Ben and Maria win Monday imps

Folks
Just in case the hand below is not meant to highlight the declarer TS90 going down ...you would have to be on fire to make this hand .. TS90 was the only chap playing it rightsided. All others faced the spade lead. Also I did not know it at the time but the postman was coming with a piece of paper with TS90s name on it.

Last night I was studying some previous games to see how did the unknown Grandpa Tom win my Ireland Imp Pairs two nights in a row. That used to be the realm of MrT2000 and remnart before thegarve threw the toys out of the pram at them and then followed the next time with the pram as well. However I quickly forgot about Grandpa as I noticed a weird thing about the below hand.

Looks like down 1 but GIB says makes .... Have a look ..
Most people were banjaxed by 2C 2D and its wrongsided .... but if played by East its grandpa proof.
(in real life someone bid 6D and grandpa was lucky to be on lead and knifed out a spade lead.
However in the above diagram ...its East as declarer and worth a look for 12 tricks ...

A sweet hand and even sweeeter if one could make it .. the interactive is below,
Make 6D

Ben maria

Sunday night Wackojacker wins

Wackorobot

BJ indicates his fear of the unknown

Last night in the Ireland Imp pairs we had a standoff. Super grandmaster BJ O'Brien refused to play against MrT2000 and remnart. He did not indicate the reason but I suspect he wanted to protect his young partner Conor Boland from getting a trimming from the international Camrose player Paul Tranmer. BJ asked me whats the deal ..and I told him ..."I can replace you with a robot or grant you 3 average minus scores ... In real life it would be 3 0% and 3 60% for Tranmers

Eventually BJ agreed to play but indicated it would be slowly. So no point in stoking the fire without showing the ashes.

The first board hits the table and the Tranmers quickly bid to game in 4H after stopping briefly to agree a reserve suit just in case. A doomed contract and BJ unleashes his 2100 B points of experience and finds the double dummy lead of a club. Tranmer tries the finesse and loses to King. Boland fires back Diamond Queen and the defence have 3 tricks and a spade to come. Down 1 ..a fairly normal contract but 4 imps to BJ due to other tables. 

However at least 9 of the 15 pairs who allowed it make would consider themselves capable bridge players so something needs improving on their defence. The intermediates and below are supposed to allow it make because thats why they are intermediates. The good news is that nobody managed a misclick or whatever to remain out of game. 

Onto the 2nd board. North fires off a normal 1D opening and South responds a normal 1H and a solid 2D response and a cautious 2NT invite and a normal 3NT game bid. 

BJs 2100 B points calculates a nice club lead but the contract is unbeatable and the stronger  Tranmer rolls home 10 tricks. 4 imps to Tranmer as despite the 9 card diamond source several pairs languish in a diamond part score and some are putting the cold 3NT on the floor somehow. A lack of card play skills in keeping communication in the diamond suit. 

So even stevens after 2 boards and the 3rd board looms. Conor Boland opens 1D and strong Tranmer overcalls a fairly normal 1NT. BJ finds an intermediate 2D bid ..a very poor bid and its paased around to Strong Tranmer who tries a double with AK98 of trumps. Buying an Ace and king up North is nice but BJ in the West had no business bidding. Down South the bunnies run and hide when big dog BJ enters the park but Strong Tranmer is not afraid of losing 180 to BJ for an upside of much more. 

Gathering in 500 shows it was worth it. 

Why is BJs bid so bad ....well it missed the 9 card spade fit and guided his partnership into a going minus 4-3 fit which went badly wrong for Conor Boland and 9 imps to the Tranmers. 

Most EW played the hand in 2S but Strong Tranmer's 1NT put paid to that. 

BJ could have passed out 1NT ..put his 2100 B points in the bin and led a simple 4th highest spade and its down 1. No need to offer chances to the Tranmers. 

..................................

