Connor Doyle struggle in Ireland Imps Pairs ..Cobol Cate offers help on Grand Slam

 Ireland Imps Pairs every night at 830pm Interesting hands but I never look at them beforehand

Last I spotted legendary golf rescue coach loitering near the bottom of the imp pairs. Doctor Sean who can save you 10 shots on your golf game by using the rescue loft club. 

So the first example saw our boys take a crack at Pat Coffeys 2C contract but they only managed 

to collect down 2 instead of the possible 3 down. 

First at trick 6 Culbaire slipped by continuing a small trump ..maybe it was a misclick or maybe it was after the good play by Coffey of ducking trumps and leading Doyle into the swamp. 

However Coffey fired his gain right back like the Monaghan GAA team today. 

7 points up at half time and they lost it ... 

Play continued until trick 11 when Doctor Connor skewed his mouse off the Heart 8 and onto the big Spade. Missing out on the class play of H8 which would have skewered Coffey for another 200. 

On this board Doyle and Connor chose to stop in 3S as they only had 19 combined points. 

Thats reasonable enough. However with 10 tricks available the off form Doyle managed to 

wander into down 1 territory. It looks intuitive to cross ruff but its a better idea to make  a plan 

that is going to get you 9 or 10 tricks as opposed to going plodding and hoping. 

I think they have a thing called hit and hope in the golf 

Down 1 went Doyle and a missed chance of plus imps. 

Board 5 saw Connor not happy with having got in his 1S overcall deciding to introduce

the EIGHT high diamond suit totally ignoring zaczac negative double. 

Zaczac doubled again thunderously and the ROBO was listening and PASSED. 

4 down and 800 for the robozac. 

Next we found the Connor Doyle combo boom into 7S but unfortunately the play did not 

match the bidding. Most grand slams need a little bit of Matt Forde ....a famous Wexfordman 

from the GAA. 

Our man won the opening lead with Diamond king and set off drawing 3 rounds of trumps.

I cannot see any possible way for this line to make the contract and I expected better from declarer Doyle who can play a little some days. However this was a non-play day. 

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

So I asked Cobol Cate ... 

She said I win Diamond King 

T2 3 4 I play AK clubs and ruff a club.

T567 I draw 3 rounds of trumps and end on Spade Queen. 

trick 8 I ruff my last club

trick 9 A of Hearts ....I  think its from Austria ..Vienna coup

trick 10 small diamond to QUEEN ..

trick 11 ..I play my last trump and watch the gallant opponent with HEART QUEEN and long diamonds

CRUMBLE ...13 tricks made

Board 9 the intrepid duo pounced on Mollyhen from Athy in 3H. 

The lads took the first 4 tricks and then failed to take the setting trick and 

Molly headed for home in 3HX and 530.

Cobol Cate arrives in 6NT in the Ireland Imp Pairs

 The Ireland Imp Pairs takes place every night at 830pm. None of this 715-740pm stuff when BBO building cleaners are around with need to plug in their hoovers and unplug a server or 2. 

So its Cobol Cate on declarer against the Defenders Double Declan and Double Deane who claim

they are better than what it says on the double dummy printouts by Deep Finesse who can see all the cards. 

So Cobol Cate hoovers up the Diamond lead with King 

T2. Advances a small Heart to reach dummy.

T3 Runs Spade 10 successfully keeping lead in dummy

T4 plays spade 5 to spade Jack winning and reaching the below position

One small point ..Cobol Cate would be better use HT and keep the hearts fluent for later finessing.

So what next ... The Deanster points at the clock and puts the rush on Cobol Cate who remains 

unmoving doing her sums .. A club finesse looks nice 

T5 we do the Club finesse and that wins ...

T6 we do another Club finesse and note the Deansters hilow with trepidation ... and Lightning swoops 

in with the Club King.. 

Lightning can see that HEART and SPADE returns are hopeless so returns Diamond 10 

won by Cobol Cate with Ace. 

