Gonzaga versus Nickell or David versus Goliath

This afternoon in Kansas City the all conquering Irish junior bridge squad finally take on something they won't be able to chew. Winning the Peggy Bayer in 2016 was an enormous achievement and placing 2nd (missing their top player)  to a decent English squad in the Junior Camrose was good.

However John Donnolly versus Eric Rodwell and Michael Connolly versus Jeff Meckstroth.
or Arran Bolger versus Steve Weinstein or Stephen Barr versus Bobby Levin. Then in the 2nd quarter it could be Dan Varley and Nathan Doyle tacking Katz and Nickell.

In the 2nd round Irish Juniors will play the winners of RUBIN and BAKER. two teams filled with World Class players and in the last 16 it will probably be a STREET team backboned by French and Canadian internationals.

Don't get me wrong these young lads can play and they are certainly by far the youngest Irish lads to make it as far as the US Nationals. I was well into my 30s and living in USA when I first went to a US National. My 2nd time was facilitated by a friend Matthew Haag who lived 1 mile from the venue in San Francisco.

Thomas Hanlon and his Silver Team were quite shocked to find they were seeded 28th or so on their first visit despite waving their European Silver medals around. I heard a well known US international player say to some of our lads ... " I HEAR YOU GUYS WON MEDALS ... WAS USA PLAYING IN THAT COMPETITION" The capitals were intended. MR HAMMAN is quite loud.

So our post teens from Gonzaga might be in for an experience. Some of them were a little green after the Junior Camrose banquet. However its all a learning experience ..

I need to go and fill in my Bracket. Its a free competition on www.bridgewinners.com

Its a nice day in Swords. I dunno if there is any vugraph today but it will likely be some closer matches like seeds 28-36 type matches.

I notice Irish Junior player has tipped his Irish Junior team to win all the way to the final and then lose to Lavazza. Perhaps he made a mistake on the final round or the first round.

A random hand dealt in Malahide on Feb

On Monday February 20th Derek Howe pointed out a hand to me from that mornings Duplicate.
He claimed the Double Dummy indicated 11 tricks were always COLD.

So I examined the hand casually while preparing for that evenings Duplicate event.

I direct bridge some nights so this was one of those nights.

At first glance I could not see any way past 10 tricks. Diamond Queen is the opening lead and the

contract is say 5H or 4H looking for an overtrick.

We will leave it at that for now to allow some people time to examine it .

I gave the hand to 10 of the strongest Malahide bridge players but got no joy there.

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

On Tuesday night I was partnering Declan the Donplayer in a  2 euro a corner best of 3 DON game.

We won the first 3 games comfortably and that meant we were 6 euro to the good each.

In the 4th game we were going well and suddenly Declan started anti cheating. He gave the opponents points instead of taking points off them. Later he said "Eamon it would not be fair to send them home 8 euro down each... Better to let them win a game and take 4 euro home and they will come back for more games thinking Declan Donplayer is a nice chap"

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

Last night in Malahide we ran a handicap game based on CBAI grades.

Regional Master or higher handicapped 8% and 2% drops per grade after that.

The 2 partners handicaps are added together to get the pair handicap.

It seemed to go alright with no complaints yet.

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

Now I have to go to Lidl for the grub and a few bottles of vino.

Ireland Open win Camrose 2017

Last weekend Ireland Open Team of Mark Moran Rory Boland Hugh McGann Thomas Hanlon John Carroll and Thomas Garvey completed the acquisition of the Camrose Trophy 2017.

As I was otherwise involved between running the bridgemates at the aforementioned Hospice event and then heading off to Dungarvan to attend Christy Moore at the Park Hotel on Saturday night the 2017 Camrose 2nd weekend slipped my mind. It was only on Sunday morning I kind of recalled that somewhere on the mainland Camrose Weekend 2 was taking place.

A quick visit to Bridgebase Online and to Scotland Bridge Union via the always informational English Bridge Union website at http://www.ebu.co.uk/

and I was set. A quick perusal of http://www.camrosebridge.com/ and I quickly gathered in the
information that it was Irelands Camrose to lose as they had already gathered in almost 50 of the available 60 VPS including a 15-5 victory over England their only challengers. So it was just required to survive against a decent SBU team (who took the match 14-6) and a probable comfortable victory against the weaker Scotland team. In the end an 11-9 victory was secured against Scotland.