Loads of moderate CBAI area masters are offering loads of free imps and matchpoints to the Tranmers thus creating a possible illusion of some dark arts being practiced. A grandmaster bridge player like Tranmer just laps up free stuff. He might be practicing black magic or red magic or no magic at all. 

He claims they just bids simply and defends simply. Maybe the CBAI Area and Regional Masters are overvalued and 1 Red point from NIBU is worth 20 CBAI B points. 

I know some Area Masters who attend the Holmes Wilson religiously every year as they are guaranteed 1.5 B points even on a bad weekend. Two of the boards above and below  indicate the horror stories a 2100 B point Irish bridge legend can produce so the 20 B point Area Masters will no doubt produce much greater and many more horror stories. 

Possibly as the Ireland Imp Pairs is just a fun event folk are not playing their top game. 

However any intermediate pair (I have spotted a few)   featuring near the top of Ireland Imps Pairs regularly might need to be given a broomstick. Tranmer is meant to be placing in the top 10 as he is an international player. However any player who averages 56% in face to face and suddenly ups it by 10% plus might be taking the study drug before playing ..Adderall, Dexedrine, or Vyvanse.

..................

Adderall ....seems like a nicely named one or Leaderall or Tellerall. 

..................................................................

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Meanwhile I just spotted the next board of the BJ juggernaut versus the Ashbourne Pole. 

Minus 11.5 imps is always worth a look. 

Probably bothered by his eclipse by Strong Tranmer BJ sails into a hopeless 6S and the Meath masters gather in 11.5 imps for doing nothing. 

Scannell and Glynn power

Madra Lahinch victory Jun26th

Last the well known pair of Enda Glynn and his dog were first place .. no sign of Grandpa Tom

Lahinch wins

The Italian job and BJ got mugged

Yesterday evening Team Moran scraped into the Final 8 of the ALT invitational after getting a good trimming from the powerful Nickell squad. Bobby Levin Steve Weinstein Eric Rodwell and Jeff Meckstroth .....4 legends of the game .. However it was only 17 imps and Moran had a chance as is their wont recently on the final board to close it down when Mesbur Fitzgibbon went as far as 5S but stopped short of a decent slam. The Moran 4 some for the match of Hanlon McGann Mesbur and Fitzgibbon is no ordinary foursome but would be outgunned in this scenario.

Next up a quarter final against the overall 2nd place ... BIANCHI.
A phone call from the legendary Irish player indicated he had never heard of any of these opponents bar Alfredo Versace. Clearly he is not on the same planet as me as Giovanni Donati was in Budapest in 2016 as the youngest player in the event .. and on the Italian Open Team. All of the BIANCHI team would probably have BJ for breakfast and still feel hungry in bridge terms.

So Ireland climbed into a 52-33 lead after 19 boards and Bianchi put the head down and pushed for home gathering an unanswered 58 imps before Ireland got the customary last minute try on board 28.

Meanwhile back on the home front the super grandmaster BJ O'Brien was finding the fodder was fighting back and did not care about his 2100 B points or even have any knowledge of them.

So the all conquering BJ rushes into 3NT. Many people would consider allowing the experienced Alan O'Sullivan to have a crack at 4S but not the intrepid BJ. 

So what might we lead as South..Well no normal person would lead a diamond or a spade as that is the opponents suit. 

So why not the unbid major ... So H9 .. 

and down 1 for the super grandmaster .. 

4S might lose 2 trump tricks and a HEART but BJ is not happy ...

.........................................................

Board 17 and after a weak NT opening from North the intrepid BJ rolls out a 2S overcall

showing SPADES and a minor. When this produces a 3H bid from South which might show 5-6 hearts and forcing no big deal. AlanO Sullivan contributes a pass and the North hand with 5 card support ventures 4H which is passed around to Alan O'Sullivan who delivers a "100% penalty " double. The incredible BJ O'Brien deems this is a takeout double. This definition makes no sense to me at all. Takeout to what ???? 