Cobol Cate notes the Deansters discomfort on discarding on 2 winning clubs and feels some hope

4 cards left and only 3 winners so looks like one down ... 

Trick 10 Heart to the King ..and the Deanster follows easily 

Spade Ace is cashed and the Deanster wobbles a little ... 

The poor Deanster is caught in the vice like grip of Cobol Cate and can throw a winning diamond or bear the Heart Jack ... 

6NT bid and made by Cobol Cate ... and our intrepid defenders would be 24 imps worse off if they played Cobol Cate .... 

Happily for Mary Deane they played Mr Potato and he cashed Spade ace at trick 4 and left all the pain

go away. 

Cobol Katie shows how to make 3S doubled against all the odds

 Recently Cobol Katie took up bridge and tried to use her programming skills to work the cards. Unfortunately her partner Accounting Dora swears by the Hackett convention. 

So poor old Cobol Kate ends up in 3SX and looks in Deep Trouble

Trick 1 .. North leads and wins Hearts

Trick 2 North leads another Heart and Cobol Katie ruffs

Trick 3 Cobol Katie being short of trumps starts off using her reserve suit Clubs as a kind of trumps. 

Club to the Jack ...she uses finesse as entry to work the diamonds

Trick 4 Cobol Kate leads a diamond towards KQ and South starts to feel the pain 

lets say Cobol Kate is allowed win King diamond and Kate advances another Club finesse 

South ruffs

Nothing better to do except play a trump 

Meanwhile Accountant Dora is doing the sums in her spreadsheet and sees NINE is possible and starts bouncing in her managerial chair as the BOSS looks through the window. She can see that slowly a bright light is coming down the tunnell and its not a train ..its Cobol Kate cycling the Club Suit as reserve trumps. Eventually South will ruff for the final time and win her 4th trick but Accountant Dora will be totting up the score for 3S doubled and made .. 

What a player is this Cobol Katie. 

She might replace Declan the Donplayer or Shane the Unblocker in my stories. 

How not to bid a slam in 6NT from Ireland Imps Oct28th 2020

 Nightly Ireland Imps Pairs ... this is the best session of bridge on BBO .. 830pm Irish time

2 BBO dollars ... 24 hands with some nice interference bidding on some boards 

Sacrifice bidding does work on some boards

Good morning folks 

Last night despite the BBO blip at around 7pm Ireland time BBO managed to get everything up and running in time for our nightly games. I understand that many folk think they are the only single person in the world locked out of BBO at any one time but its not true ...it is 50000 other folk all banging their keyboards and tablets and mice and Ipads at the same time with the same problem. Eventually BBO will solve the issues ....last night the cleaning person pulled out the plug on a server in Las Vegas to run his hoover for 20 minutes and we bridge players had to wait while he or she cleaned the room. 

So we pushed back the start times by 15 minutes or so and off we went .. 

I saw a hand in the Ireland Imp pairs last night with a regular partnership of a couple of years at the helm. This pair has many successes at the intermediate A and B level. So lets see them bid a slam. 

North South remain silent ..sitting in awe of their well known opponents

1 diamond goes number 1 after picking up a nice 19 count with a VOID

1 spade replies number 2 as she caresses her 6 spades to the AQ

STOP 3NT goes number 1 as she rushes to tell partner the good news of her 19 point hand

Number 2 opens the kennel and unleashes Frankie otherwise known as Big Dog GRRRR BRRRRR

4C from number 2 ....how many aces you got 

4H from number 1 ... I got one of them aces 

Thats not grand says number 2 we are only missing one but  we can still bid a small slam 

She sends off Frankie again and asks how many KINGS ...

5C ... 5NT roars number 1 ... I got 3 big kings ...

Hmmmm says number 2 ... we are missing an Ace and a King ... oh well ...

Locks Frankie Gerber away and says sure my 6 card spades will be trumps ...

Yikes goes number 1 ... we can hardly play in spades with my VOID ... 6NT she goes 

..........

A club is led and number 1 attempts to count 12 tricks .... and can only find about 10 

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

So what went wrong ...

