing the video.
Hopefully somebody will get something out of my videos. I speak it as I see it. Most of the commentary is sensible stuff but sometime the dog barks.
So here is my video. Its about 30 minutes and is placed on youtube.
Bridge challenge video August 29th 2018
On Monday night I was sitting in the local drinking establishment after directing in another bridge club when Thomas arrived over. Now Thomas does not play bridge but loves card games. I was playing Wbridge5 daily tournament and was going quite well. However faded near the end and only managed 65% or so. However Thomas the non bridge player was still willing to point out my errors.
Its interesting listening to a non-bridge player talking about bridge as they use non-bridge terms.
Give him control .... means let him win the trick ..
Do the 12 Trump thing .... means bid a Small Slam
Do the 13 Trump thing ... means bid a Grand Slam
Do the Aces thing ... means do 4NT Blackwood
Last night we played some DON in the local and on one hand the chap who was wanting to play fast ended up holding 4 trumps and WE had shown out of trumps .. This means a claim is in order as his side cannot lose any trick but he kept on playing .. I pointed out Nick look .. you are winning the rest of the tricks so just CLAIM and get on with next hand. Despite touting himself as a great DON player he did not grasp it for a minute or two.
Later on while walking home Declan the Donplayer indicated that he might partner up with Thomas for a game of bridge in a club sometime. We had 6 DON players last night.
............
Meanwhile the new bridge season is almost upon us .
Bray Bridge Congress takes place this weekend. I am told the venue is limited to 65 tables so get your entries in. Some Bray person read my blog and told me this. I think she is President of Bray Bridge Club. The legendary BJ O'Brien is now the premier player in Bray Bridge Club.
I notice there was a large fire in Belfast yesterday in the Primark building. I was not watching the news yesterday but think the Primark building is near the Spinning Wheel shop which is run by a Northern Ireland bridge player. He might not be able to sell any curtains for a few days.
I looked up the Spinning Wheel on facebook and saw a Northern Ireland bridge player doing a raffle.
https://www.facebook.com/thespinningwheeluk/
Jeez I not realise it was so close to Primark building. Looks from Facebook like its closed off for now.
Hopefully somebody will get something out of my videos. I speak it as I see it. Most of the commentary is sensible stuff but sometime the dog barks.
So here is my video. Its about 30 minutes and is placed on youtube.
Bridge challenge video August 29th 2018
On Monday night I was sitting in the local drinking establishment after directing in another bridge club when Thomas arrived over. Now Thomas does not play bridge but loves card games. I was playing Wbridge5 daily tournament and was going quite well. However faded near the end and only managed 65% or so. However Thomas the non bridge player was still willing to point out my errors.
Its interesting listening to a non-bridge player talking about bridge as they use non-bridge terms.
Give him control .... means let him win the trick ..
Do the 12 Trump thing .... means bid a Small Slam
Do the 13 Trump thing ... means bid a Grand Slam
Do the Aces thing ... means do 4NT Blackwood
Last night we played some DON in the local and on one hand the chap who was wanting to play fast ended up holding 4 trumps and WE had shown out of trumps .. This means a claim is in order as his side cannot lose any trick but he kept on playing .. I pointed out Nick look .. you are winning the rest of the tricks so just CLAIM and get on with next hand. Despite touting himself as a great DON player he did not grasp it for a minute or two.
Later on while walking home Declan the Donplayer indicated that he might partner up with Thomas for a game of bridge in a club sometime. We had 6 DON players last night.
............
Meanwhile the new bridge season is almost upon us .
Bray Bridge Congress takes place this weekend. I am told the venue is limited to 65 tables so get your entries in. Some Bray person read my blog and told me this. I think she is President of Bray Bridge Club. The legendary BJ O'Brien is now the premier player in Bray Bridge Club.
I notice there was a large fire in Belfast yesterday in the Primark building. I was not watching the news yesterday but think the Primark building is near the Spinning Wheel shop which is run by a Northern Ireland bridge player. He might not be able to sell any curtains for a few days.