Surely Alan O'Sullivan could bid 4S himself or make a 4C bid for conversion or double 3H for takeout earlier if he was getting involved. Thus my wondering about the double being takeout. I think 4S is a very poor bid by BJ. 

Finally to complete the demolition South opens and rebids Hearts with his partner up North having a fine hand. O'Sullivan ventures in 3Cs and North bids 3NT without any Club stopper. BJ is unhappy with this development. Well what does BJ suggest North bids .. The North player punts 3NT and hopes partner has a stopper. It works and BJ is more unhappy.

JDiamondsx has the name Mark Adams and Remlagh has the name Rose. I don't know them but I suspect them are from John Phelan country.

So BJs conquerors finish in 2nd place. They must be fairly good players then. 

We will have to watch out for them. There are many decent players well behind them. 

Maybe B points is not really a good measurement of a players ability or maybe after 3 months of Galligans Imps Pairs the players are improving.

Ireland v Goldberg probably 7pm in the Big invitational Quarter Final

Ireland suffered a good trimming by Nickell but managed to survive in 8th place to make the last 8.

Should be selected by leaders Goldberg as cannon fodder but Hanlon McGann Mesbur Fitzgibbon no fodder for any cows.

Look for kinder1 on BBO or else check out the vugraph room

7pm until late ....28 boards later.

TODAY JUNE 25

However we still doing IRELAND IMP PAIRS 2105 tonight and every night 

Ireland v Nickell Jun 25th 3pm irish time on BBO

The match is on now .. Ireland v Nickell

Bobby Levin & Steve Weinstein against Thomas Hanlon & Hugh McGann
look for kinder1 in BBO to find the table

Team Ireland are fighting hard in the ALT invitational ...a real serious bridge event.
Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon are doing the heavy lifting right now but tomorrow John Carroll is going to start motoring.

The ALt Bridge Teams

The Event

Ireland Imps Jun 24th results

Granddad again ..Wow jun23

Grandad Two

Granfather Thomas wins Jun22

The mouse ran up the clock

Lorran jun21

Lorran wins

Arthur McGrail night ..June 20th

Arthurs hands

Brendan Sheridan The Champ

BJ argues long and hard

Brenfan got off to a roaring start as board 2 found BJ O:Brien and Dave Terry in a generous mood.
One was wary of the brooding intelligent Petet Pigot in the dummy but he was helpless to help the cause if he even noticed,

So all 4 thugs moved onto board 2 and they all wanted to do some bidding
Board 1 had seen the normally classy Peter Pigot get misled somehow and hang BJ out for the showup squeeze. There fore it was time to strike back

After some bidding by both sides BJ and Peter arrived in 4S and Big Brendan put the hammer on it .

The accurate Dave Terry fishes out one of the 12 leads that will defeat the contract.
He chose a small trump which will cut down diamond ruffs,
BJ wins and all is well so far but there is a storm brewing,
BJ advances a tempting Club King and Terrt is on it like a cat on a mouse ... then slowly realizes it mighr be a poisined mouse,
Terry tries a diamond and Brendan wins Ace and returns a trump big ..
BJ jumps on that as the storm brews
Trick 5 BJ advances the Heart 10 ...but Terry is wise to that and rises with KING ..
Trivk 6 Terry returns a HEART ... and the storm begins except the great man does not know it yet
BJ wins in his hand with a confident 9 and Eamon heads off to pastures anew
2 minutes later director calls are coming ... BJ wants an UNDO as he has tossed his Heart Ace accidently.
Eamon says does not matter as you are already down ..so no issue ..
BJ starts to dance and is still dancing at 1210am ... 3 hours later as he still cannot see that he has carved the contract ...
Another 10 minutes and finally BJ agrees grudgingly that Eamon was right all along.

And its all Dave Terrys fault ...all he had to do was DUCK Club King and I never have to suffer the BJ grief, His crazy capture of the Club King or maybe it was a misclick ..