1. They only had 30 points 

2. They were missing an Ace and a King 

3. One had a VOID in partners main suit 

4. They had no trump fit 

5. They never met my friend Sally Dawson  from Fitzwilliam ......she says 

"Plus in part score beats down in slam or even plus in game gets a game bonus" 

After dropping 28 imps on the first 3 boards our intrepid pair did well to end up on only minus 10 imps after 24 hands ..

There was no hurry on the above board ... spade void should slow things down 

1D 1S 

2H 3S

3N 

2H shows 17+ so thats the 19 hcp taken care of 

3S shows 6 card spades ..no good opposite void ...also no other suit or secondary diamond support

Thus better stop in 3NT having shown all our stuff and got no good news ..

Leave Frankie in the kennel

Painting oneself in the corner. Ireland Imps Pairs 830pm every night

This evening I was reviewing the big scores from Malahide this morning to see what tips I can learn for when the COVID tide recedes. I spotted an opponent of one of the leading pairs bidding 6NT. However he declared from wrong side and I presumed leading pair got him down for their 100%. I looked anyway. I could not see any way to lose the slam. 

Just play Diamond King and next trick he sees Spade Queen ... 

Unfortunately a trick ahead of himself probably and instead of a nice 100% in the bag he ended up with 0% as he locked himself in dummy to lose the last 2 tricks in Hearts. I did this myself once in Drogheda Congress was racing towards making 7C grand slam against Ciara Burns and Murchan but got a trick ahead of myself and blew it . 

Last night in the Ireland Imps one chap called the other a chimp for bidding 3H jump bid and not alerting it. Then he called me a jellyfish...Hopefully someday Garve meets the Lions Mane and finds out the real deal. 

I mean does this really need alerting. Its simple Acol bid ..limit raise 10-12 hcp. 

Then he started crying about 4C makes but sure the robot does not understand alerts. 

Then he put on a big sulk and would not bid on the next board. 

Eventually I had to put in a robot to play last hand of the set. A grown man sitting there sulking.

What a whinger and crybaby. 

However at least he is an honest whinger so we won't be blocking him yet. 

I guess he will do a sulk now and not appear for several days but he will return. They always return. 

I do understand a little bit but sulker is basing his whinge on allways3 being an Expert. Its great for allways3 that thegarve rates him as an expert player. 

Hand 1 Charles Higgins Session 2 ....we missed again

 A few days ago I was playing the Charles Higgins Session 2 boards and hand 1 was annoying me. I tried the effect of passing my partners weak 2 opening but the robot EW roared in with a double and a jump to 4C. So we looked at that and figured well we should get 2H tricks and 1 diamond  and 1 spade trick so down 1 is surely good for us ..

So we defended 4C and no matter what I tried the North robot insisted on giving a ruff and discard in Hearts thus allowing 4C to make .. Later on it slowly dawned on me that 4C was cold and the North robot was not giving away the contract. 

So I had a look at the results in Malahide. We have 24 results and 14 of them are an unmolested 2H contract. The EW folk just sit there and take the medicine with no argument. Most of them blow a trick on defence and shrug ...Nothing we could do ...and take their 25% scores. 

1. East could try an aggressive 3C bid ...Now that is fairly hungry......

2. Coming around to West he or she could consider a takeout double 

3. push them up to 3H ...you might defend better and get them down 

4. Opponents who are under pressure often struggle to make contracts

5. 2H is nice and soft ..not much pressure or danger of going down.....

6. so 14 tables where we can attempt to improve the EW score up from 25% ...

Moving on ...to the other 10 tables 

7. First line we have a 3D by West ...doomed to failure as only 6 tricks available 

but at least they had a go .... Now a little education and we might get this West 

to bid DOUBLE ..not put all eggs in one basket and enlist partners help in choosing a 

suit to play in ..

8. Looks like 8 pairs went willing to 4H and got bad scores for this ...However these

folk are closer to the mark as they have sacrificed against the cold 4C contract but the poor 

souls get 9 points out of 46 .. a fairly miserable return for taking the best action. 

