I continued watching the Coen Trophy and I see more stuff and Phil Rice.

 

A nice little hand with some nice bidding 

Presume its the 14-16 1NT opening and then the Puppet Stayman 3C

and then the 3D saying no 5 major and got a 4 card one 

and then the lad shows 4 card hearts and then the lady bids 4H. 

A sense of forboding comes over the Galligan as Galligan is not declaring this. 

However maybe the defense will offer up some tempos or clues 

We look at 4333 in the East and wonder might he be better to downgrade and then emerge with highly invitational later ...but 4H it is 

The defense led off with spade 3 ...probably shows an honor but not underleading Ace ...

Might keep that in mind for later 

So we arrived here with 5 tricks to play and 4H the contract and 7 tricks in the bag 

Declarer proceeded to emerge with Club Queen ...but with the outstanding clubs being 

Ace Jack and Ten ... 

I am lost how that is going to succeed but possibly there are some distributions with 

singleton Ace of Clubs and you get a ruff and discard ...but thats still only 9 tricks 

Maybe there is a way or maybe there is not

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

However harking back to the opening lead if we can remember that ... 

We might figure on Spade Jack being up North and Spade Ace being down South

and be able to do something with that.

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

I understand I see bridge in a different way then most but that does not mean my way is 

the wrong way ...it might be just that I had better teachers than ye 

...........

Like Phil Rice from the El Camino Bridge Club who was on his 5th time 

reading Watsons Play of the Hand from cover to cover  when I got a lift to the bridge club in his 

car in 1987.  

First hand I spotted on Coen Trophy 2022 ...Am I missing something here

 This afternoon I looked in on the Coen Trophy and saw this ... Board 9 I think 

Now am I missing something here ... Does East not play Double here as negative or takeout 

Surely one has to compete a little ...Maybe teams is different but in pairs I am definitely not passing 

Both sides were vulnerable 

Let me go see what happened 

2 Diamonds made for minus 90 ...

Lets see what comes from the ponderous Delaney table 

Over at the other table also no double but the West and North both found further bids

3H will probably go down 1 but lets see

So after 4 scores posted we had the score 

However neither side found the Galligan double 

Coen Trophy 2022 Eamons picks and the 2Spade opening

 The Coen Trophy takes place today. Back in the day when the Coen Trophy was limited to above Area Master  Eamons team managed a 3rd session score of 148 out of 150 to ascend from the depths in the 3rd session. That was 2001 when Dario and Iva were here in Ireland. I think we just had all the luck. 

Today its a different story with the masterpoint chasers out in full flow. Every match you don't lose you get masterpoints. The hunt is on. However masterpoints don't make the player they just mark your attendance. 

Above is my top 14 out of the 45 teams entered on Fearghals website

I failed to pick the winners yesterday as I was unaware of their skill .

What does one open with this hand ... 

Do I hear 2S weak 2 opening ...or do I hear the Galligan opening 1S bid. 

The winner of the Spiro Cup chose 2S so hence I did not consider him as a runner.

Maybe it is a 2Spade opening and I need some re education on bridge. 

Spiro Cup Saturday Feb 26th Eamons picks ..top 17

 Today we have the Spiro Cup and I have picked out some good runners. 

Some are good players and some are good on the computer and some need to mesh well to get a good placing. 

Those are my top 17 picks in roughly that order. Numbers 1 and 2 are probably the best performing mixed pairs over the years. Joan Kenny and Enda Glynn might be the most practiced partnership. 

Zrinka and Cod McDaid might be the most practiced pair in the current days. Pat Quinn usually digs out a bit of class on some boards but being a pairs event this won't be of much help. The master bunny trapper BJ always has a chance in a Mixed Field. Master Declarer Corfield can bring in some goodies. Trish Stack has some good form in the recent past. Synnott and O'Dea ran a close 3rd in the recent Senior Trials. The Sheridans are always about in the Mixed things being a regular partnership also outside of Mixed. However any of the above could be in the run in as we come up the stretch. 

This is only for fun and folk should not take offence if they are not in the list. There were 76 entries at my time of choosing. Anyone entering after 10pm Friday was not on my list of runners. 

Lets see how my picks run. 