2000 B points and 100 national titles and the man still cannot out play Galligan

Bressie runs 3rd .. Two punters bid 6H

Bressie places 3rd

Hand 12 we saw a pair of punters bid 6H
Luckily they did not have 2 diamond loses ... lucky that
The German doctors ride again

No sign of any question about the possible 2 D losers
must have great faith
Opps even bid diamonds but they punted away

Board 1 ,,fantastico ,,avoca maria win

The Comyn bids 7 clubs board 1

The action started as early as board 1 and John Comyn found himself in 7 diamonds
Unfortunately he did not seem to know he was playing so sat there for 5 minutes doing nothing.
Not everyone knows when they are dummy

I left the table once the play started so I presume the great man rolled it home,
However certainly a great hand

The Witch Graham wins

The Witch BBO scores

Last night the Witch took the victory on her moonlight fueled broomstick.

However not before getting a nice gift from Bressie on board 17. 

Here is a nice hand .. South with a strong NT is roared into 3NT by the 10 high card point partner. 

The witch shoots out a small diamond lead with well known County Waterford expert Bressie at the helm. However Bressie steers the ship aground at Tramore Bay. 

Diamond 6 and diamond 2 and diamond Jack is gobbled up by the confident Bressie with the Queen. 

Now he engages his brain and sets off on the Hearts .. 

Graham wins with Ace after getting a twitch of the witches broomstick. 

diamond comes back and Bressie sees the danger but its too late ..the broomstick comes down on his head and smashes his glasses. 

Bressie is not the only man who struggled on this hand. About half the declarers went wrong but most of the defenders did not notice so nobody noticed. 

Bressie needs to approach the Oracle Phelan for advice on this hand. 

Young Donal Garvey also took out the butchers knife as did Ian thugs or minorprob. 

Its a nice hand that just caught my eye. Maybe John Comyn should put it in the paper. 

A little thought at trick 1 before playing might have helped. 

Monday Ireland imps Jun15

Tonight supergrandmaster BJ O"Brien made his 2nd attempt in a row to win the Ireland imp Pairs.
However the hands did not suit him yet again.

BJs Strugglees

Peter Aoife win Sunday imps

Peter and Aoife Goodman won the Ireland Imps pairs Sunday

Link to BBO results

Tranmers return to podium with Bishop in hot pursuit

Add caption

Last night saw the return of the Tranmers to the podium. However they only managed 2nd place as the new powerhouses on the block the Cairnes put a few dents in them.

Sean Connor went to bed after 23 boards  so the robot took his medal.

Here is a hand where Tommy Banks and his trusty robot dented the Tranmers against the odds

Here we saw the Tranmers roar into a pushy 4S contract but Tonny Bamks was unperturbed by the massive reputation of the Tranmers. He readily observed that he has the weaker Tranmer in his sights. Its like when you play against Terry Walsh or BJ O'Brien you want either of them  tending the dummy. So robot strikes out with Diamond king lead and Tranmer wins and runs the spade Queen.
Robot grabs that and unblocks Club Ace and finds the double dummy play of the small diamond.
Magic says Tonny winning his Diamond Jack ...Now why did that robot foolishly cash his Club Ace.
Rolling back through the years Tonny remembers a Dublin Don player and trout fisherman  who said .. Always play your off suit second time as if partner gets on lead he can get you a trumper.  So maybe this robot plays like Declan the Donplayer ...so Tonny plays a reluctant club back and Robby Robot dances on it with glee ... as he shows the Tranmer his trump ..

Meanwhile back at the Diarmuid Reddan Invitational Teams the Moran Team were disconsolately packing away their cricket equipment as Donal MacAonghusa roared into the final. However suddenly Kinder twisted a wisp of hair as his bat was packed away. Accidentally caught Donal on the nose and the distracted Donal ruffed with the Heart 10 protecting against a 9-1 break in diamonds.
I have never seen any declarer play book where you protect against a 9-1 instead of a 4-0.

