Two humans kicked over the robots last night in Ireland Imp pairs

 Last night in the Ireland Imp Pairs we had a nice little game going with some decent players togging out. 

The top 4 places included Waterford champion William McKay,regular visitor to Ireland Congresses

pre Covid and during Covid Martin Garvey. Well known Galway duo Enda Glynn and Paul Scannell 

as well as Dave Ryan and Mary Roche in 4th place. 

However the main action took place in a different area of the event where 2 humans took annoyance 

with the human robot combinations and the 2 robots who acted as sitout replacements. 

Trick 1 Heart king won with Ace 

Trick 2 finesses club 8 losing to 9 

Trick 3 Diamond comes back Ace 

Trick 4 Cashes a high diamond 

Trick 5 Cashes Ace of Club

Trick 6 Sticks Eddie Macken  in with Club King 

At this stage Eddie and Harvey  started to make noises ...just small noises but they continued to play 

They finished off the next 3 boards with pinder1234 and the robot and next were drawn against

the pair of sitout replacement robots. 

This did not improve their mental states and their horses were feeling their angst. 

By the time they reached board 16 they had been skinned for almost 50 imps but for some 

reason it was Eamon and the robots that were taking the hit for this. These two are multiple Irish champions but feeling angst for getting endplayed by a robot is a little much. 

Boards 17-20 were against 2 humans so that was okay but unfortunately on board 21 a robot human 

partnership dared to approach their table. 

Our 2 chaps downed tools and refused to play 

Even my offer to partner one of them was turned down 

After 7 minutes I asked could I put in 2 subs... 

I probably irked them more by replacing them with 2 robots ..

Happily maitennis turned up and replaced one of the robots despite the massive red score.

All because a human could not bear to be endplayed by a robot. The humans claimed the robot pair

CHEETAHED ...

Funny thing is if a  human visualised and placed this endplay on another human he would be cheered 

from on high .. 

Its not unlike the great play that Carolann Cummins produced declaring 6Hs a couple of blogs ago. 

Actually playing against a robot that night ... The robot just clapped her. 

Reminds me of a time back in 1990s when Joe McHale partnering me in Kilkenny put an 

intra-finesse on Michael McDonagh and Eddie Fitzgerald and the 2 lads stopped in the middle of 

the play and clapped him ... 4H+1 .. Their team mate scored up 2H+1 

However the sportsmanship was present 

Camrose Trophy 2021 Ireland representatives are probably Team BJ.

 Team BJ won the recent Camrose trials but I don't know if the selection committee have ratified the winners to represent CBAI in the Camrose series both weekends yet. Have to wait and see. 

Team BJ .. O'Brien O'Briainsx2 Walsh O'Gorman and Milne won a 2 rounds round robin held on Real Bridge platform. A strangely struggling Moran team failed to raise any steam at all. Could be the missing "look them in the eyes " at the table caused a different feeling or maybe Team BJ have been following a new training regime that I don't know about. 

Boards and information can be found at https://kibitz.realbridge.online/   and you might have 

to page down a little to find something about CBAI Camrose Trials. 

No point in having a selection committee if you going to try to win the Camrose without the legendary Thomas Hanlon. I think it normally says in the Conditions of Contest something about selection committee having the final word. 

Meanwhile presuming Team BJ are ratified for at least the first weekend I offered them some training. 

Unfortunately they turned me down indicating most of the team would not get any value out of my nightly imp pairs. 

Not one to give up I made a 2nd offer of some bidding practice without my involvement. I am still waiting for the response on this offer. Having been involved with more than 2  Bermuda Bowl teams training sessions I thought I would have something to offer in the 5 weeks remaining before the Camrose Trophy. 

I also offered them my services as Non Playing captain. 

Ireland Imps Pairs tonight 830pm and every night. We want the best pair in Ireland. Come Granda Tom

 Recently I have been following Fearghals Sligo events with interest. I gradually noted that Granda Tom and his regular partner higheg nearly always win. Now I understand that pretty much all the Sligo and friends are weaker bridge players than myself but so are most of the Ireland grandmasters so its not an insult. 

However I have never come across The Granda or Higheg in about 35 years playing CBAI Bridge. As most of my bridge was beyond intermediate level I have probably missed many players. 

Finally this morning I figured it out ... There is no Granda Tom or Higheg ... Fearghal just puts Granda Tom and Higheg in place of the 1st place finishers in the Sligo events same as he places John Wayne and Julia Roberts in the last place.

So I had a look last night at the November record of Granda Tom and Higheg.

15 matchpoints events in Sligo and some other SWBA place and 15 first places. 

This is like the Dubs at the GAA except the Dubs will probably keep going after COVID(whereas the granda will disappear)  unless Mayo lift the curse. Maybe Thomas Galligan will take them down. He plays GAA like the granda tom. 

Now I am an avid student of bridge so I want to learn more about the tactics of granda tom and higheg.

I noticed in passing that when shorn of the granda tom ...the higheg has more normal 55% or 52% scores but that could be a weaker partner. 

