The Junior Camrose lads play DON

Last weekend I went to the Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer competitions in City North which is probably in County Meath or Louth. Maybe it just hangs inside the Dublin borders.

Anyway I spotted some of the English and Welsh juniors playing an intense game of cards which turned out to be called Directors revenge. It was bridge except that each player was allowed to revoke once without penalty (I am not sure if dummy was allowed a revoke )
After that game they moved onto a similarly intensive game of hearts ..the 4 players were Toby and Jon from England and Jason and Johnny from Wales. I quickly noticed Jason regularly having a peek into Johnnys hand and thus he was able to keep ahead of the game. However it was all good clean fun.

I suggested that I would teach them a game after the HEARTS game ended. All happily agreed so as the HEARTS neared the end I layed out the rules for DON as they continued playing.

1. Same as HEARTS in principle as in 4 players get 13 cards and you must follow suit.
2. Point scoring cards are NINES and FIVES so you want to win tricks containing 9s and 5s
3. Also AKQJ of trumps count as 4321 points
4. Trump NINE and FIVE count DOUBLE so 18 and 10
5. Trumps are selected by rota and each player has a turn picking trumps as each new hand starts.
6. First to pick trumps is the chap holding the DIAMOND 2 ...and after that it rotates.clockwise.
7. 13 tricks are played but we only count the 80 points listed above.

Last night I told Declan the Donplayer about these young English lads who picked up and understood
DON in about 2 minutes. Declan the Donplayer said .."Eamon I have been playing DON over 40 years and I still don't fully get it and you are telling me that 4 random young lads got the game in minutes ... NOT POSSIBLE" " If you said they played 20 hands of DON and got a little then maybe

Whats more is Jason He ...a young Welsh Junior Camrose player came over to the table I was at during the closing dinner and said ..."Eamon that was a great game you taught us last night ..We will
definitely be giving that a run again soon ...

My main point here is that young people in Ireland don't tend to play card games like WHIST or HEARTS or DON or  any other follow suit games anymore. Thus its hard for people as adults to learn bridge. A man was running bridge lessons in my local community centre and Declan the Donplayer filled in one night when one player was missing. Afterwards he came upstairs and he said "Eamon those people don't even understand the concept of a trick. They have to learn cards and then learn bridge. "

I recall learning WHIST as a youngster and then GERMAN WHIST for 2 players when we did not have 4. Then when this chap I knew called Miles Podmore showed up in NIHE(now UL) and started teaching us bridge in the stables (NIHE students coffee place) I was able to grasp the game quickly and was hooked from then on. My first book was ALL ABOUT ACOL by Rhoda Lederer I think.
The tattered remains might still survive in my attic but I am not sure.

All results of Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer trophies can be found at

http://fob.ie

One guy playing at the weekend went by the name Captain 1400 ...which reminds me of our own
Monsoiur Septieme Cent otherwise known as John Phelan after he collected a 1700 point penalty from a well known Dublin bridge player.

Thanks
Eamon Galligan

Junior Camrose and Sharkbridge

This weekend in City North near Gormanstown in County Meath we host the Junior Camrose and Peggy Bayer Home Internationals Junior bridge.

Teams from NIBU CBAI Scotland Wales and  England will participate.

More information can be found on the Bridge Great Britian website

http://www.bridgegreatbritain.org/

Also Fearghal O'Boyle will have running scores once he wins his regular argument with the IT controls in City North.

www.fob.ie

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Meanwhile a new bridge program/software has appeared. I don't know much about it but I played my
first daily tournament early this morning and did ok ... Tourney is scored in matchpoints but also shows your imps score too.

The program name is SHARKBRIDGE ... Canadian I think ..

I understand it has versions for MAC TABLET PHONE and PC.

I was using the PC version ...A 16 board daily tournament ...

However I think there might be some add ons to extract some hard cash from your purses to
support the project. ... Looks like a good program ...
As usual one South human and 3 robots ..

Google Sharkbridge ..

http://download.emabridge.com/SharkBridgeWindows/

There is a Windows version above ...

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However I am still happy to recommend http://bridge-now.com

Also www.bridgebase.com  has all one could wish for including human bridge players.

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I have played with some novice and intermediate players recently ... Most seem to play by rules or rota or what some elder lemon told them ... They don't seem to think at all. Its like in a phone answering service company where I understand they have scripts for telling the caller how to sort out the problem....

Paddy said ... THIRD HAND HIGH
Paddy said ... DONT PREMPT UNLESS YOU HAVE 7 cards
PAT said ... IT CAN BE LIGHT OPENING BID in 3rd or 4th seat ..

Lots of new players are gathering up a set of rules by which one plays bridge ..

The old irish cardplayer is gone ...the one that played whist and don for 30 years before finding the
MOTHERLODE ..

