Team 2000 search and destroy in Kelvin Teams recently. Unfortunately Team BJ took the hit.

 While perusing some good players results this morning I came across this beauty. Mr Tranmer Somerville Anderson and Greenwood taking the lead out to CBAI Grandmasters Walsh and O'Brien partnered by NIBU stalwarts River Quoile and Anne1. 

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=93402-1616008389&u=mrt2000

I think the whole results and boards can be viewed about ..Any match with 100 plus imps in 16 boards must be worth a look. Someone lost those imps. Someone lost against Luxembourg in sport. 

I notice remnart handed in a more normal card in March 2021 averaging a reasonable 53% in the matchpoints when sent out to battle without the heavily armoured MrT2000. 

Kelan the monster who thrives on Eamon failures ..bridge challenge

  Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

I reluctantly accepted  a challenge against kelan the other day as I already held bragging rights from a recent victory. 

A lack of attention board and a couple of lazy bids and a couple of lax defences by robot opps of kelans phone and suddenly Galligan felt the possiblity of 50 imps minus. Turned out to be minus 60 I think in 5 boards. 

K went 3NT here and when robot failed to beat it that was 10 imps gone against my 5D down 2

Missing the fall of the club 9 here and I was down in 4H.

The Queen was also gone so 

WATCH THE SPOT CARDS 

Kelan tried the 3NT contract here and robot failed to beat it and my 4S-1 was more imps gone out the door. 

REMEMBER CONTRACT IS NOT DOWN UNTIL ALL TRICKS ARE TAKEN.

Kelan chose the pragmatic bid of 2NT opening while my efforts saw me in a 4-2 4H contract with trumps breaking 6-1 or something. 

WHENEVER TRUMPS BREAK 6-1 maybe the bidding is wrong

To end this bunch of disaster hands one chose to open the South hand an overstrength 1NT and languished in 3S making 11.

5 hands 5 disasters and 60 imps. 

Its easy when one disrespects the great game. 

As a great Malahide player once said "Bridge is a monster that feeds on human inadequacy " 

So don't be blaming the partner ... or the opponent ...

IT MIGHT BE YOU.

Those robots are animals at bridge

 Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

Last night I decided to replace two robots with myself and the nearly winner of Clonmel intermediate pairs. However I had no idea that the original robots has hoovered up nearly 40 imps from boards 1-5 against some humans

Thus when the results came out I was thinking something was wrong. 

I was saying to myself how can we be plus that much. 

Anyway the mystery was soon solved.

37.5 imps head start from the robots made a reasonable score better 

Followed by 3 good boards against what appeared to be a starting off pair of bridge players. 

The middle board I thought might have been plus more imps but for some reason folk did not bid or else went down in a reasonable slam. The new folk made 13 tricks against us

Its definitely a 12 tricker hand so getting only average when our opponents stopped in 3NT was a little disappointing. 

A very interesting play hand ..A quick glance without double dummy helper seems to indicate one might be in a Vienna Coup situation after playing off 6 hearts and 2 spades leaving only 5 cards. South gets in trouble in his 3 queen suits and gets squeezed. However 2 folk bidding and going down in 7H left us with the average. 

As my friend Sally used to say in Fitzwilliam ...plus in part score beats down in SLAM. 

Later we found bigswinging in a generous mood as he stormed towards the oak tree and slammed his head into a low hanging branch. Elephants don't tend to understand DUCKING. 

So he got a sore head and Cobol Cate ate all his rolos in 3NT. 

If the big elephant had ducked on trick 1 maybe its 12 imps gone the other way ..meaning instead of plus 8 imps we lose 5 imps for him making 3NT

However Cobol Cate turned up and not the other one who throws imps like confetti at a wedding. 

Redouble and Double ..two hands

  Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

I think it was last Sunday the redouble and double happened but I am not certain. 

On the first hand above from Sunday night we say Elaine Curragh open a weak 2S bid which was doubled by the South hand. Double is fairly normal although if you got the dreaded Hacket tool in your arsenal you might find a different way of getting hammered. These folk did not and unfortunately for NS they both managed to pass out the redouble much to the Curragh glee who wrapped up about 10 tricks for a nice 1640 score. 