I looked up the Spinning Wheel on facebook and saw a Northern Ireland bridge player doing a raffle.
https://www.facebook.com/thespinningwheeluk/
Jeez I not realise it was so close to Primark building. Looks from Facebook like its closed off for now.
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Galligan v Challenger on Bridgebase Online 11 boards
Good morning folks
This morning I made a new video. This time there is much less background noise.
I played 11 boards of a 16 board challenge against a friend of mine. As it was not Magic Murphy we will keep quiet about his identity. I was also trying out a different kind of screen recording software.
I played back some of it and it looks good. For now I am keeping the format basic as better quality means bigger files.
This file is about 500mb and is in WMV format and is about 40 minutes long.
https://youtu.be/jxmx88D0ruI
The video is on my Youtube channel at the above link. I played 11 boards as South against 2 BridgeBase Online robots with one robot acting as my partner.
The Blogger site only allows upload of 100Mb or less size so its a little small for a challenge.
Therefore I upload to Youtube and then post the link as above.
It seems one has to be quite careful about what one says in a video as some people have thin skin or think everything refers to them. Therefore I am mainly making videos which star myself. Its not going to be much good suing myself for playing bad bridge on a video.
..........
Bray Congress is coming up next weekend and that takes place down in some hotel in Bray I expect.
I am sure the details can be found by searching for Bray Bridge Club on the web.
Found it .. http://www.bridgewebs.com/bray/
Pre-entry to all competitions ...
Details of Bray Swiss Weekend are there .. think August 31-Sep02.
.........................
So the new season is almost upon us .. My home club Malahide Regional Bridge Club never stopped for the summer but "reopens" with the Annual Gala Pairs which is limited to club members of good standing last season I guess. It cannot be this season as you got to pay by September 30th.
............
CBAI events coming up are IBU Mixed Trials which qualifies for some European event next year followed by Lady Milne Trials which qualify a team for the Lady Milne Trophy next April.
.....
We have a team qualified for some World Senior event in the near future or at least we have a place reserved for our entry. I dunno if they send the same team or if they hold new trials for that.
In these events its the organisation that is qualified not the 6 on the team. Hopefully whoever is playing will put in some training beforehand rather than hope the boards suit them. I see Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon in the bridge gym almost every week ....how come the rest of our players don't get it ...
Gary Player allegedly said " The more I practice the luckier I get "
Mennwhile our Irish "experts" are still bidding what they call "The Irish slam" on the continent.
Here come these 2 Irish dunces who keep bidding slams off 2 aces ..
Do they not know we have a convention for this ... We cash an ace and get signal for his ace.
This morning I made a new video. This time there is much less background noise.
I played 11 boards of a 16 board challenge against a friend of mine. As it was not Magic Murphy we will keep quiet about his identity. I was also trying out a different kind of screen recording software.
I played back some of it and it looks good. For now I am keeping the format basic as better quality means bigger files.
This file is about 500mb and is in WMV format and is about 40 minutes long.
https://youtu.be/jxmx88D0ruI
The video is on my Youtube channel at the above link. I played 11 boards as South against 2 BridgeBase Online robots with one robot acting as my partner.
The Blogger site only allows upload of 100Mb or less size so its a little small for a challenge.
Therefore I upload to Youtube and then post the link as above.
It seems one has to be quite careful about what one says in a video as some people have thin skin or think everything refers to them. Therefore I am mainly making videos which star myself. Its not going to be much good suing myself for playing bad bridge on a video.
..........
Bray Congress is coming up next weekend and that takes place down in some hotel in Bray I expect.
I am sure the details can be found by searching for Bray Bridge Club on the web.
Found it .. http://www.bridgewebs.com/bray/
Pre-entry to all competitions ...
Details of Bray Swiss Weekend are there .. think August 31-Sep02.
.........................
So the new season is almost upon us .. My home club Malahide Regional Bridge Club never stopped for the summer but "reopens" with the Annual Gala Pairs which is limited to club members of good standing last season I guess. It cannot be this season as you got to pay by September 30th.
............