Now I need to learn some good tactics to teach some students I have so if the granda tom and higheg might play more often in the Ireland Imps Pairs then I could study their skills a little more. 

Also some of my players are of a more iron will than granda's normal fodder. They are not so generous. 

I have noted the granda is reluctant to alert most of his bids and this is very unethical and I hope

he will make a better effort to share what the granda and higheg know about their bids. 

Its okay for Declan the Donplayer in the local club DON game to keep secrets as he openly admits his objective is not to win but to pull a stroke. 

Strangely enough I taught Declan the Donplayer how to play bridge and he loves it. Declan plays on 

Bridge Now      http://www.bridge-now.com/

We play for a pint a week but Declan managed to negotiate a 10% handicap on me but as he regularly breaks 55% for the week I am now on a loser. However I explained to him that he gets 10% of his 

score added not a full 10% so I am still able to win most weeks. 

I am going to ask Declan the Donplayer for an opinion on Granda Tom and Higheg as Declan is a good numbers man ..seldom leaves much in the bookies. 

Imagine a blue Dub putting a 10er on Cavan to take down Donegal and another 5er on Cavan to take Donegal by 4-6 points ....... He figured it would be easier for Dublin to beat Cavan. 

When I heard he backed Trump I was slagging him ... turned out it was some snooker player not POTUS.

..........

However when I asked Fearghal he claims he only changes the last place so the Granda is real but I think the Granda and Higheg are two GIB robots. 

Ye can look yourselves 

https://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/index.php?&from_login=0

Northern Ireland Camrose Trials 2020

 Meanwhile the NIBU Camrose Trials are taking place to find out who will take on BJ and Ranald in the annual Corn Something for the match between NIBU and CBAI. 

The pre tournament favourites Tranmer and Sommerville are struggling to nail down the 3rd place position with the experienced Coffey and Lavery chasing them all the way. 

Tranmer has been the best player by far in the COVID online bridge around Ireland with loads of massive scores albeit against weak players from the clubs. I have not counted how many 70% plus scores he was managed but as he indicated himself he has a 33 year bridge partnership so an enormous advantage on other pickup partnerships. 

For some reason the Tranmer Sommerville partnership does not deliver anything like the Tranmer Tranmer results so maybe Wayne needs to work on his game. 

Maybe its the weaker bidding system in use in the Camrose Trials or most likely its far stronger opposition playing this weekend. 

Early Camrose NIBU     link to pdf of scores 

Cross imps     link to cross imps 

Last night I saw a wonderful 6H bid and made in Ireland imp Pairs ..830pm every night

 Good evening folks 

Here is how to play bridge but don't play too good .. 

Here we see Alan O'Sullivan bidding a fine 6H for his partner to play. 

Some good pointers in this hand about playing. 

Alan gets an opening bid from partner in his best suit and doing his losing trick count 

comes up with about 5 losers.

5 losers is slam zone opposite an opening bid so Alan rolled out the cannon. 

4NT told him about 3 aces and he went on and got the bad news about the kings so 

he settled for 6H. 

So we are going to play 6H .. 

Well we have a 2S move down in the South hand so that might help us. 

We have a slow diamond loser and a club finesse or drop or some kind of Galligan play

to make 

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

Our declarer done some eliminations in spades and diamonds and played 2 rounds of clubs 

catching the helpless Bill Hunter in a hopeless endplay. 

You can replay the hand here 

Replay the hand here

..........

Why is nobody else having a go at 6H ...its a good one to bid 

The folks in 3H plus 2 might need to improve their evaluation

Just a bidding misunderstanding ..one thought 3H was forcing and the other NOT 

Anyway well done to Carolann on the declarer play .. Someone actually rang me up to tell me about the fantastic declaring play so I thought I best slap it up there. 

I might have tried Club Queen to see if I could tempt robotcop to cover or hesitate. 

Robot is unlikely to be programmed to cover a 10 .... 

Of course declarer might not have been planning on deprogramming the robot ..

It was the first hand of 4 so might not have noticed robocops presence. 

EDIT ... Of course I was somewhat dumb when writing the about Clubs play as QJT of clubs are

visible in dummy ... Hmmm

...........

Sadly the next 11 boards brought few gains for this great declarer as Rdelargy and tito44 held her at bay. 

The Granda is playing well but also collecting many presents...Ireland Imps 830pm every night ..

 Ireland Imps Pairs tonight at 830pm .. Hopefully tonight the Granda will show up and we will give him good trimming. He caught me off guard last night as I accidently set event to Matchpoints. 

You see the Granda is a matchpoint specialist ..and he won 

Boards1-4 was fairly quiet as Granda got into his stride ... against Allways3 and Molly

Board 5 saw Sean Connor doing a strange play in 3NT .. You would think he would play in the

Offaly cold 4H contract. 6 card HEARTS to AJT987 ...we call those trumps in Dublin. 