Meanwhile back in Galliganville he can play all the boards as he has seen very little of the event.

Match 1 Garvey and Carroll started with a big run of imps it appears according to my version of the game. After playing 8 boards in Jack I had managed to gather in 12 imps against the field but the intrepid (not sure what that word  means ) duo had gathered in 26 imps versus Northern Ireland leading to the above positions as extracted from the Jack program.

I will continue playing and see how I do but its unlikely I will catch up on those lads.
Mind you their opponents Greenwood and Anderson are no pushovers but Carroll and Garvey
seem to be back in form.
........................
Meanwhile the GM rings up and makes enquiries about how to use Dealer4 as he is directing in Fitzwilliam tomorrow night. GM is a powerful tournament director and has no need to leave the computer as one bellow from the big lad and all East Wests move quickly. However this morning we managed to download and use the Dealer4 software and he did not SHOUT at me once.
Things are looking up.

So later I will play some more hands on Jack but first I have to complete my 70 hands on
http://bridge-now.com  ... The weekly ratings are gone but maybe I will devise my own rating system shortly. A fine website indeed where folk can play 0-300 hands a week and get instant matchpoints.

The Hospice Charity fights back

Last week in Malahide Regional Bridge Club , my home club a charity bridge game was organised. It was connected to Maureen Meade who passed away earlier this year. Known on BBO as donabate which was also her most recent home she last appeared on Bridge Base Online around December 23rd 2016.. Maureen was a capable player and represented Ireland in the Lady Milne in 2004 or maybe it was 2005 in Manchester. Ireland finished 2nd that year which is as good as we have ever finished in the recent past. On the Friday night when the bridge started one Welsh pair was still enroute to the venue. Now Maureen and her partner Nuala were making their debut in this match and were placed in the closed room. As people who have attended Camrose or Lady Milne matches will know the Closed Room is off limits to all bar the players in the room and the directors and organisers.

So with the match being staged in England the officials were English and nobody thought of the 2 debutants sitting in the closed room awaiting their fate. As any bridge player will know stepping up a level above your grade is seriously nerve wracking and here 2 folk were making their international debut and there was no one to help them. Its possible they did not even know if they could go to the loo. You can but you need a director to escort you so you won't see or hear anything about hands on the way to or fro. These days it is easier as bridge matches are often held in hotel business centres or converted hotel rooms so most rooms have their own loo. However back in the day it could be 2 tables in the closed room and no loo. Myself and BJ O'Brien were with the team but we had no access to the closed room or any knowledge that the Welsh team were even missing for quite a while.
Anyway all got worked out but the ladies survived that ordeal.

Next morning saw Ireland play Scotland and our intrepid duo sat down to face the well known Liz McGowan a monumental Scottish bridge institution.

Liz McGowan    I played my first Lady Milne in 1977, and this will be my 31st appearance, with my 9th partner. I have won 8 times, and would like to reach double figures, but I'm running out of time.…. Prior to 2000 Liz, I was a member of the British Women‟s team, picked up silver medals at the 1988 and ‟92 Olympiads and gold at the Europeans in ‟97 and „99.  I also won the 1996 World Mixed Teams with Heather Dhondy when the two were eliminated from the Venice Cup and, while drowning their sorrows in the bar, “chatted up” the Icelandic men who had suffered the same fate in the Bermuda Bowl.  My daily column in „The Scotsman‟ has recently been axed, so I'm looking for something else to do. I live in Edinburgh with husband Ian, and two daughters, and much loved grand-daughter. 

So Liz is pretty good at the bridge ...as can be seen above.

Anyway the first hand saw our intrepid pair wheel out the Gerber much to the amusement of our NPC BJ O'Brien and they end up in what seems to be a no play small slam.

However as BJ congratulated Brian Short on a good start for Scotland , Galligan watched as Liz cashed an ace and then played the card that tightened the squeeze. Galligan tugged on BJs suit sleeve and excitedly said SQUEEZE is coming .. but BJ brushed me aside and continued the congratulations.