CBAI events coming up are IBU Mixed Trials which qualifies for some European event next year followed by Lady Milne Trials which qualify a team for the Lady Milne Trophy next April.
.....
We have a team qualified for some World Senior event in the near future or at least we have a place reserved for our entry. I dunno if they send the same team or if they hold new trials for that.
In these events its the organisation that is qualified not the 6 on the team. Hopefully whoever is playing will put in some training beforehand rather than hope the boards suit them. I see Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon in the bridge gym almost every week ....how come the rest of our players don't get it ...
Gary Player allegedly said " The more I practice the luckier I get "
Mennwhile our Irish "experts" are still bidding what they call "The Irish slam" on the continent.
Here come these 2 Irish dunces who keep bidding slams off 2 aces ..
Do they not know we have a convention for this ... We cash an ace and get signal for his ace.
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Videoblog 2
Good afternoon folks
As promised the conclusion of the Galligan versus Magic challenge.
However I first got to go to Youtube and stick up the video.
Its now uploading and these are my very early attempts at video making.
The idea of these two is to play the hands live and give my thinking and see how it goes.
I expect the videos to improve as time goes by and I learn more about presentation and learn better manners. Fearghal often tells me to be nice so maybe I am a gruff tournament director.
Eamon v Magic conclusion boards 9-16
Above is the conclusion of the Bridgebase Online challenge match
Click the link to watch
At the end there is a brief description of why I lost the match ..
Hopefully there are some pointers about bridge bidding and playing and also some of the things
not to do at bridge.
We will see ...
Seems much easier to make a video and share ones thoughts than having to write it all up.
Have to examine these videos as there seems to be a background sound that needs to be gone.
Hopefully next time it will be better.
As promised the conclusion of the Galligan versus Magic challenge.
However I first got to go to Youtube and stick up the video.
Its now uploading and these are my very early attempts at video making.
The idea of these two is to play the hands live and give my thinking and see how it goes.
I expect the videos to improve as time goes by and I learn more about presentation and learn better manners. Fearghal often tells me to be nice so maybe I am a gruff tournament director.
Eamon v Magic conclusion boards 9-16
Above is the conclusion of the Bridgebase Online challenge match
Click the link to watch
At the end there is a brief description of why I lost the match ..
Hopefully there are some pointers about bridge bidding and playing and also some of the things
not to do at bridge.
We will see ...
Seems much easier to make a video and share ones thoughts than having to write it all up.
Have to examine these videos as there seems to be a background sound that needs to be gone.
Hopefully next time it will be better.
Videoblog 1
Good morning folks
Going to try and see if I can put up a video on this blog.
This morning I played a challenge on Bridgebase Online against my regular opponent Magic.
Bridgebase Online has recently provided the challenge facility where one can play 8-16 boards against your friends or enemies. Hopefully it will be against friends as enemies should be just placed in the sinbin until they recover their senses.
It says here I can insert a video so lets see how that goes.
No doubt I will have the wrong format or some other problem
Yes we ran into a problem .. Videos of 100MB or less is the limit.
However I always had another plan so I am going to stick it up on Youtube and link to it.
Eamon versus Magic 1
So click on the link above for the first 8 boards of the Eamon v Magic live challenge
This video was recorded live and nothing was edited out of the recording.
The 2nd 8 boards and the final result will appear shortly.
Have to examine my recording facility as there is a strange sound in the background like a cinema reel. Maybe its the computer I recorded on or maybe the software ..Apologies
Apologies for the dog too !!!
Going to try and see if I can put up a video on this blog.
This morning I played a challenge on Bridgebase Online against my regular opponent Magic.
Bridgebase Online has recently provided the challenge facility where one can play 8-16 boards against your friends or enemies. Hopefully it will be against friends as enemies should be just placed in the sinbin until they recover their senses.
It says here I can insert a video so lets see how that goes.
No doubt I will have the wrong format or some other problem
Yes we ran into a problem .. Videos of 100MB or less is the limit.
However I always had another plan so I am going to stick it up on Youtube and link to it.
Eamon versus Magic 1
So click on the link above for the first 8 boards of the Eamon v Magic live challenge
This video was recorded live and nothing was edited out of the recording.