Why is bidding good getting such a poor return. 

9. Finally the one EW pair who almost got it right ...5C-1 ...despite going overboard they still 

hauled in a nice 75% score ..stopping in 4C would have been nearly all the eggs. 

In this case the East player produced a 3C bid and partner overcooked it 

going all the way to 5C ...

10. How are so many capable players missing this hand by so much. 

There are no names mentioned here .. but most of the players above are playing past 30 years 

and consider themselves capable .. 

The hand was dealt normally and not created or fixed but I think it tells a story on not being 

competitive enough. 

Many years ago an old lad called Walshe in the Bankers Bridge Club ..He is dead since and suffered from what is now called dementia but he did his best and generally managed ok. 

He told me ...if you do nothing else ..don't let the opposition stop in 2 level if you can think 

of any excuse to bid. You can let them off if you have trumps as then I am short and have not done anything. Paddy Walshe was his name and he is neither of the more famous Galway and Listowel Paddys. 

A few hands that went awry in Ireland imps pairs Monday

 Ireland Imp Pairs every night at 830pm ... a great workout or training session ...

No 4333 hands here ..,. No 1NT all pass here ... 2BBO dollars 28 boards ... The real deal .. 

The despondent return of the Tranmers did nothing for the Ireland imps pairs. After a dismal round 2 when their Northern com-padres Connell and Marge destroyed them the Trannies were fighting a hard battle to rise from the depths. 

Board 27 saw the Trannies receive a nice gift from former international woman player Maria someone as she gifted them a going down all day partscore 

I mean why can you not have 2D 1H and 1S for down 1. 

Somehow Maria chose to roar up with Ace of Hearts and create discard for Tranmer to roll home 

the no play 4C ... plus 8 imps for Tranmer 

Then we were onto 3S on board 23 ... again 5 tricks off the top ...but no ...the defenders chose not to

do the business and Tranmer was away again for slates .. West even made the perfect Club lead .. 

Another 6 imps in the Tranmer bag ... No wonder people think he is too good for the Ireland Imps .. 

He is like a reverse Santa Claus. 

And we move on and we find Bruree in a cold 4S ...He knows from bidding where HA is but chooses to forget that opening bid ... down 1 in cold one and Tranmer is flying ... another 13.5 imps in the Tranmer bag . 

  My final example on this run sees Tranmer take the push to the failing 3D contract and then MaryPT pushes on to the hopeless 4C .. another 5 imps in Tranmers bag.. 

With a flash of his wand Tranmer has landed 32 imps in the plus ...and not a sign of MrT1000 on these boards. MrT2000 might be the greatest bunnybasher of the Covid era ...He is certainly racking up the imps since mid March .. However these 4 boards were all gifts from above.

Meanwhile ..its time to examine how the Tranmers came a cropper against the non-descript Donegal duo Connell and Marge... 

Board 5 Tranmers gained 2 imps for a missed slam 

Board 6 .. 

Its a going down 4H but it is quite tough it seems to me ... something about spades and trumps and thus Tranmer could not find the double dummy switch of a small spade 

Then Mrs1000 came alive and bid a decent 6D ..but again it was off as had to lose Ace and an offside trump queen. 

Board 8 saw the whole world making partscore or game in spades but Tranmer stopped off to collect plus 100 in 3HX. 

Finally revenge of the Bruree Joe as he roared into a cold 6S and played it perfectly to make loads of imps. Go on Bruree .. This left the shell shocked Tranmers down in bunny land hoovering up the lettuce and carrots .. 

The Donal is not the Tommy at the bridge

 Ireland imp Pairs every night at 830pm Good hands competitive bidding and Donal bidding 

Tonight I spotted this rare bidding

1C P 1S! X

P 2D  P 2N

P P X

I think a redouble happened and 2200 happened ...just like me in Brighton right Tommy. 

The West made an error in the bidding and the John Comyn was there to show

him the error of his ways 

It was hand 13 of the Ireland Imps pairs last night