European Bridge Opens continue Instanbul

A woman asked me yesterday was there any bridge on last weekend. I replied "Yes of course the European Open championships in Instanbul" There is an interesting name wonder what does it mean.

Anyway the Joan Kenny plus 5 team qualified comfortably in 3rd place in the European Mixed Teams qualifying. 32 teams out of 86 qualified for the knockouts. 

Now as far as I know leading teams can pick their last 32 opponent. 

(v) In the Mixed knockout the teams placed 1–10 in the Swiss are seeded nos. 1-10. They, in that order, get to choose their “round of 32” opponents from the teams placed 17th -32th in the Swiss. Those chosen teams are assigned seed nos. 32-23 respectively. The remaining seed nos. 11-22 are assigned in ascending order according to the final Swiss ranking.

So the Kenny team picked some Lu Dong team. Now that is always going to end in tears. 

Simple maths indicates as China owns 1/5 of the worlds population then any folk who travel to European Open Bridge championships are going to be damn good. So the last thing you want to do is pick Chinese as your cannon fodder. 

And so it became a good hiding for the Kenny Team. 

That Chinese team finished 3rd place in the last Mixed World championship in Orlando Florida. 

3 minutes on Google got me this. I would have picked a team who came out of the depths whereas Team Lu Dong has form and spent most of qualifying in the qualifying positions so playing tougher teams. However in the last 32 of any Euro championship all teams are very capable. 

Still look for one coming from the depths or a trans national team as partnerships unlikely to be as practiced. 

Meanwhile this morning I finished off my challenge against Mullingar Man and beat him by 32 imps. Mullingar man is not playing too well these last 2 months. He of course will say its Golf time and not bridge time. However he might be struggling at the golf as well. 

Here is a link to the last few boards plus some commentary on Euro Open championships

Galligan v Mullingar Man

Meanwhile Fearghal and Mairead will be touting Joan Kenny as a superstar now as she qualified in this and that and she done this and that. However its easier to be a superstar West of the Shannon. 

Best woman player in IRELAND they say .. Well there is no Shannon in China.

First thing this morning I spotted the Irish Terrors were struggling in Euro Mixed Pairs.
However I know they will improve some.

However things have imporved since but all 5 IRISH pairs remain below halfway for now.