Wednesday, October 02, 2019

The Purest form of Bridgebase online and final World Seniors placing

Today I finished my first go at the purist form of bridge and arguably the toughest.

Matchpoints
Just Declare

and 2 grandmasters and one Kerryman and one Conor Boland as opponenrs.

After butchering at least 4 boards I expected to struggle to break 40% in this field.
When the results popped up I had about 44.5% so that was ok.

Exhibit 1

 After Club King lead and club 2 and club Jack at trick 1 how does one play this hand.
I won 2nd Club with Ace
and floated the Diamond 10 after much thought.
Sadly Jack to 3 on the West and down I went ..

Despite the robots not taking all their hearts I was one down ... for 0% ..
Pretty harsh I thought

All other 4 declarers made the contract .. Presume they made 5 diamonds 2 spades and 2 clubs
Maybe I should have ducked another club to tighten the play and maybe see a small diamond discard. or maybe when GIB does not cover diamond 10 ..he does not have diamond JACK.

....................................................
Meanwhile out in the World championships the Ireland Seniors struggled in the Senior event.
Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon brought in a respectable 0.36 imps per board but the other 4 only managed to bring in below average scores which would never be enough to be competitive.
Having said that ...the opposition in World championships is damn tough.

 Mesbur and Fitzgibbon were 17th placed pair in the Butler of the many boards pairs

 O'Brians somewhat lower and Ranald BJ another few places down
However just to be aware this is a serious level of bridge
one place above BJ and Ranald we note the presence of George Mittelman a World champion at Open level back in the day ....and Ken Burcasen who goes deep in the Spingold in recent past ...
Maybe he even one a US National ..
The Ireland squad got a little run going near the end but by then there was too much to do.
Training and dedication pays off more then beating up the Regent newbies and the Bray Wheelers.