Wexford Congress Camrose2 etc

Last weekend Wexford held its annual bridge congress at Whites Hotel. The Congress Committee down there operate a tight show and in 3-4 years directing down there I have not seen anything break from a committee point of view.
Even when the Sinn Fein Ard Dheis showed up on the same weekend and managed to take the large function room (presumably above committee done a deal) nothing changed. By all accounts a small well functioning committee. I cannot name them as I don't know all their names exactly.

This year they added a new item or else their region did.

http://bridgewebs.com/cbaisoutheasternregion

All Wexford Congress results are posted on this site.

Two Malahide members won the 2nd session of the Intermediate Pairs ..
74 pairs took part which is a large event and anyone who got a prize out of this worked hard for it.

We had 31 pairs in the Congress Pairs won by Katherine Lennon and Derek Crosbie despite a major Dublin player insisting they should be 2nd seeds in my 3 grouped seeding approach before the start.
I personally as director ranked the pairs as 1 2 or 3 in strength and spread them across the 3 fields equally. Generally any pair containing a trials player or international was deemed a 1.

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Meanwhile up North in NIBU land there seems to be some discussion going on regarding the selection of NIBU Camrose Team for the 2nd weekend.
Currently Bridge Great Britian lists a team containing 4th 5th and 7th places on the trials but
the grapevine indicates that the original team will take their seats for battle.

NIBU perennially place 5th or 6th and recently some years they might manage 5th and 6th if they
are final weekend hosts. The problem is once the trials are over and probably before they don't do any training. Anderson Greenwood play tough matches on BBO almost daily so they are putting in the bridge gym work as such.

Top Irish pair Mesbur and Fitzgibbon are still doing bidding practice every week maybe 2-3 hours despite being a 40 year bridge partnership. The Irish Open team can be seen doing BBO practice matches with some Polish opponents and world class coach Krystoff Martens is involved in this exercise too.

I understand Michael Byrne from Manchester has visited or will visit NIBU to provide some training.
Michael has also turned up in Dublin to make up the 8 for a training weekend with the Irish Open Team some years back.

I don't know all the details of the NIBU team discussion but it is possible the selection committee dropped the first weekend team and later a more muscular committee over wrote that decision.

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Meanwhile last night a lady approached me in Malahide asking what was the meaning of something about ethics in the Sunday Independent last Sunday in Mr Comyn's column. I have not seen the article so I don't know what it was about. I might find out if I can find a house that bought the Indo last Sunday. One used to be able to read the Sunday Indo in Maurice Quinns on a Tuesday.

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John Cunningham a former Mullingar area bridge man passed away last weekend. John was already losing his sight by the time I got to be an opponent and that's over 20 years ago. I think he had also cut down his bridge playing by then too. However I recall having a few discussions as bridge technology developed in the early 2000s connected with Mullingar Bridge Centre....probably about  dealing machine or hand records or some such item. It was long before bridgemates surfaced.
John was a top player but I only saw the end of his playing career. Rest in peace.

Camrose Weekend 1 2017 and Schools Bridge

Camrose Weekend 1 took place from January 6th to 8th in Coventry. Scotland fielded 2 teams as they are the hosts of the Final Weekend.

Ireland won their first 2 matches against Wales and Northern Ireland gathering in almost
39 VPS out of 40. Then SBU punched them for 5.5. The Irish team responded with a 20-0
hammering of the struggling Scotland team.

Meanwhile England had built up a decent total of about 65.6 VPS to lead Ireland by about a VP going into the final matchup.

One hand apparently provided the highlight of the Ireland England match when Tony Forrester apparently flicked the Club King on the table under John Carrolls Ace. However there has been
some word that the Club King was placed facedown on the table for many seconds before being turned over for Carroll to see. However this is 2nd hand information so unverified.

http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/the-forrester-chops-down-another-irish-tree/

Results and standings can be found on EBU website

http://www.ebu.co.uk/results/554

Meanwhile there are whiffs of brownish smoke emanating from the Vatican that the first weekend team from the NIBU have been retired as Camrose players for the foreseeable future.
Maybe Eamon can offer them some space in the bidding gym. A few memberships are still available.

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Last weekend Eamon Galligan assisted by Thomas "Teaboy" MacCormac ran the Irish Schools
Pairs championship in http://malahideregionalbridgeclub.com/who for the last 5 years have made their facilities available to the Schools Bridge group at a nominal fee. I don't know if the nominal fee is ever collected. However these young players really enjoy their day.
Players come from Laurel Hill Dundalk Belfast Dublin and Kilkenny.

Results can be found on Thomas MacCormac bridge site

Camrose 2017

This evening at around 1900 the annual Camrose Bridge Party starts. I think it should be on Bridgebase Online for all to see.

After a little research I discovered it takes place in Coventry so all should be well for our viewing pleasure. EBU usually put on a good show but in some countries the vugraph operators can be brand new and take some time to get up to speed. However EBU are almost as good as Paul Porteus.