Board 7 we saw the Granda open up the throttle 

Despite reaching 6H which was scoring a tidy 73% the granda threw all the grandkids in 

the ring and for some reason backed his ordinary declaring partner all the way to GRAND SLAM.

The 3H bid is amazing .. The grandma clearly does not play the AUNTY double. 

Needless to say zaczaczac called the police who changed it to 6H+1 .. No problem from Granda 

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

Even I was stunned by the Granda's next move. Took me a while to take it all in. 

I don't believe it ..The Granda wheels out the old farmers bidding trick .. 

The Strong Club ...and the Negative Diamond

No alerting No nothing ..

However its a serious move ...and catches a large fish.. 

Now this could be legit ,,,,granda might be using the forcing club neg diamond to find

out if his partner has 6+ hcp and we might be thinking its all strange ..,,but it might be perfectly 

normal in Granda land .. Like back in 1989 Galligan thought he was the business when he bid 2S response to 1NT with 20 hcp to find out if partner held a maximum or minimum. He did not know 

the 4NT quantitive back then. 

Anyway Granda hoovered in 100% for being in the right contract. 

He just does not understand the cardplay 

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

But down the end ... Granda went on a crazy run... all nothing to with him 

board 24 saw granda gifted overtricks in 3NT 

.......

Then boards 25-27 saw Higgins and O'Sullivan put on the Santy Hats .. 

Those three 100% hands were not the doing of the great Granda tom.

On the first, his opponents failed to compete to 3♣ with their nine-card fit, although they were doomed for a bad score as long as GT didn't fail to win a heart before cashing both his diamond winners.

On the second, he achieved a fantastic score by jumping to 3N with ♠AQx ♥xx ♦AKxxxx ♣xx. Maybe a little unusual, but the crime here was North playing a third round of spades after South discarded all his spades and made it clear that West was cut off. This turned -2 into a make.

On the third, Granda tom got his top when his opponents bid to a bad contract, and then misplayed it (despite there being no way to do any better double dummy).

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

So Granda we will be waiting for you in the Ireland Imps Pairs ...

Every night 830pm .... Keep away from that Sligo warren of iniquity. 

Fearghal will have you playing bad bridge soon ... 

The return of the Meadowlark ..was a fine bridge program for Windows in 1990s

 Folks 

Accidently today while reminiscing I looked for Meadowlark Bridge. 

Lo and behold Meadowlark has returned to life 

Meadowlark Free shop

So I went to the Meadowlark page and after some fumbling I clicked on Shop and then the picture 

of the birds and then added to cart and then clicked the Cart top right and carried on 

and eventually got 0.00 and no credit card it brought me to a place to download 

Meadowlark Bridge. Got an exe file called mb.exe

I installed it to check it was real program before telling you folk about it .. 

All good and installed ...seems to be written in python ... 

Now to figure out how to use it 

All I know is Meadowlark was a fine program before GIB arrived and later Jack. 

........

Apparently the Meadowlark engine is the engine for the Tricky Bridge phone app. 

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

Some work to do here yet. It won't work on my ALL in ONE machine but it does work somewhat on my laptop. Its written in Python so is interesting. However I will report back when I figure it out. 

 

You too can be better than BJ O'Brien for a week but not Karl Cashen

 Bridge Now    a fine site to practice bridge on 

I have been using this site since about 2015 at least ... its a good website 

Some years ago I spotted the account Esther Mor that plays over 100 hands every week. However the account seldom gets past 20% score. Thus I wonder who could play 100-150 hands a week and get this bad score. Many years ago probably late 1980s  I had a bridge console and my baby brother worked out he could bid 7NT on every hand and win loads of points as the claims were not checked ...

Then some years later  one night I went to one of my early PCs which had a bridge program on it and found he has wrecked that game as well by bidding 7NT for his opponents and then doubling them and getting loads of points .. Well he was only about 10 years old ..but he gamed all those machines and programs. Meadowlark bridge was the program ...around 1993....so he was about 10. I was not happy but after about an hour I just reinstalled the program and all was well. 

Meadowlark Bridge 

Wow I just googled and found out Meadowlark is coming again ..in 2020

It was a fine program in its day ...Now there is a new day ..

Galligan misclicks on a spade and makes 4H instead of 4H plus 3

 A few minutes ago I was playing on 

http://www.bridge-now.com/

And I as they say it misclicked on a spade as they say ....

However I know myself I told my fingers to click on a spade ... I did not mean to but I am 100% certain my brain got confused and I thought click on spade ... instead of diamond ... 

This is NOT the purpose of an UNDO ....

If you were aiming for Diamond 3 and your mouse slipped then maybe you can ask for UNDO or else be a little more careful. 

In the above case I knew I had 13 tricks and I got distracted or brain accident but I clicked on the spade and then knew I did not mean it ... 

YOU CANNOT HAVE UNDO FOR THIS ...

The site I was on does not allow UNDOs anyway ..

So I got 14% instead of 90% 

So when playing on BBO be honest about your undos ..