Meanwhile Maureen continued playing cards from the top and a 3-3 break in clubs happened and the final club exerted the pressure and the Scottish NPC and his friend BJ suddenly realised the squeeze was materializing and Ireland were getting 12 imps or so ..

The old Clyde Love works again ..

After the match was over I asked about the slam and Maureen said .." I guess they threw away the wrong cards" .. Anyway the match progressed and Ireland won by about 10 imps all because of that slam.

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

Meanwhile back at Malahide last Friday ..we had 3 sections of bridge and several people offering help and no great communication between them.

Section 1 was an 11 table Mitchel but somehow after the section started the 2 pairs at table 6 ejected and went off to another section.

Section 2 was a 13 table Mitchel and the cards were layed out and play had commenced and then suddenly a previously empty table (it was empty when I gave out the boards) grew 4 occupants waving their hands in the air saying we have no boards ..

Section 3 was a 12 table with Novice and Inter Bs and that section rolled along fine.

In Section 2 I rolled back the boards and added in a 14th table and all seemed well except some bridgemates were saying sitout. Someone or maybe me had started up the section on the computer but neglected to say add 20 to the table number for EAST WEST so some bridgemates complained about SITOUT round 2 ..and so on .. Eventually I figured out what had happened and reset the movement.

However some scores were already in and I did not notice it was 1 versus 15 instead of 1 versus 21

and 2 versus 16 instead of 2 versus 22 and much later I saw some pairs had the wrong total as the pair numbers were wrong in the bridge scoring program. Anyway I solved that by editing the BWS file and all was eventually well...

Meanwhile in Section 1 an organiser found a pair to play at table 6 and all was well you would think.

Well the pair sitting out decided they would be North South instead of the normal EW and it was a while before that knowledge made its way back to me ... However knowledge is power and I was soon able to sort out the movement and the SITOUT merrily made its way around the room.

Meanwhile I spotted the missing  pair was performing well in the event being placed as high as 2nd at one stage after 6 rounds ...Hmmmm ...Whats wrecking my head now ..

Finally I recalled some mention of entering Round 1 scores as PASSES .. and of course at that stage

the famous MISSING PAIR were presumed present and correct so the passes entered on the bridgemate in as real scores .. and the Missing pair was heading for a prize...according to the TV.

However Galligan got in there and sorted it and the MISSING PAIR became a sitout.

So be careful with those bridgemates and the moving players ..

Maureen as a bridge director never crossed over into bridgemate territory as far as I know.

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

The final news of the night announced 4300 euros for Hospice and more coming ...

Hospice looked after Maureen Meade and she paid them back in spades ..

Thanks to all who supported and played in the event ..

 

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 ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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 ..

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

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

Dunne Kelly Trayor O'Leary of Bankers on Vugraph now from Pula (Sunday 1530)

Amazingly I was watching the World Bridge championships on vugraph a few minutes ago and up pops Dunne on the screen .. Hmmm could it be David Dunne (former Irish chess champion) and old partner of mine.. Then the other side of the table fills up with Kelly .. could that be Sheila Kelly regular cross table opponent of David Dunne ..

So if you are bored with World Championship Bridge ... Ireland Open front 4 ran into a warmed up Dutch quartet this morning and got beaten by about 70 imps .. They won next match small against New Zealand ..
You can kibitz Sheila Kelly on vugraph NOW ...Its an 8 board match so hurry up ..
Even with Dunnes thoughtful  play it won't be lasting too long ..

Looks like some Trayer and O'Leary in the other room .. 5 imps up after one
Maybe its John Comyns partner Blanaid and maybe its Morris O'Leary.
I don't play much these days so I don't know all the new kids on the block.
I think O'Leary does some directing

Irish women got beat by France in round 1 and after rising the Templogue Terrors from the bench defeated Iceland by a small margin in round 2 ..

The Mixed Team had a good win in Round 1 .. got a hiding in Round 2 and eased past China in Round 3 with Lillis and Burns in top form ..

Team Dunne got beaten small .. 15-9 in Pula ..
Looks like they now use WBF scoring so Team Dunne back to 10th place in Pula Mixed Teams.

http://www.pzbs.pl/wyniki/turnieje/2016/pula/team/16pulamixmenleaderb.html

Declan Donplayer amazes yet again

Last night I directed the Gala Pairs in Malahide. This is the annual season opening event. We had 39 tables after a couple of late cancelations. All went well and on departing Malahide Bridge Club about midnight I expected that was the end of bridge for the night.