Now lets not call names ..I recall defending against the great Joe McHale in 2DXX and he made a lot of tricks in that contract and said "Could have been worse ..at least you did not redouble me into game contract" 

I had another episode in the 2005 Camrose Trials where much to John Phelans surprise we defended while our opponents declared in 3NTXX making 3 ..

,

,

tricks

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

Meanwhile not to be outdone a local accountant fancied declaring 5C and entered the auction late and got doubled. 

minus 800 entered in the ledger later and she is realizing why she is an accountant. 

After the hand she called her partner a cow.

Galligan fails in Senior Trials replay

 Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

I finished my replay of the CBAI Senior Camrose event and finished in 2nd last place. I managed to overtake the CBAI CEO at least and close the gap a little on former Irish chess champions Dunne and Delaney. 

However the Milne Team remained well out of reach. I am of the opinion that the teams made errors on purpose which held Galligan back. I expect to do better in the upcoming Camrose replay though. 

However I am aware that all my opponents got a crack at an underperforming WBU team so I might not be able to make up that gap. 

Last night Thursday March 18th Tadgh and Elaine took the victory.

We also had the well known murphyslaw at odds with his robot.

A few overtricks and endplay and an unneeded duck in trumps

 Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

Last night I was running Malahide Regional when the following hand was played.

So we arrive in 2S contract by South. West fires off 4th highest club and all is going well. East grabs Club Ace and fires back Club Queen. 

West looks at this briefly and says club Queen wins all good so lets it win. A longer look might have revealed that only missing card is Club Jack and there is nothing bad can happen to overtake and play a club back. Its either club jack in East or East takes a ruff and the 3rd trick. Like West can see we are not getting in again and a losing club if there is one is going away on Heart AK. 

So we leave partner on lead to give up a trick for our side

East goes low spade won by South

and 2 rounds of hearts ruffing the 2nd. Does not even bother throwing losing club away yet. 

It gets worse ..South plays a trump and East chooses to duck setting the scene for South to execute the endplay.

Now South play another spade and East is goosed.

East wins Spade Ace ..and can play HEART for North to win all 3 hearts or can play diamond for North to win Queen and do same as above.

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

In the bidding East had opened 1NT with 16 hcp so the hand was open book for declarer after first 2 tricks. 

Clearly West held Club King. 

..........

On this same board in a different section we also had a different auction where North

opened a weak 2H bid and East produced an unalerted 3C bid. 

At the end North South complained about the unalerted 3C bid. 

On inquiry from East it was explained as "North opened 2H and I bid Hackett ..I had 16 hcp and thats right for Hackett okay " 

Sure its all okay but how would opponents know 3C does not mean CLUBS. 

A brief discussion on alerting followed before East agreed .."I suppose I should have alerted "

...........

Director has no choice but to remove the 4H bid and the double and score as whatever 4C makes. 

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

We have been asking folk in Malahide to alert almost since start of COVID and told them you risk losing a good score if you don't. 

Note not all non-alerts will produce an adjustment ...its only if there is possible damage that has a link to the non-alert. On this board if one was told after 4C bid about 3C meaning and still went on and bid 4H getting doubled ..then you get nothing ... 

East might get a small procedural penalty or warning for not alerting in time. 

Board 22 of Sunday night Ireland imps saw plenty of action and the stripey ape appeared

 Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

Some doubled 5S and got it handed back to them made

Some times known as stripe tailed ape 

 Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

I am still playing the Senior Camrose Trials and have some better news to report. I remain in last place after 50 of the 60 boards but have closed up somewhat on Chief Porteus and his sidekick Brave Barry. 

Only 10 boards to go so its unlikely I will finish any higher than 6th place but one never knows. 

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

A couple of years some Fermanagh person put some dye in a river in Fermanagh in an attempt to claim the source of the Shannon. Sadly the dye emerged in Cavan meaning that the Shannon rises in Fermanagh. 

