Coen Trophy 2018 Mixed Teams

63 teams take the floor in the 2018 Coen Trophy.

The monsters chase the Trophy and the lesser players chase the B points.

So who will win.

The powerful Kenny squad should go well. Kenny Rigney Glynn and Keaveney.
The Coyne squad sporting the Spiro Cup winners along with Michael McGloughlin and Heidi Lillis.
The Pattinson squad sporting 2 Grandmonsters and two Reddans might manage it
Another squad worthy of note is the Kemple squad. 12 years ago Kemple explained to me how she was a better declarer than Galligan .... 12 years later she must have double dummy status.
Kemple also sports Grandmasters Goodman and Walsh in her bag.

Stewart Noonan Roche and Boland are other teams worthy of mention.

Stewart features the ever green Peter Pigot Junior along with legendary lady player Hilary McDonagh.
Conor Boland and Kelan O'Connor have teamed up with experienced Emer Joyce and LizAnn O'Reilly.
The Porteus squad has plenty of experience but might lack in the stamina department.
Noonan and Cummins are always near the top of Mixed events.

The NIBU squad of Murchan Connolly Fitzpatrick and Curran don't seem to be confident at the moment. However if Murchan has his bunny gun with him they could feature.
Murchan is one of the greatest bunny hunters in Ireland. However he has thin skin and loves roast beef. However you cannot shoot a cow with a bunny gun.

Ann Dillon sporting Cian Holland Maria Barry and Sean O'Lubaigh could do some damage although Cian has lots of eperience to carry on his back. Cian is one of the most under rated players in Ireland ...a real bridge player and tough opponent. I heard him touted as one of Irelands greatest bridge talents about 15 years ago.

I have looked thru all the teams line by line and I don't see the podium places  coming outside the above listed 11 teams ...

Lets see how I go

Good luck to all

CBAI Mixed Weekend 2018

This weekend sees the Spiro Cup and Coen Trophy  taking place in Dublin for Mixed Pairs and Teams. There are 112 pairs entered in the Spiro Cup and Galligans first task will be to pick the top 10 finishers in no particular order.

Dillon Holland
Cummins Noonan
Fitzgerald Coyne
Seligman Fitzgibbon
Joyce Boland
Gannon McAndrew
Phelans
Gililand VanWoerkom
Connolly Murchan
Whelan O'Connor

...........
Honorable mentions for

McDonagh Taaffe
Lillis McGloughlin
Galligans
McDonagh Stewart
Part O'Brien

So lets see how many make the top 15

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The Ireland Team headed by Mark Moran continued their preparation for the Camrose
Trials with a training trip to Vilnius Lithuania. However they lost one match heavily and thus
failed to make up the ground to make the top 2 places in their group of 6.
A 4th placing left them short of the semi finals.
............
Next was Teams qualifier and IRELAND were a long way short of making the TOP 8.
.....
Currently our 2 pairs play in the very strong pairs event full of powerful Polish players.
Moran MacAonghusa are in 19th place after 40 boards with Hanlon Carroll back in 48th place out of 132 pairs.
An indication of the strength of this field is the position of
B Gierulski J Skrzypczak in 132nd and last place at the moment.

They are a recognised and capped Polish pair.

Vilnius Cup 2018

The above link shows the resutlts and running scores

Drogheda Congress 2018

Drogheda Congress takes place this weekend with the redoubtable Fearghal O'Boyle at the helm one expects.

All details on everything on Drogheda Congress can be found at the link below

Drogheda Bridge Congress 2018

The Lady Milne trials took place last weekend with 8 pairs qualifying for the squad which will form 2 teams to take part in the Lady Milne Trophy in Gormanston in April 2019.

Congratulations to Gilda Pender and Hilary McDonagh who are the first pair to reach the magic 130 VP quota in just 10 rounds and qualify for the top 8 group.  They have just been followed over the line in round 11 by Teresa Rigney and Joan Kenny and also by Ann O’Connell and Valerie Burke-Moran.  Louise Mitchell and Maureen Pattinson along with Jean Kelly and Betty Cotter, Emer Joyce and Kathleen Vaughan , join the list of qualifiers after round 12.  That leaves just two places to fill in the last round!  Those two places go to Dolores Gilliland and Lucy Phelan and to Cathy Bearpark and LizAnn O’Reilly.  Well done to all.

The above running commentary as the pairs qualified has been taken from 

Fearghals website

All details on Lady Milne trials 2018 can be found there

While visiting Fearghals website I spotted a mention of the 2018 Camrose trials.
7 teams have entered

CBAI Camrose Trials
7 teams have entered for this years Camrose Trials.  The draw for team numbers will be based on the results of tonight’s Lotto draw (Wed 3rd October).  The first 7 numbers drawn on the night will be assigned to the 7 teams in the order listed below.  The teams will then be ordered in ascending order of their lotto number and then renumbered 1 to 7.  Lotto Numbers in brackets.

4.   Micheal O’Briain, Padraig O’Briain, BJ O’Brien, Ranald Milne (32)

1.   Tom Hanlon, John Caroll, Mark Moran, Donal MacAonghusa (3)

7.   Ciaran Coyne, Derek O’Gorman, David Walsh, Enda Glynn, Gay Keaveney, Pat McDevitt (46)

3.   Martin Brady, Paul Delaney, John Phelan, Lucy Phelan, Conor Boland, Karel de Raeymaeker (10)

5.   Thomas MacCormac, Ronan McMaugh, Marcin Rudzinski, John Connolly, Stephen Barr, Michael Donnelly (33)

2.  Diarmuid Reddan, Louise Mitchell, Bob Pattinson, Maureen Pattinson (4)

6.  Richard Elvin, Kathleen Vaughan, Maria Whelan, Eileen O’Donovan (35)

I wonder did Fearghal use those numbers .. I heard there was a winner in Dublin.

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I am afraid its still Team 1  Thomas Hanlon team for me. I knew the Hanlon team has something missing. McGann is gone on his holidays. However the new MacAonghusa Moran partnership is bedding in well.

Team 2 ... Diarmuid Reddan ... 4 person team ... stamina will wear them down despite the presence of their two grandmasters of bridge.

Team 3 .., Martin Brady .. 3 full internationals along with the experienced Brady Delaney and the intelligent Conor Boland. They are good swimmers but they are not sharks.

Team 4   O'Briain brothers plus BJ and Ranald.. well 3 of them can almost walk to the venue.
However a 4 man team with their best days behind them is going to tire as each day ends.
Maybe they need to have a couple of substitutes on the side just in case.
I would play 12 boards for 50 euros if they need.

Team 5 Thomas MacCormac ... Now here is a team that won't be phased by any other team.
4 of these lads have been attending US Nationals for the last few years and on one occasion took on the world reknowned NICKEL team in a 64 board match losing narrowly. (on each board)
They are the Irish arm of the Great American Bridge Tour.

Team 6 .. Richard Elvin ... This team will need to find much improvement on recent form to
remain competitive.

Team 7 Ciaran Coyne ...A 6 man team with plenty of experience who put it up to the full
Hanlon team in last years IBU trials and only fell away in the last stanza.

I will say top 3 teams will be MacCormac Coyne and Hanlon .. Its a round robin so one heavy loss
to another favourite could end a teams interest. I don't know the conditions of contest but I presume its first past the post. This means on Monday afternoon there could be room for some sportsman dumping. However Hanlon should be able to win from the front starting off with ELVIN.

I made a video of me losing to the country gentleman YET AGAIN ..

Galligan v Country Gentleman

Losing by 24 imps ..