Suddenly Donal playing for a 3-1 trumps despite the 3NT opening and the later pause about whether to bid 7D was gone down and despite a hopeful claim of the rest of tricks quickly and politely refused by Lazarus Hanlon.
As I watched this event I wondered why I was feeling so good about my declarer play ... I had seen and played some of these hands before. So much for 6000 billion different hands in bridge.
Anyway MacAonghusa had not seen this one but Galligan had ...should have subbed me in for last board and WON.

However one wonders a little more and can not really believe Donal MacAonghusa went down in this 6H as he is a very intelligent bridge player. One smells a small rodent.
Did MacAonghusa take one for the wives and kids.

There is no way Donal MacAonghusa a cards man all his life and a man who knows the odds backed a 9-1 split instead of a 4-0 split. He took one for the team. Thats my theory.

Diarmuid Reddan Invitational Teams June 13th

This weekend we have the Diarmuid Reddan Invitational Online Swiss Teams.
The top 4 will make the semi finals on Sunday with a rest for the lesser teams.

John Carroll,Mark Moran,Hugh McGann,Tom Hanlon,Nick FitzGibbon,Adam Mesbur
Mike Pownall,Daniel McIntosh,PeterGoodman,TerryWalsh

David Walsh,Ciaran Coyne,Donal McAonghusa,Tommy Garvey,Enda Glynn,Gay Keaveney
Donal Garvey,Pat Quinn,Micheal O’Briain,Padraig O’Briain,Louise Mitchell,Derek O’Gorman John Phelan,Lucy Phelan,Cian Holland,Anna Onishuk,, Micheal Donnelly,Conor Boland,John Connolly,Stephen Barr,Kelan O’Connor, BJ O’Brien,Alan O’Sullivan,Peter Pigot,Karel DeRaeymaeker,, The above will be my top 7 finishers. The 8-20 picks can be found on Fearghals website I had to pick 7 finishers as one cannot leave the elegant Peter Pigot in the also rans. Pigot is assisted by super grandmaster BJ O'Brien who holds 2000+ CBAI B points. This is more than the full holding of some of the lesser teams. However it will be good for the lesser teams to receive 1 or 2 good hidings before dropping down to the bottom to play their own games while the sharks swim around up top.  Its 10 board matches so some of the lesser teams could get a good trimming. The 6 player teams will have a large advantage as they get time off. You would think the organisers would have invited 1 or 2 teams from the NIBU given that they will soon be joining CBAI as soon as Brexit is sorted. Then we will have loads more grandmasters as everyone up North who wins the NIBU Pairs is granted grandmaster status. John Murchan has won it 12 times but he will have to watch the racing as no invitation arrived for the Diarmuid. No sign of the mighty collusion hunter Martin Garvey either. He is probably busy in Serbia or watching Wimbledon.  I understand there is a vugraph operation scheduled for today. It joins onto a table or 2 and runs without operators.  Meanwhile from time to time I play a few boards against the all conquering Tranmers. They did not get an invite either. I am losing heavily ..being 153 imps behind after 30 boards

Friday night excitement

This morning I fired up the Richard Pavlicek dealing machine and dealt 24 hands. 

There turned out to be some good action 

We had the super-grandmaster of bridge Mr BJ O'Brien playing. 2000 B points he indicated he owns. 

12 pairs finished ahead of the great man, 

Unfortunately I have to wait for the results 

https://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/hands.php?tourney=5119-1591992359-&username=Remlagh

Gilda wins Hilda 2nd

Thursday 11th June .. Hilary and Gilda are first after I told Gilda the hands were too hard for Rothweillers.

hilda and gilda

Novices playing Natural get struck down

Novices playing Natural get struck down

Last night 2 novices ran into an self elected advanced player partnering a player way out of his league. So self elected advanced man has been taking small nudges all night as he is not as advanced as he thinks he is. Finally he meets a pair of Novice or maybe B2s but fairly new players.
1NT (15-17) from his partnet and novice1 overcalls 2C ...Well Mr Advanced starts banging his drums about what is 2C and on and on and on ....and the poor novice thinks he has lost his mind.
Finally the other novice says its clubs ... and now Mr Advanced is not happy that they talked to the table. I pipe in as director .. "ITS CLUBS .. and finally they get the message.
Even the partner up top ...gushes ... "I would send folk home from my club if they turned up with 2C natural overcall of 1NT.....
The novice who I happen to know in real life actually private messaged me
"Eamon ..who is this clown  has he lost his mind ..my partner just overcalled clubs" ..