The usual teams will play with Scotland having two teams in action. That probably means all the players in Scotland that can follow suit. Les Steele does not follow suit these days and Victor is probably retired to the Over 50s Telscher bash and some other good Scots players emigrated to USA and England. No sign of Derek Saunders this year. I guess Biff does not play bridge anymore and maybe Liz has retired. I think SBU team will outrun Scotland. Have not seen Jim Hay togging out for a while so maybe match fitness could be a problem.

I have not noticed much movement of the Northern Ireland team since they completed the trials but with Peter Pigot teaching regularly up there in one of the clubs maybe they took the opportunity to get some coaching. The NIBU team is backboned by Ciara Burns and John Murchan along with Grier McKenzie and Hastings Campbell.  NIBU also include honorary players Greenwood and Anderson.
Anderson is quite a good player having gathered about 110 caps for Northern Ireland. He also made a recent appearance in the Seniors Bermuda Bowl in India reaching the quarter final.

The CBAI team of Carroll Garvey Moran Boland Hanlon and McGann will have a shot and I saw them in the bridge gym recently. However Boland has a pulled hamstring in his left arm so could have trouble front loading. Thomas Hanlon has developed into a fine player these days so if he is on form there could be a CBAI win.

Wales have put out an intelligent team this year but no sign of the monster pair of Tedd and Salisbury. He is a nice man that Salisbury chap. I saw that pair do a 3.14 imp set and then some captain sat them out ... I don't understand captains that sitout pairs who are on a hot run.

1/2 England Ireland
3 SBU
4 Wales
5 Scotland
and distant 6th will be Northern Ireland ...

However maybe those NIBU folk will prove me wrong ..

One hundredth of a VP can be costly in ACBL land

Last weekend in one of the Major competitions of the American Contract Bridge World Thomas Hanlon and his team missed out on qualifying for the FINAL 10 teams.
They missed out by 0.01 of a victory point or board a match point.

Plenty of decent players in that field if one does not like me saying so but our boy missed out by 1/100th of a BAM point or Victory point.

Here we have Hanlon discussing the 100th of a point he left behind with Thomas Bessis.

Both of the above attended the 90th anniversary of the Regent Bridge Club Congress a couple of years ago.

As mentioned last week Hanlon was 2nd in Life Masters Pairs ..a 4 session event as far as I remember.

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The Masters Pairs takes place this weekend in Templogue and Hanlon Carroll usually make an appearance at this event. Some other good players like Thomas Gilligan Eileen McCann Nicky Fitzgibbon and Trish Stack will also take part.

In fact all participants must be good players as only Master Players are allowed enter.

By Sunday evening we will know who is the best Master Pairs for 2016.

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For the lesser players there is always

www.bridge-now.com

  a fine site if one wants to play bridge without a partner.

bridgez.net:3002/

Another site which allows a single player to play 16 hands per day

www.bridgebase.com

The grand daddy of all the bridge playing sites

Thomas Hanlon places 2nd in Life Master Pairs

Well known Rochfortbridge Donplayer Thomas Hanlon placed 2nd in the Bobby Nail Life Master Pairs yesterday in Orlando Florida. Along with regular US National partner Leslie Amoils ...Hanlon finished in 2nd place to well known bridge player  Marion Michelson originally from Holland. Zia Mahmood was the only man ahead of Hanlon.

Hanlon Amoils 2nd in Life Master Pairs

Meanwhile down in Kilkenny Congress well known Wexford players Sexton and Doyle emerged from their slumber to be leading Irish players at Kilkenny international bridge festival.

No sign of the incredible BJ O'Brien at this event. Its not like BJ to miss a chance to get some cash in
Colleens coffee jar. BJs partnership had some slam troubles at the recent Dundalk Congress.

4 softer players dominated the teams in Kilkenny putting all men and juniors and Shillelagh Club
teams to the sword. Jill Joan Petra and Teresa did that.

A large man wielding a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 has been spotted in the greater Dublin area.

A Microsoft Surface Pro 4 is a decent piece of kit apparently.

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For a deeper understanding of Thomas Hanlons 2nd place mentioned above

http://live.acbl.org/event/NABC163/NAIL/4/results

Plenty of well known bridge players even near the end of the field ..

Thanks
Eamon Galligan

Bridge Interprovincials 2016

This post only refers to the Open Interprovincials as I know very little about the intermediates.

I became aware on Friday that the interprovincials of bridge were taking place this weekend. My first thought was would Ulster be competing. On my first look at running scores whatever way I had my screen it showed Connacht Leinster and Munster but then it slowly dawned on me that totals did not add up and I scrolled downwards and found a struggling Ulster Team.

Connacht as a rule go strong in this event and this year is no exception and at a quick glance there are 10 full internationals on their squad of 12. Some years ago in Connacht the tail wagged the dog and the dog never showed up for some interpro qualifiers. I cannot find many historical results on the CBAI website so I cannot check how the tail end of Connacht performed.