I headed back to Rivervalley in Swords and parked up the car. Then over to Rivervalley Community Centre for a couple of Guinness. On entering the club I meet Declan the Donplayer. He gets a little excited and says "Eamon I need you to help me with something " ..

Now Declan is a local guy who learned bridge from scratch and who has never entered a bridge club as a player. He visited Malahide Regional one night for a look at how it all worked and kibitzed Maurice Quinn for a while. I taught him bridge in about 10 minutes one night and then introduced him to

http://bridge-now.com

For about the last 3 months Declan the Donplayer has been busy with his other pursuits of
catching trout , drinking , gambling , painting and decorating (his day job) , looking after his parents and his kids as well as playing the odd game of DON.

So it was quite a surprise to see Declan digging into his pocket and pulling out an Easons receipt with a bridge hand written on it.

QJx
Qxxx
AQJ
Axx

KTxxx
AKJxx
52
K

The above hands are in order from the top Spades Hearts Diamonds Clubs

1NT 2D
2H    2S
3H    4C
4D    4NT
5S     6H

I had a quick glance and said .. So you made 6H and you are showing me that you done Transfers and Cuebidding and Roman Keycard Blackwood and bid a slam .. OK well done

"No Eamon this was my opponents and I have no clue what they mean .. Yer man is bidding diamonds when he has spades + hearts  and the other lad is bidding HEARTS twice  with a 4 card suit. Then yer man bids that ACES gerber thing you told me and the other lad says I have NONE when he has 2. Then he does that Blackwood thing as he does not believe the GERBER ...so I have no clue what their bidding means.
However I got 14% and I want to know how these 2 dunce robots can bid a slam in 6H and not have any idea about bidding .... The only part they know is the No trump thing showing 15-17 points."

So I explained to Declan ..

1NT ... 15-17
2D ... a transfer to HEARTS
2H .. complete the transfer
2S .. presume shows HEARTS and SPADES and is forcing
3H .. Agree HEARTS
4C ... A cuebid in this case showing a shortage in Clubs
4D ... A cuebid in this case showing Diamond Ace
4NT ... Roman Keycard Blackwood asking for 4 aces and the Trump King as 5th ace
5S ....  2 of those 5 aces and also the Queen of trumps
6H ... Missing an Ace so lets stop in 6

So there we have Declan the Donplayers interpretation and my view of what the robots are showing.

Of course if I was bidding I would be transferring to SPADES first and I am surprised the robots did not do this as well. However Declan the Donplayer wrote down the hands and auction so I better believe him.

Now Declan is a strange character for bridge ... Anytime I mention bridge to Declan ..He gushes
"Eamon I love that game and I am delighted you accidently showed it to me one night. "

One night he said to me (after he had imbibed probably a couple of gallons of beer ) ... Eamon 2 people did something for me in this life ...

1. My uncle taught me fishing when I was a kid and I am still reeling in 2 pounder trout to this day ..

Eventually I took the bait as nothing was happening ...

"Declan ... ok the fishing is good and what did the 2nd person do for you ...

" Ah Eamon I thought you knew about the 2nd person ... "
"That's you and teaching me this bridge game that is so intriguing and changes on every hand"
"Eamon I am from Sheriff Street and nobody was playing bridge down there and I absolutely love this game "

So if people happen to use http://bridge-now.com one day they might see Declan McKenna

Declan has never played in a bridge club but he has scored above 52% some weeks on bridge-now.
This is a serious score for a chap who never went to a bridge class or a bridge club and learned from me about 2 years ago.

Actually I told an untruth ... Declan did go to a bridge class once .. Seamus Costello the well known North County Dublin player runs bridge classes in our community centre on a Wednesday night.
I told Declan to go down for a look some night .. Declan did ...

He met Seamus and had a chat and filled in when there was an odd number of players ..

However he came back and said ..

"Eamon those people are learning which side of the card is up ...they are starting from scratch ..
They don't know the concept of a trick or a trump or anything .... I have been playing cards for 45 years so its just not going to work with this learner trying to work out which side of the card has the good stuff printed on it"

I will just play the http://bridge-now.com
and fight the robots on http://bridgebase.com

And we are all good ...