In these COVID times Fermanagh has produced some more unknown things. A large amount of unknown bridge players have descended on the major Sligo & Friends event run by Fearghal O'Boyle. 

Sligo and Friends – Fast Friday – 12th March 2021 (48 Tables)

Congratulations to Finola Higgins and Tom McIntyre (the most successful online pair in the World in the last 12 months) 

Ann and Stephen Cairns are also major killers in the Sligo events and also from Fermanagh. 

Now possibly its just that the native Sligo player is not as good as its Fermanagh opponent. 

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

I did some research and chose probably the greatest active bridge player in Dublin Mr BJ O'Brien as my choice  of comparison. 

BJ is a grandmaster owning 2100 National points or more ....and has represented Ireland multiple times in international competition  and won more national titles probably than anyone else in Ireland ... (no offence to those known as the Silver team but they don't tog out as often as BJ) 

So 538/683 = 78.5% ....3 months of BJ and his regular partners opening leads 

So 816/934 for a Fermanagh pair = 87.4% ....

The secret of good bridge ... Improve your opening leads ... 

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

I don't know the answer but up to this I believed the Shannon rose in Cavan and that I would prefer a Fermanagh opponent than BJ and one of his favourite partners. 

However the data indicates don't play bridge  for money at Fermanagh Congress if there ever is another one. 

The Tranmers are also pretty good performers in the COVID era but I think they pick the cheap games as the numbers for Paul Tranmer don't stack up when faced with his Camrose peer opponents. I also have not checked their numbers recently as I lost interest. don't have their numbers to hand but they were good on the opening lead too. 

More Senior Trials losses ..and what can I do .. Two missed games

 

Again 3NT is cold as a frozen pizza but poor Galligan loses another 7 imps because the international players want to play in the safe 2C contracts. What happened to bid 40% games in teams. 

This one is very frozen ... AK AK and 5 clubs on a 2-2 break must be ok. 

...........Now I trail Porteous by 23 imps and BJ by a massive 68 imps ..Am I that bad. I have just dropped 24 imps and done nothing wrong except watch my Jack opponents bid and make 6S 3NT 3NT

All the hands are on    https://kibitz.realbridge.online/

Christ ..I lose 20 imps because these Dumbos bid 7S and go down in cold 6S

  Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

Last night Granda Tom paid us a visit but he was not on top form. He got lucky on a few boards but also got hopped on in 5HX once and bid a no hope slam that was allowed make. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

Results can be found above. 

7S is a tad unfortunate but its not the 13 tricks you can count slam and it seems to need a finesse as you can hardly eat all those hearts so against the odds unless you are losing heavily. 

Going down in 6S is bizarre and costs their team a slam swing which is about 17 imps in this case and could be as much as 27 imps if the 7S folk stayed in 6S making. 

I did not even look to see who the butcher was but he loses nothing and I lose 12 imps or more for doing nothing wrong except playing against a limited computer. 

Look at me ..11 imps behind Paul Porteous ..bloody hell ..he is an administrator of bridge not a player .. Of course without Paul Porteous there might be no COVID bridge so better let him be ahead of me.

Of course maybe I am not as good as I think ..

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

Then the next board I lose another 5 imps when someone does not bid a cold 3NT. 

Galligan continues to struggle in Camrose Senior Trials after 38 boards

  Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

Eamon is a great critic of players on BBO and Trials and other places. However I still stick myself up there and play the hands when enough time has elapsed to allow memories to be gone. So here is Eamon at bottom of Senior Camrose trials after 38 hands of 60.

Eamon feels that some of his lost imps happen when his Jack opponents outbid the best older players in Ireland. Now Paul Porteous is not a bad player and Fred Barry is a good old battler from the Regent. So its okay to be behind these players and their peers. At least I am doing the practice. Damn I just thought I recalled some plus imps coming around board 40 but that was the Saturday night Grand Slam Dunne and Delaney missed ....its not part of this set. 