Leinster generally go medium in this event fielding a Mens Team and Ladies Team and the best Kelbourne. Its generally enough to push Connacht for the title but some years the Mens Team is extra strong and Leinster win. Leinster this year have a Mens Teams backboned by monster Irish pair Mesbur and Fitzgibbon. The ladies team is a collection of experienced females. The Kelbourne Team
is the long time  Delaney O'Lubaigh partnership teamed with the two Polish Rudzinski Gorchyca.
These Poles are touted as being top players but I remain to be convinced that either of them is better than James Heneghan.

Munster run a qualifier as far as I know and it usually lands a capable Munster team who can push for the title on a good year. This year might be a good year. Currently they are playing round 8 of 9 and this round is the VP collection round against Ulster. A large total out of the available 60 should set Phelan and his Munster compatriots up for the overall victory.

I think Ulster should be replaced by a Bankers-Regent selection or maybe some international selection made up of Lady Milne Camrose and Juniors. Ulster seem to be struggling to field their
better known players for both Interpros and Sonya Britian at the moment. This years event is just an Ulster bashing event. At this moment in the 8th round Ulster have gathered in 131 VPs out of a possible 480. In the Sonya Brittan their two top end teams struggled also.

Running scores at http://fob.ie

When I looked last night Ulster intermediates  in contrast to their Open team were leading the
Intermediate event.

Some hands from Lady Milne Trials,Bridgez & Declan the Donplayer goes to Malahide Regional

Good morning all

I spotted this hand that was played in the Lady Milne trials ... Clearly some of the tables had the wrong board as it is hardly correct that some allowed a declaration of 2S while cold for 9-12 tricks themselves in a minor suit.

Now I have no idea how one is allowed to play 4S on this hand let alone 2S+1 and 2S+2.
I think one of the 2S defending pairs actually made the team. Further down the scoresheet
one spots the a pair winning 8 imps for missing a cold slam. Bizarre or as another man might say Mousey or my granny. However I can only presume that boards  1 and 2 were swopped in the dealing or something. Like even the North South players on their own would want to lash into 4S.

Then working backwards I spotted a 15 imper and wandered in for a look.
Someone landed in 6C and it comes home and the poor unfortunate opposition lose
15 imps because some other pairs in the room are a little gentle.
One pair gains 8 imps the other way because their esteemed opponents choose the 7-1 spade fit at the 5 level over the 5-5club fit.
Another pair defends 4H despite holding 12 black cards and an outside Ace in one hand
A couple defend 5H and fail to either double or collect the maximum tricks ... 1 of each
and finally one pair gathers in 9 imps for missing a slam but at least they gathered in +650 so we
won't grill them too much.

Clearly I have just talked myself out of any NPC positions at Lady Milne for several years but
I am sure the other 154 boards were things of beauty.
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Meanwhile I continue to notice and enjoy the much improved Bridgez website..
I have not decided to release my hard earned 15 euro which is a voluntary donation to the Council of this website to go towards the costs of keeping it up and running. Even if all the regulars tossed in 15 euro the person running this now fine place to play bridge might only get 2 dinners a day out of Lidl.
That's not saying the food in Lidl is bad ... I go there twice a week ... but he won't be getting rich.
So if you are a regular user and enjoy the site by all means give him enough for a dinner.
I see many of the people I introduced to this site many years ago are still using it for their daily bridge warmup. Even the dour Dublin Northsider Elvis ... The King is alive and living in Dublin North.
I see rashers and sausages are still playing most days ...they even partner up sometimes in live competition. So Allez Bridgez

http://bridgez.net:3002/ConnectingPlayer.html

The link above to the free Bridgez website

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Last Friday Declan the Donplayer finally made his long awaited appearance in a live Bridge Club.
Now I have played lots of bridge in my time in many places but I have never seen a man enjoy a game of bridge so much. He was getting beaten up and down the room ...but every 3rd board he managed a strike against the head with his brand of Crazy Declan bridge ...
If a bad score arrived and there were many ...it was .. "Eamon you did not teach me the No Trumps thing yet" This lad produced a 2D cuebid holding a 7 card Heart Suit .. KJT9xxx ..."Eamon you told me if I bid their suit it means I have a good hand " ...

So that was Declan the Donplayer debuting in Malahide Regional Bridge Club
http://malahideregionalbridgeclub.com/

Open Games in this Club ... Monday morning 10 am Friday evening 730pm
and Sunday afternoon 3pm.

Otherwise you need to partner a member ..or get a special permission.

I had a go on Bridgez today

Early this morning I played 8 hands on Bridgez and then after sleeping I woke up and played the final

8 hands.

Add caption

I tried a few hands using Google Chrome and now I can see how many tricks are won as the play goes on. Big improvement on the old Bridgez and the interface is much smoother.