And meanwhile 80% of the online Ireland players could not be bothered alerting ..

online regulations

The Blue booklet of Online Regulations is above

Dave Terry defends his title

Last night Bridgebase had its first small hiccup of the COVID era. The system started to grind to a halt at around 11pm Ireland time which is 5pm Las Vegas time. No major panic as folk just rattled their devices a little and then drifted on with the rest of post 11pm life in lockdown.

The event was completed by BBO software by adding in AVERAGES for last bunch of boards.

Terry defends Gilligan scores

Monday Night June 8th Ireland Imps

Last night after several months of trial and error former Number 1 Malahide player Dave Terry along with his current saddle Conor O'Hara finally managed a win in the Ireland imp pairs seeing off the rising star Tommy Garvey and Sibh and the sorted out and put in his place Martin Garvey (allegedly). 

It must be a large place if they put him in it and a large man to stand at the gate. 

Meanwhile the incredible run of form of Mr and Mrs Tranmer slowed a little with a 51% performance in the NIBU pairs and a below average effort in the Serbian Inter B championship. 

We note with sadness a development from overseas where a well known but ordinary bridge player seems to have been doing something untoward or playing too well. 

http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/friedland-disqualified-from-reynolds-spring-ko/

I am not so sure about this as this man has enormous qualifications in computing and a major CV in the computing world. Among his recent partners are one super legend of Bridge in Richard Pavlicek who is reknowned the world over as an ethical bridge player and loads of other good stuff. 

Going back some years there is the 2012 bridge cheating story 

http://bridgecheaters.com/

http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=1289-1591646811&u=zaczaczac

Sunday night Imp Pairs June 7th 2020

http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=4844-1591560395&u=zaczaczac

Saturday .. Loads break Covid to go to Sligo

Saturday night and loads broke the COVID laws to attend Sligo Congress.
I will count the tables sometime and fill it in but was not expecting many.

Peter and Aoife win a soft night comfortably

Friday ..Sligo Mixed ..all players gone to Fearghal

Friday night arrived and we expected to be short but there were still 54 pairs left.

murphyslaw arrives

the night after drawn swords

Tonight Thursday June 4th was rather quiet after the night before.
Champion headed off to Serbia and challenger remained

Wackojack wins

Swords at Dawn ..sawed off Kelan

Meanwhile Pauric seems worried about something
quartz123: 80 booked for ferghal. 4 booked for Eamon. oh dear

we had 46 pairs last night and 62 the night before ... busy enough for me.
I did not think it was a competition between tourney runners.
Quartz123 could have made it Fearghal 79 and Eamon 5 if he felt sorry for me.
I only do it to help folk out with a game of IMPS bridge and 24 boards is lots starting at 905pm.

Last night around midnight in the Ireland Imp Pairs battle lines were drawn. In the Blue Corner was the Resident Well Liked  Champion with countless victories in the Ireland Imp Pairs about to defend his realm against the noisy well read intelligent and very dangerous  Challenger. Both were attended by their dummy handlers. After some verbal sparring which shocked most of the kibitzers the first round began.
The Champion was on  67.5 imps
The Challenger was on 57.5 imps

Board 22

Hand 22 was a fairly simple auction to 4H for the challenger. 

Making this game will put him in a good position for the overtake. With East as dealer the auction was over before the Champion could ponder his holdings. 