The final board of the Holmes Wilson featuring 4 declarers of note

 Link to Holmes Wilson 2022 vidoe

First out of the blocks was Bob Pattinson declaring against Moran Hanlon

4S is the contract and Bob had little to go on as he only got a double of a 2D bid mid auction

which did not really indicate the length in diamonds. So Bob won Diamond lead ,.,drew trumps 

and tried club finesse down 1

Next up was Adam Mesbur who played much the same although he has a look at the 

hearts for a trick before going for Club finesse. Adam had got a 3D bid during the auction 

which might have tipped him a little towards short clubs in West. 

Next into the hot seat we has Karel deRaeymaker who also received a 3D bid from West 

Karel reached this position after having a look at hearts. East played Heart Ace which

does not help declarer or give the contract. 

Karel cashed Heart King and now has to play Club Jack picking up Club Queen and Club

10 as he goes. So 4S making and the Holmes Wilson Trophy for Karel and his team. 

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

Top ex-Wales many time international and sometimes Ireland Senior international Peter Goodman at 

the other table also has a go but he ended up finessing the club and going down 

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

Many other great declarers also made 4S but I am not going to look at them all as most 

of the others did not have the Holmes Wilson Trophy on the line. 

I has a look and noticed Alan Roughneen making it. He got 

Heart Heart and a Heart back and daintily tossed a diamond loser. 

Then took the diamond return and drew trumps. 

Now before he got the chance to execute his magical play West followed with

Club TEN and Alan divined that it was not QT doubleton and made the contract. 

Maybe West was trying to look like QT doubleton or maybe he was showing hi-lo count 

I will never know. 

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

Now I better go and see how new CBAI CEO Dermots partner got on with the hand.

I have not looked yet so here I go 

Flat board 4S-1 at both tables .. 

And another 5 declarers also went down ... TOUGH HAND but Karel nailed it. 

So take credit anyone who matched Karel. 

I presume its a good idea to try the Hearts first but maybe with only 4-2 it cannot gain you. 

About 10 imps swing on this hand for those who went down and made at other table. 

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

Another hand I liked very much was hand 17 of Sunday 

Here we see the EW putting it over the CBAI CEO ... 

Despite Dermot O'Briens opening bid of 1S the EW kept going 

A 2D multi opening bid sunk Hanlon Moran who languished in 5C 

Well done to all these EWs who outran the legendary Thomas Hanlon at bidding 

Lots of 2S openings ..Several Dermot O'Brien specials ... Several passes 

Hanlon got a Multi fired at him by a Gavin  

However Hanlon as is his wont still won some imps as his 5C+1 defeated the 4D+2 at the other

table for 6 imps gain. 

Later on there should be a video on Eamon Galligan  youtube on the above

Holmes Wilson 2022

Link to Holmes Wilson video

I heard about a player make no tricks in 1NT the other night .. names redacted

 Meanwhile if there is not much new stuff here ...checkout the Galligan Youtube bridge channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/GalliganBridge

6 videos of the recent Broomfield Trophy are there .. all 48 hands are covered and played. 

The unsuspecting East player pulled out a 1NT opening 12-14 from its bidding box and was unaware of the horror that was about to unfold. It went PASS PASS to the North who despite having a reasonable 2S bid using whatever methods one plays eyed up the vulnerability and figured if I can make 2S then maybe I can collect some vulnerable undertricks against the 1NT contract. 

And so it began ... Ace King and another diamond from Python Penelope and Diamonds Dora swung a 4th highest spade from her long suit blissfully unaware of the consequences for declarer. 

the lazy 6 was played from declarers hand ... it cannot really be a play that has much hope ...surely

rise with King and hope it wins. 

So Python Penelope wins the Spade Jack ... cashes the 13th diamond and unwaringly returns a spade. 

5 spade tricks later and declarer is here 

10 tricks lost and a small heart comes back .... Declarer rises with the Heart King 

and Penelope wins and returns a heart to Diamond Doras QT. 

As the old English player Garve used to do ..."Raises the Bat " 

13 as they say in the Bingo .. Unlucky for some. 

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

Mind you the East West dusted themselves down and powered to victory 

albeit on a score of 54.5% 

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

Meanwhile the Legend of Blanchardstown was not on the same page as the First Lady 

This shows the importance and major advantage of even having a 2 pager bidding system

agreed between the partnership .. Two pages of system beats loads of expert card playing skills. 

Once you know your partner is on the same page its a big start to your bridge game.