Also today my play was a little smoother on the early boards but I still blew a few boards in the late

stages to drop down to 73% or so ..

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Its worth the 30 minutes or so in the morning if one has the time ...

I notice Elvis from out the North Side of Dublin is still battling away on Bridgez ... must be his morning coffee effort .... but he is a 56% merchant ..

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To play the 16 daily Bridgez hands click here

However for other people the Bridge-Now site might be more suitable

Same WBridge5 robots but you can play many more hands and also get a weekly rating

To play on Bridge Now site click here

Thanks

Eamon Galligan

Wbridge5 and Bridgez website

This morning while searching thru my email folders I found an email from Bridgez.net saying I had not played on the site for a long time. This is a site that allows one play 0-16 hands per day and I think at least hand 1 is a technical effort. I had used and advertised the site in the past. However it often crashed back then and sometimes one was frustrated with the non responding message.
People even used to ring me up and say ..Eamon the Wbridge5 is broken and I cannot play my 16 hands. Well that was then.

So the email said new website and new features and new lots of things ... So off I went ..
I was quite surprised to see many of the same usernames playing away and all looking good.
However the old slow site was now lightning fast and sometimes played quicker than my mouse clicked and I nearly lost tricks by accident ..

The only thing was I could not see how many tricks I had in the bag at any point ... Now maybe that's because of Microsoft Edge as I saw some mention on the start up screen about Edge but failed to read it.

I messed up a few deals and did not extract the maximum so only got about 61% average for the 16 boards today .. Still it was 1.5% more than my great bridge enemy Elvis who only got about 59% and he is an expert but I am only a tournament director.

http://bridgez.net:3002/

Hmmm now I see something about 15 euros a year which is only a small amount but I won't be paying it for the moment as I have not been on this site for about 2 years but maybe I might in the future. However the site has certainly improved enormously but has a long way to go to compete with the likes of BBO or even okbridge if same still exists.

http://www.wbridge5.com/

You can also get the free bridge program WBridge5 at the above website ..

Thanks
Eamon Galligan

Lady Milne Pairs Trials 2016

Betty Cotter, Jean Kelly.................................................1

Marian Croke, Catherine Lonergan..........................2

Carol-Anne Cummins, Sandra Newell.......................3

Jeannie Fitzgerald, Emer Joyce  .................................4

Dolores Gilliland, Brid Kemple...................................5

Cathy Bearpark, LizAnne O’Reilly.............................6

Joan Kenny, Teresa Rigney.........................................7

Brid Kirby, Maureen Pattinson  ...............................8

Jill Kulchycky, Petra O’Neill.......................................9

Antoinette McGee, Aoife McHale...........................10

Louise Mitchell, Lucy Phelan....................................11

Eileen O’Donovan, Maria Whelan...........................12

Liz Taaffe, Kathleen Vaughan...................................13

This year we have 13 pairs hitting the floor for the Lady Milne Pairs. I doubt if there is any vugraph
as the ladies would be wary about being spotted on vugraph. Still though we ran the Camrose Open Trials on vugraph so one never knows. However its Bank Holiday weekend and only a masochist would want to watch bridge all weekend or a selector or maybe an international committee.

Hopefully we will have the live show from Ferghal O'Boyle Enterprises ..

So who will win on the weekend

I think Pair 27 and Pair 29 and Pair 32 will make the team .. but only I know my code I hope.

Mixed Weekend 2016

This weekend sees the two National Mixed events take place in Templogue County Dublin Ireland.
One notes the presence of one Grainne Barton in the field partnered by that capable bridge player Thomas Hanlon. The pair also team up with Fiona Brown and Hugh McGann in the Mixed Teams. However it is hard to win a pairs event of 104 pairs when you only play about 26 of the pairs in direct opposition. Hopefully some good seeding is done before the event.
I also note the looming presence of Barbara Seligman and Nick Fitzgibbon.
Barbara showed up earlier this year at the Jim Cahill Irish invitational pairs for the 3 sessions
and did the vugraph commentary with Grainne Barton. Don't be surprised if Barbara and Nick are on the podium. The Kenny Glynn partnership have also played many boards on BBO in the past so will be well practiced. Any pairs competing mentioned on any of the below teams would also expect to be competitive.

I see Sean and Brid Galligan are listed to play in the Mixed Pairs. Sean attempted to teach me bridge
when I was 15 but I failed to grasp it. So I had to wait until college in Limerick when Miles Podmore finished the job.

In the Teams the above mentioned quartet should prevail but there are some capable teams in the field which catch the eye. Casting an eye over the field in the order on the CBAI website.
I will list the teams which catch my eye

7. Newell
8. O'Hara
9. Hand
18, O'Connor
23. Taaffe
25.Trench
30.Pattinson
31.Dillon
33. Lillis
38. Barton
47.Lennon
48. Rigney
53. Phelan

Teams 10 and 24 could also feature as they have plenty of experience

The teams listed above are generally made up of very regular partnerships or established international players. Its unlikely that an unlisted team could get past all of the above teams to win in a Swiss event. However we will see.