The 2nd 8 boards and the final result will appear shortly.
Have to examine my recording facility as there is a strange sound in the background like a cinema reel. Maybe its the computer I recorded on or maybe the software ..Apologies
Apologies for the dog too !!!
Monday, August 06, 2018
Willem leads Wbridge5 daily tournament
Good morning folks
I was just playing the daily Wbridge5 tournament. I am halfway through the 16 boards.
I had a look at the current overall scores. To my surprise I spot leading Irish player Willem Mevius up the top. Normally Willem attempts to stoke the robots and persuade them to give up tops. I have studied his form before.
However any player who scores 76% over 16 boards especially in a tournament frequented by players who make a decent effort to beat the robots each day they log in is a fine performance.
Personally today I am running at 60% after 8 boards. I don't expect to get anywhere near Willems score today.
Many decent Irish players have a go at the Wbridge5 daily tournament. The powerful Malahide player Big Wallace plays most days
Retired chess player Vincent Bissett also plays some days but the robots usually get the better of him. Rashers and Sausages also play most days. They are actually a sometimes partnership in face to face bridge. Swords legend Pat Cassidy also makes regular appearances.
http://bridgez.net:3002/ConnectingPlayer.html
The above link allows folk to play but you need to register first. Its FREE.
Another good free website where one can play as many or as few hands as one wants is
http://bridge-now.com
However this site has problems refreshing from time to time and one has to refresh the screen onself.
Also there is no claim function so one is slowed down regularly despite having all the tricks.
Still it provides a good service, giving weekly rankings and scoring each board right after you play it.
The daddy of them all is
www.bridgebase.com
This is also free but you can pay for some things if you like them like some good tourneys or rent some robots. It also has vugraph of regular world class games.
The Spingold Trophy ran last week up to yesterday. Pretty much all the players in these events take their bridge very seriously. There might be 80 teams entered and they cut it down to 64 for the first round proper ...Round of 64.
Every year several of the teams seeded 65-80 or higher knock off a top 64 team. This year seeds 42 58 and 63 failed to make the Round of 64 after being beaten in the opening round.
The opening round is normally 2 matches of 30 boards so it takes a good performance to qualify.
I was just playing the daily Wbridge5 tournament. I am halfway through the 16 boards.
I had a look at the current overall scores. To my surprise I spot leading Irish player Willem Mevius up the top. Normally Willem attempts to stoke the robots and persuade them to give up tops. I have studied his form before.
However any player who scores 76% over 16 boards especially in a tournament frequented by players who make a decent effort to beat the robots each day they log in is a fine performance.
Personally today I am running at 60% after 8 boards. I don't expect to get anywhere near Willems score today.
Many decent Irish players have a go at the Wbridge5 daily tournament. The powerful Malahide player Big Wallace plays most days
Retired chess player Vincent Bissett also plays some days but the robots usually get the better of him. Rashers and Sausages also play most days. They are actually a sometimes partnership in face to face bridge. Swords legend Pat Cassidy also makes regular appearances.
http://bridgez.net:3002/ConnectingPlayer.html
The above link allows folk to play but you need to register first. Its FREE.
Another good free website where one can play as many or as few hands as one wants is
http://bridge-now.com
However this site has problems refreshing from time to time and one has to refresh the screen onself.
Also there is no claim function so one is slowed down regularly despite having all the tricks.
Still it provides a good service, giving weekly rankings and scoring each board right after you play it.
The daddy of them all is
www.bridgebase.com
This is also free but you can pay for some things if you like them like some good tourneys or rent some robots. It also has vugraph of regular world class games.
The Spingold Trophy ran last week up to yesterday. Pretty much all the players in these events take their bridge very seriously. There might be 80 teams entered and they cut it down to 64 for the first round proper ...Round of 64.
Every year several of the teams seeded 65-80 or higher knock off a top 64 team. This year seeds 42 58 and 63 failed to make the Round of 64 after being beaten in the opening round.
The opening round is normally 2 matches of 30 boards so it takes a good performance to qualify.
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