I almost forgot ... The Easons receipt ... a non-bridge book

Religion for Living .. 24 euros 50 cents .... I did not realize Declan the Donplayer did religion.
You learn something everyday ... I thought .. Gambling Drinking Ladies and a little bridge online.

...................
Another chap who is past 60 and also a veteran of DON for almost 50 years played a few hands of bridge upstairs during a break in the DON game ... Afterwards and ever since ...Jimmy the Donplayer
gushes ..

"WHAT A GAME ... and tells anyone who will listen .... "100 times more complex than DON and also so easy to learn ...but I don't think I know 1% of it yet .."

And these are just 2 of the chaps I found in a small Swords boozer ...

There is also Shane who learned DON and BRIDGE and unblocked KQJx to defeat 6NT on the first bridge hand he ever declared .. However that's another story ...



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

CBAI International Committee might be guilty of Agism

Rumours are emerging that the International Committee has developed a policy of ageism in the recent weeks. Apparently this committee which is charged with the control and direction of Irish international bridge has decided that a persons age affects their bridge skills.
I understand that some post teens expressed an interest in attempting to qualify to play in the Camrose Trophy and that it was indicated they were too young. Two years ago in Belfast a teenager was representing Scotland in the Camrose Trophy. Our experienced  committee would deem him ineligible.
The current suggested entry point for the Camrose Trials is 100 B points. I personally own around 200 B points but I stopped collecting about 2006 when I started focussing on learning the LAWS and becoming a TD and bridge facilitator. However since 2006 or so I have attended most of the Open Team training sessions so I see stuff and hear stuff and learn stuff indirectly.
I am quite confident I would defeat comfortably most  CBAI players holding 100-200 B points.
I know I am stronger than or at least the equal of  several of the CBAI grandmasters. The 100 B points entry point means I will qualify for trials for the foreseeable future despite hardly ever playing.
Strong players mainly collect B points by thrashing lesser players. You get 0.25 B point for thrashing intermediates/area masters  at the Holmes Wilson and other National Teams events. Thus everytime BJ plus 3 meets 4xSligos or 4xCavans its 1 B point added to BJs Team Total. 0.25 each player.

B points are an attendance record and are nothing to do with Bridge Skill. Bridge Skill is attained through training and dedication. There are no B points awarded for training and dedication.

http://www.bridgewebs.com/regent/2016aug19augustcompetitionoverall.htm

The above link shows the results of the August issue of the Regent Summer Bonanza

42 pairs participated and 52 of the 84 players are eligible for Camrose Trials.
However the 3rd placers and 9th placers are deemed not good enough. The winners on 61.82% are both members of the International Committee and they feel they have the right to deem their 3rd place opponents not good bridge players.... just 1.4% behind them on the same hands.
2nd 3rd and 4th all played in the same Howell .. Possibly the winners were lucky to play in Howell A where the opposition starts at 11th 12th 13th 15th 16th places ..

I personally know these juniors are serious as they ask me for bidding practice hands.

Maybe CBAI could upgrade promising juniors to 100 B points so they can play only in the top Irish events. Most likely the players from the Confined Grade or Area Master Grade don't want to be meeting juniors who have been hardened from toughing it out in Peggy Bayer and Junior Camrose.
Juniors need to focus on School and College rather than chasing B points. A grade A in a Leaving Cert exam is worth far more than the  100 B points required to play in Camrose Trials.

These lads have been working on bridge since getting an impromptu lesson in the 4 Seasons B&B
in Galway about 3 years ago from Eddie Fitzgerald. 4 Juniors are not going to get B points when they have to beat Grandmasters and internationals at the top of the field.

I also hear David Synnott is also deemed not good enough for Camrose Trials ... however he was allowed play in 2012 when it suited the movement or the politics. I understood that once you played in a trials you could not be refused in the future. You were meant to be upgraded to the B point level.
Same applies for Hugh Gormally...

One night about 4 years ago I was co opted onto a team to play a Regent Bridge League event.
David Synnott Hugh Gormally and CBAI Treasurer Mullally were my team mates..
The BJOBrien team rolled in fielding BJ himself Michael O'Briain and David Jackson ...Their 4th player was held up in traffic but eventually Nick Fitzgibbon arrived in the Regent.
4 legends of the Irish game ..