However one little known record will hardly be broken. Back in 2001 Eamon played on a Mixed Team in the Coen Trophy in Mullingar. At the time this was confined  to above intermediate level.
19 teams entered and after session 1 of 30 boards Team Galligan was placed 19th. In the 2nd session we got some wins and progressed to 13th place overnight.
On Sunday morning we started with a 25 and a 23 (25 max score at this time) .. Two more 25s followed and we were up around 3rd place. We finished with another pair of 25s for a session total
of 148 VPs out of 150 VPs. That was Dario Filjar Iva Lancar and Diane Greenwood. We arrived in 1st place at the end.

Moran team prevails in Camrose Trials eventually

Last weekend in Limerick 4 teams competed in the Camrose Final trials.
Myself and Nathan Doyle attended in order to operate the vugraph so the event could be witnessed by many people live around Ireland and anywhere else in the world who wished. We hoped to spread the BBO around all the teams but on our first effort of non-Moran BBO we found Johnny Phelan playing poker against Ciaran Coyne and Donal MacAonghusa so we reverted back to Moran versus the field.
In hindsight this allowed us witness what looks like at first glance a dominant performance by Hanlon McGann. However on closer inspection of just one board so far one finds Hanlon McGann gathering in 39 cross imps when luckier play and bidding at 3 other tables would see them concede 50 cross imps. One guy in front of me just did not draw 2 rounds of trumps before pitching his loser and was no longer able to make when diamonds broke 6-2 and an opponent could ruff. Another pair bid 6NT for some reason with a 9 card spade holding and the final declarer also went down in the makeable 6S contract.
I know of at least one other board where Hanlon McGann rolled home a 7S contract that the declarer at the other table declared in 7NT for a long time before realising the contract was spades. Eventually he went down and that was 28 more cross imps in the bag instead of a more modest 10 imps for 7S making. One pair declared 6NT making. Following this 7S disaster Hanlon McGanns opps chose to declare a 9 card heart fit in 3NT for some reason and there was only 8 tricks available. Another 29 cross imps for sitting there smiling. And that's only 3 boards I have examined.
Still 10 sets of 12 boards producing plus imps on every set is a dominant position.
I show below the results
With 30 boards to go the Moran team was on the ropes as O'Gorman had eased into a 20 imp lead in the direct match and moved to the top of the table and would just require a small win against MacCormac in the final match. However Moran rallied and 3 game swings materialized and Moran took the match by 9 imps and more importantly a lead of about 6 VPs into the final match. This all meant that 14 VPS would guarantee Team Moran success. However they beat Phelan by 16-4 and the deflated O'Gorman team could only managed a losing draw against MacCormac. So the favourites took the win but not without a good shaking from O'Gorman.

CBAI Camrose Trials Final 2016

This weekend October 14th to 16th we head down to Limerick to broadcast the Camrose Trials Final on BBO. I was down in Limerick last weekend helping out with the Intermediate Pairs.

Now I am going back to Limerick to do vugraph operating .. Its all go ..

4 Teams will take part

1. Mark Moran, Rory Boland, Tom Hanlon, Hugh McGann, John Carroll, Tommy Garvey
2. Derek O’Gorman, Terry Walsh, Michael MacDonagh, James Heneghan, Ciaran Coyne, Donal MacAonghusa
3. Thomas MacCormac, Ronan McMaugh, Marcin Rudzinski, Wojiech Gorcycza, Peter Goodman, B.J. O’Brien
4. Peter Clifford, Anna Onishuk, Louise Mitchell, Lucy Phelan, John Phelan, Diarmuid Reddan

The numbers used above are from the Fearghal O'Boyle website and were drawn somehow by him or Mairead or the Lotto.

An hour ago Donal Garvey reminded me that this time last year Donal was knocking his son out of the 2015 Camrose Trials. Donal was part of the team which won the Congress Teams in Limerick last weekend with Pat John and Tom.

And there was me thinking BJ got knocked out of the trials last weekend but somehow he has emerged on a different team.

Team 3 led Team 1 by about 63 imps at one stage of last years IBU trials before going under to an 80 imp rush of imps from Team 1 in the last 13 boards ..

Team 2 are the current Camrose Trials holders

Team 4 include two local favourites Diarmuid Reddan and Louise Mitchel although they are not partnering each other.

Team 1 have the experience and knowledge but every player has to play 50% of the hands if they are to be selected for the Camrose Trophy ..

I am supporting Team 1 ... but Teams 2 3 4 will be looking for a scalp ...

I am surprised it is double round robin as a format but makes no difference to me

1600 hours I think the vugraph starts from Limerick tomorrow Friday Oct 14th ... one more sleep to go..