However all was not lost ...the Champion unleashed a trump lead won by the challenger who blindly setoff to ruff a slow spade. The Champion won the spade and fired back a 2nd trump. The blinded with anger challenger continued with his seemingly reasonable plan by winning 2nd trump and unblocking the spade king. Now a diamond to the Ace and a spade ruff seemed to leave him swimming down the creek. However the mighty challenger was blinded by the sight of victory and failed to use up one of his free safety lives and pranged his boat off a rock. 

Happily for the Challenger the Champions handler was asleep at the wheel and failed to collect the wonderful gift offered by the Challenger and 4H was made. 

This was 4.5 imps in the bag or a 9 imp swing in this head to head. 

So both sides failed to connect with big punches in the first board.

hand 22

Hand 23 was quickly bid to slam once the challenger found an opening bid with

solid Heart support opposite. Nothing to the play except the fake finesse in clubs for 

annoyance and slam was made. Only 6 pairs bid the slam and 1 languished in 3H up 3. 

Davy GarveyDonal swift jumping and connell the butcher along with our challenger bid 6H. 

This is a good slam ..no finesses no fancy plays needed. What were the rest doing. 

So the Champion can see his throne floating down the river sped on its way with diatribe from the endless challenger.

 Hand 23

Board 24 and it again seems to favour the challenger who can make 3NT

However if the Champion could see all the cards he might maneuver into a sacrificial 4S. However the Champion was very perturbed and bothered by the accompanying typing onslaught from the Challenger. 

After a pass from West the champions corner person opened an interesting Joe McHale special. 

Joe was a fantastic Irish player from the past ...a true legend of Irish bridge ..but they did not have the weak 2s when he started. I used to love trying to beat him as he was a true champion. Eventually I had the privilege of partnering Joe the odd time. So they did not have the weak 2s at the start and Joe used to open all kinds of less than opening things with a weak 2 bid. 65 hands were regular. 

I recall adding up in my out column 2D doubled plus 4 or so .. maybe redoubled.

So weak 2S opened with 65 and challenger whips out 3NT and thats the end. 

There was little hope of ever beating 3NT and so it ended. 

 Hand 24

Except it is only beginning as thegarve has been reported to abuse@bridgebase.com so we will see what that brings.

Oh I nearly forgot ... I won a challenge ..sawed off the mighty kelan ...does not happen often but I was distracted by the goings on last night

38 imps to 1... nobody would have a hope against me in Ireland imp pairs

Wayne found the going tough last night

Despite lining up with the all conquering in-form Paul Tranmer last night Wayne Sommerville failed to trouble the scorers too much. 36 imps in the out column ...thats about 3 nights worth of the conservative MrsT whose strength seems to be not letting much out and making great use of the international declaring skills of MisterT. Sometimes when he is declaring you can see him stopping to do his sums.

faela and mskenny  WIN  ...they might be from Cork

Here we see MrT2000 taking the low road. Hard to see what to do facing a 5 card spade opposite.

The man himself said ...should have bid 4S. I think bid 4!S and let them guess and let Wayne defend 5H for a big win. If Wayne gets it wrong we can give him a slap of our violin. 

 Here we see the great man declaring 3NT. Amazingly he does declare like a normal human being and fails to drop the club queen.

The 3rd of my hands sees the great man double a 2nd time but unfortunately Waynes opening suit bid caused the great man to find a lead that gives the contract.
This is a completely different MrT2000 then the all conquering car crusher that togs out with MrsT8686. This is a much reduced power MrT2000.

Then finally we reached board 13 and Waynes World opened up for business.

Grandmaster Tranmer roared in with a BJesque 3H bid and Wayne quietly waited for the opponents to bid the vulnerable game.. "we were vulnerable ..I had to bid it " ...and eased the hammer out of his kitbag and dropped it with a loud thud on the hapless fionuna and curragh8 ...probably landed on tranmer as well but Wayne did not care.
Down lots and 15 imps in the goodie bag. See Wayne knows how to play bridge.