The good news is that no matter where I finish in Camrose Senior Trials ..I will be taking part in the Camrose Trophy shortly as Fearghal gave me the files I need to create my Camrose Trophy tournament ..so 160 hands of that will follow in some future blogs. 

I am thinking of turning the Ireland Imps Pairs into a training tournament but nobody will know the theme until near end of the event. 

Senior Camrose Trials replay ..Eamon thinks he is better but NO.. Camrose/MRBC Congress

 This weekend we have many things going on. Loads of events in the Malahide Bridge Congress for anyone that missed it. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/malahideregional/Congress%205.pdf

Results on https://www.fob.ie/ and https://www.bridgewebs.com/dririshresults/

.....

Meanwhile the Camrose Trophy 2nd with weekend is on with Team BJ planning a victory and a lifting of the Lord Camrose. They might have a problem exporting the English Silver to Ireland due to Brexit and COVID. 

Results of that on https://www.fob.ie/ also ...and there is kibitzing from about 1030am on 

https://kibitz.realbridge.online/

Meanwhile England Ireland fought out a losing draw last night with England winning by 4 imps 

,,,,,,,,,,

Meanwhile Galligan is replaying the Camrose Trials against Jack the bridge program .. 

Even with my computer opponents toned down to allow for age and forgetfulness I am still bottom of the pile after 30 boards 

I am averaging 3.4 imps a board less than the powerful Milne O'Brien partnership. That puts me in my place. However at least I am still better than Fred Barry .. so thats something. 

Here I did some reverse bidding but my partner just bid 3NT despite a 12 count and a working Queen of hearts and 2 black Aces ..the only part of his hand he is doubtful about might be Diamond Queen. 

He could bid slower and see how that goes .. 

From the Camrose 

This is weird stuff ... I think its Sacrifice against Insurance. Nobody seems to know who is making what. 

I think North probably bidding 7C was uni something ... or broke all the eggs in one go and tossed the basket out of the pram. 

The Milne O'Brien partnership had a firmer grip on the reins as they wheeled out a bit of Lebensohl and followed up with a dose of the unusual NO TRUMP to win 14 imps for the team. 

The legendary Sean Whelan thinks he is good enough not to cash the Setting Trick

 Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

Derek Stokes Teams .. Derek was a partner of mine in the past. We played in Irish trials using his B points to enter as I only had about 7. Derek said ...Eamon I have enough for both of us. 

Here we have Sturdy defending 3NT with the fine player Mary who leads a nice small 💔 and whelo goes 10💖.

Declarer Kelly crosses to dummy in ♣ to run the ♦10 taken by Mrs with the King and she comes 💕 for Whelo to take 3 💖tricks .. So 4 in the bag and Ace in hand one normally takes setting trick but not our Sean. 

Sean figured on establishing a club for another trick but Kelly won Gueen of clubs and ran 4 rounds of diamonds forcing Sean to discard 4♠ and then A♠ .....

The rest is history and covered by GDPR.

  Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 8pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

Saw a great hand last night in Malahide Open Pairs. No fixing here as Catherine does not have loading up the boards skill yet. 

Hand 7 and you declare 6H or if you are timid try 4H for as many tricks as you can.

You get the K of diamonds lead and you declare from West hand and you can have a spade bid 1S or 2S weak overcall from  North if you like. You opened  1H after pass by South.

I gave the hand to the Great Nullall and he rolled home a great many tricks as he muttered hand 7 is easy when you are a good player like me. 

I spotted another hand in the morning game yesterday too

After 2NT 4NT 6NT you declare on a 10 of  Heart lead. 

Our man was in 6NT and drifted a couple off .. 

Can you do better. 

Finally I spotted this disaster in the Senior Camrose trials on Saturday night. Team Delaney was almost seeing off Team BJ when disaster struck.

15 imps gone the opposite way and the carryover to boot not that it mattered in the end. There will always be accidents in bridge. I got hit for 2200 in Brighton once ...I done it all on my own. Another time I profited to the tune of 3400 on one board partnering John "1700" Phelan.