Zia Mahmood wins Gold Cup for Hanlon.

Zia Mahmood well known bridge superstar partnered Thomas Hanlon last weekend to win the Gold Cup which is Britain's premier annual bridge event. Also on the GILLIS team were Simon Gillis and 3 Norwegians Broyland Linquist and Erichsen. I don't think I would pass the Norwegian surname spelling test. I think Hanlon was happy to succeed at this event as its another notch on his bucket.

I asked him during the week if it was a good event and he replied "What do you think " ??

I have a book by Hugh Kelsey called "The Needle Match " and the hands are from a load of Gold Cup matches ... I am still trying to make some of them 30 years on ..

From the English Bridge Union website

The Gold Cup has been won by the team of Simon Gillis, Zia Mahmood (both London), Espen Erichsen (Kent), Boye Brogeland, Espen Lindqvist & Tom Hanlon.
The semi-finals and finals of the competition, which is organised by Bridge Great Britain, took place at the Young Chelsea Bridge Club on 8th & 9th October. In the semi-finals the Gillis team beat the De Botton team, and the Brock team defeated the Allfrey team.
The Gillis team went on to win the final against the Brock team - Sally Brock, Barry Myers (both Berks & Bucks) Neil Rosen & Martin Jones (both Middlesex) (plus Robert Sheehan (London) who did not play in the final stages) (see picture here) - by 95 IMPs.
This was a second victory in the competition for Simon and Zia - they won together in 2010 - and a first success for the rest of the team.
The results are available via the BGB website.

The event was shown on vugraph so the hands can be found on BBO archives and downloaded for perusal.

Camrose Trials Weekend 1 CBAI Final Round

After 8 rounds (of  9)  of the CBAI Camrose Trials Weekend 1 we have 2 teams qualified Thomas MacCormac and Derek O'Gorman. The final place for Weekend 2 goes to Clifford or Elvin. Elvin sits out and earns 12 VPS and now has to hope the floundering COYNE can dispose of CLIFFORD.
COYNE was in contention this morning with a decent win over the youthful BARR team but suffered a painful loss to the McAulliffe team powered by more juniors SYNNOTT GORMALLY and BOLAND along with their captain the ageless Michael McAuliffe.
McAuliffe was playing bridge with Mamie MacCormac when I was a boy..

So BJ O'Brien tramps the sidelines as he hopes for some COYNE magic to enable his team to head for Limerick for next stage of trials.

http://www.fob.ie/events/results-20160930_055852PM.php

Live running scores are at above link

All information is at top of
www.fob.ie

Thanks
Eamon Galligan

NIBU CBAI Camrose Trials.

The NIBU Camrose Trials take place this weekend in Kelvin and Malone. The strange thing is that the winners might not be on the Team according to the conditions of contest.

Quoting the NIBU website

"The Selection Committee will meet immediately after the final results are available but there will be no team announcement until the following day. The selectors reserve the right to select the strongest possible team – in their opinion - regardless of final placings. "

This is like if Mayo defeat Dublin on Saturday in the GAA Final the GAA will give the trophy to Dublin as they are deemed the best team by the media.

..............
Meanwhile Down South we are getting near Camrose Trials for CBAI. I don't know the full details of who is playing but I believe one junior team at least will be allowed enter. Entry for Camrose Trials are regulated by "B" points. This means juniors who are locked into Degrees and Masters and so on won't be allowed enter until they get older and have time to build an attendance record at "B" point earning events.

.........
I don't play much bridge these days but I can play in Camrose Trials due to my "B" point earnings in the past but the current crop of very keen junior bridge players might not be able to play due to not having enough attendance record.

..........

Teams Qualifiers World Bridge Games conclude

The qualifiers for the round of 16 of the various teams events in the World Bridge games has concluded. The great card playing nation of Ireland has no teams left standing.

The Open Team has plenty of missed chances and several unforced errors all of which added up
to a hopeful performance which in the end missed out by 6.3 VPs. Those VPs were available with a
little more bridge knowledge.

So with Ireland gone I will support USA .. whose Justin Lall showed up to win at The Regent Bridge Clubs 90th anniversary a few years ago .. and England Ladies as they have Fiona Brown from Fermoy playing.

Yesterday morning I was 2 strange actions on the first 2 boards against Hungary by our esteemed front pairing....Now maybe its a weakness in their bidding system ..

