Saturday May 30th Ireland Imps

Last night we ran with 34 tables in the Ireland Imps Pairs. The early leaders were a pair called Dadscar and Jackfoz. We will have a look at them later. Our interest was drawn when the poor Bishop got spiked by a fantastic SPADE lead.

Dad & Jack running well

Board 1 saw a fast 2D opening catching Mighty Michael short of breath and 5 imps was won
Board 3 finds our lads wheeling out the Jack convention and an 18 count was able to drive into a making small slam.
Board 4 a small dent .. Board 5 a normal 4H ..and Board 6 sees our gang escaping in 5D undoubled.
Board 7 8 9 see danger looming as BJ O'Brien and the experienced Alan O'Sully arrive.
Our gang sit up straight as always when Dublin Southies loom.
Board 7 our boys rest in the normal 4D making ..plus 2 imps
Board 8 our boys avoid all obstacles and beat 1NT plus 3 imps
Board 9 sees BJ sitting happy with 4 trumps AQ82 against 4H but his partner Sully falls from
grace as BJ flicks his braces and the chair wobbles and dadscar drives off into the sunset.
A nice 9 imps present for the gang from Sully.
Board 10 the suspicious Bishop misses an easy game as teabag offers him bidding advice
Board 11 Dadscar splutters on ignition and as the Bishop awaits the takeout double nothing happens.
Down 4 and a few imps to Bishop
Board 12 Nothing
Board 13 The Bishop gets the prayer beads out but not even prayers can down this one
5H doubled and made by dadscar.
Board 14 The Bishop opens the strong NT and in a silent auction the Bishop lands in 3NT.
Not too bad he thinks as he awaits the opening lead. I forget whether one sees dummy before the lead or not as I don't play much these days ..
Suddenly a bolt from the blue .. the spade 9 hits the table ... The Bishop looks at the prayer mat
and thinks why has God deserted him ...a nice game contract suddenly has no play.
It turns out our man Jack has found a master lead. I must stick that one in my lead software.
At the end of the hand ... Teabag booms ...."Some lead that " ..
It was a great lead ..it was the only lead .. Fair play to Jackfoz.
It was like Seamus Darby pushing all 4 Kerry defenders in the back or Johnny Flaherty goaling against Galway to win the All Ireland. Awfully lucky.

I am throwing my Robert Ewen in the bin .. A book I have called "Opening Leads"

Boards 15-24 don't look too interesting as Dad and Jack ambled home in 3rd place.

One notes the good performance of top Malahide Regional Bridge Club player Elvis in the French Bridgez thing but as is often the case he needs to look higher up for the real player.

Link to Bridgez   ....this is a really good daily test...

Given the bigman Elvis gives it a shake most days ...might be an indication