After 12 boards it was Synnott by 30 imps but the BJ team got going
After 24 boards Synnott prevailed by 10 imps ...

but deemed not good enough or too young to play in a qualifier for a 3rd division Bridge event ..
Maybe its Ageism ... Why should a 60 something year old brain be allowed deem itself more powerful than a 20 year old brain.

The prosecution rests or maybe I am the defence ..

Some Blur chap plays bridge

I saw a post on Facebook recently where a music chap from a band called Blur got a small hook on bridge.

http://csbnews.org/take-it-to-the-bridge-by-alex-james/?lang=en

Now I have to go on youtube to see if Blur are any good at music or I could ask my musical brother Paul


Alex James was born in 1968 and rose to fame as the bassist in Blur. His autobiography, ’Bit of a Blur‘, is possibly the best book ever written by a pop star. He lives in the Cotswolds.

Alex James de Blur

 These are a few of his thoughts about bridge…
Bridge is utterly compulsive once it has got hold of you. It isn’t too hard to learn and the joy is that you can play it and actually start enjoying it before you get very good. You can take it on at any level that you want. The big problem is that very soon after you start you want to be brilliant.  Alex James
Take It To The Bridge
Alex James on the many pleasure of the king of card games
Aren’t casinos rotten? I mean, great to visit with good company, but there, where isn’t? Woolies is potentially a scream. Take Caesar’s Palace. You think you’re going to feel like James Bond and then you end up being surrounded by ghastly lizards and tough nuts in a neon lit Ancient Greece. Fuckin’ losers. It is absolutely certain, that is absolutely certain, that the more you play, the more you will lose. It must be the playing that people are willing to pay for and it’s a pity because there are far better games than blackjack. Blackjack is a arsehole’s game for people who drive cars with personalised number plates. 
Although the origins of most are obscure, all card games tend to fall into two categories – those where you have to win tricks (whist, black maria, belote) and those where you try to make runs and groups of the same value (gin, rummy, canasta, poker). People really started playing cards after gas lighting was invented and before telly. Various games enjoyed enormous popularity at different times, and the national British card game is in fact cribbage, which seems to work well in December.
The ace of all card games, though, is bridge. It was invented in 1925 by Harold Vanderbilt while he was on a cruise. It is played by two opposing teams of two players using all 52 cards of a standard deck and is a whist-type game. It is the most sophisticated, subtle and posh game in the world. I have the same compulsion to play bridge today as I did to play football when I was twelve. I could happily go on all day and think of nothing else. The formality of the game, slightly annoying to begin with, soon becomes a source of comfort, a place, even. The strictly observed etiquette is all for the purpose of conviviality and making the game flow smoothly. You have a lot of common ground with other people who play. You can look your partner in the eye and tell them the truth in a secret language on an island of calm and it’s you against them and nothing else matters.

Dave Rowntree in Bridge-Celebrity-Grand-slam

Cards are a delicate but profound pleasure. Going to a bridge evening is like attending the AA , in that you get a total cross section of all kinds of dudes. The amount of laser thinking that has been applied to the game is stupefying. Foyles is jammed. A good bridge book would be a guide to bridge books. 
It takes about as long to learn the rules of bridge as it does to learn the rules of chess and I’m not going to explain them here,but for how to play and for willing partners try msn/bridge or yahoo/games/bridge. Pretty soon you’ll start saying things like this: “The club bi was artificial, asking for partners major. North’s jump shift to four spades was conventional. Stayman showing opening control and Blackwood’s five diamonds confirmed they had slam potential,” or: “Making seven no trumps redoubled is better than a nosh in the bog.” 
There really is no better pension plan for our dotage.

Sonya Britian Trophy 2016 .. CBAI regain trophy decisively

In The Sonya Britian Trophy at the weekend the CBAI decisively regained the trophy from the NIBU. A disappointing NIBU team failed to win any of the 8 rounds. However next year on home territory the big guns could be fielded although said Big Guns are getting rusted these days.

Hands and Results can be gleaned from www.fob.ie but you got to make your way to his Bridgewebs pages for that.