They open 1C which is 10-13 or 17 plus in normal peoples high card points.
The opponent overcalls 3H and its passed back to the 1C chap whe o owns the 17+ hand.
Somehow they contrive to launch into 3NT with a combined 23 count ...
Now out in Malahide the folk play penalty against 3 level ...so it goes double and everyone passes.
Not for our two heroes who declare 3NT and go down 2 ... should be plus at both tables for 5 imps
but instead is flat board ... if they get it doubled its 300 + 100 = 9 imps

Then on the 2nd board we had our 2 heroes attempting 4H with a combined 18 count .. The Hungarian was not happy so he doubled and gathered in 800 and 14 imps
Now this won't total up to the 6.3 VPs required but it puts a large hole in it ..
Maybe the 3NT-4 two times in the other room would get us over the line
Of course there were another 20-30 hands over the week to gain VPS.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Meanwhile out in Malahide last night I saw a declarer holding Kx opposite Jxx and on receiving a heart switch declarer rose with KING and thus losr the whole HEART SUIT.
playing low establishes a HEART trick by force ..

Other players in Malahide failed to push the lads up a level ... example 1D 1H 2C all pass..
I am pretty sure I am going to bid 2S without even seeing my hand unless I have lots of clubs.

Another pair sailed into 4S vulnerable with my partner making a DIAMOND noise in the auction and holding 5 diamonds and being non vulnerable I tried the effect of 5D... I was quite surprised to find it
went PASS PASS PASS ... This is daylight robbery

Then we had

This one went Pass 1C X 1H ...I ventured 1NT
Then 2C Pass Pass back to me

I tried 2D with the 3 card suit ... with better agreements I could double but did not want the
Big Man to be huffing and puffing and blowing..
Anyway 2D got home ... Of Course I was only hoping to push the opponents up a level
but they left me alone in 2D ..
.............................................
Finally I must mention Declan the Donplayer ...who scored 56.62% on
http://bridge-now.com

Despite never having played a physical game of bridge .. but he keeps threatening to visit
Malahide. ....says I work for myself ..I am allowed play bridge on a Monday morning.

World Bridge Championships

The World Bridge Championships are taking place at the moment in Wroclaw. It is pronounced somewhat different but such is the Polish language. Now most of us will never play in the World Bridge championships but thanks to Bridgebase Online run by Fred Gitelman we can all watch if we choose.. Now lets be clear ... the average player in the World Bridge Championships would destroy the best player in 99% of our local Ireland Clubs .. The best players in the cities would be ok as in Mesbut Fitzgibbon ... but the local stars like Toomy or Johnny or Rory or Mickey or Jimmy would have no hope.

www.bridgebase.com

We can watch at the above website for free ..

There is also live video ...now watching bridge is like watching paint dry or a kettle boil ..
so only for the diehards .. and yes they do pick their nose ....just the odd time ..

The other day I saw two Irish lads bidding ...

1S P 2C P
2S  P P P

Amazingly the 1S 2S chappy owned only 4S ... Not even in my local club ..
However no doubt there is an explanation ...as both these players are very well educated and successful in their chosen fields outside of bridge. They are also both damn good bridge players..
So what are we missing,

Maybe the 2C bid is 3+ spades invitational or GAME FORCE ... all might be revealed ..

........................
The next day we noted a fine pair of players declaring 5C with a 5-1 fit I think ...

and to cap it all we found 2 World Champions declaring in 7D with 2 trumps each ...

...............
However don't even think of getting brave ... on the other 95% of the boards they are bidding slams that make and doing squeezes and other stuff never heard of in Dublin Bridge Cluibs ..

.............
Now today the Irish ladies went into battle against the USA ladies ...
4 bridge legends versus 4 of Irelands best female bridge players and I think 3 of the Irish have playerd full Camrose Trophy .. and own multiple Irish Ladies championships ..

After 3 boards the score is 34-0 USA .. with a final score of 94-30 to USA ...
so average it out to 9-3 in goals in a soccer match or whatever ...

Manchester City versus Dundalk (arguably England /Irelands top soccer teams)
If they play 12 matches ...its will be without doubt 12-0 to Manchester City ..
So to gather in 30 imps versus the US professionals is a good earner ...

I don't really have any point to make here except that it is tough at the World Championships
so lets knock those who are trying ..

Big Boy Murchan is out there too ... and its not easy for him either ...no matter what he says ..
Ciara Burns well known player from Northern Ireland is also fighting hard .. but the opposition is
serious ..Michael McGloughlin one of the greatest players in Dublin is battling hard on the same team. The remainder of the Moxed Team is Harold Curran Ann Fitzpatrick and Heidi Lillis..
One expects to see them make the last 16 at the end of the round robin and bow out after getting chosen by a top team ......but if they want to prove me wrong ...at least make the final 16 first ..

I am glad Team Open are not on vugraph tomorrow as I did 20 situps yesterday every time Boland Moran made a contract ... and they made quite a few against somebody ...

I should be ready for more situps by Friday ...

Expecting a poor return on http://bridge-now.com
this week ... should still be around 62% ....but losing ELO points

Its that bad that Declan the Donplayer is touting 57.5% and indicating if I have a bad week
I will be looking up at the Donplayer ..

Thnaks
Eamon Galligan

http://www.worldbridge.org/repository/tourn/wroclaw.16/Microsite/Results.htm