Galligan v Donegalman .. Bray Congress NIBU Congress is coming

Last night I played 10 boards of a challenge against Wilson and did fairly well. Good content for a video. This morning we finished off the last 6 boards with a cup of tea and a sandwich.

The video is here.

Galligan Wilson video

Results of Bray Congress can be found here as in at the below link.

Link to  Bray Congress   Congress results.

Next Friday we have the Gala Pairs in Malahide to open the season.
Should be 40 tables of Bridge legends in action.
I expect Pat Dunne the tournaments officer has a good plan.

Ann Hassan says Go to Congress before Brexit

Above the link to Congress.

Soon Muttley will be laying down the LAW with a selection of partners.

Galligan plays Malahide boards 11-22

As promised yesterday myself and Jack went into battle again and failed to trouble the scorers when playing the Malahide Strong Game on Tuesdays. Too many mistakes by me and a few errors by the Malahides diminished my score. It has to be somebodies fault. Must be Jack bridge program.

Nobody will fear me anymore. 43% is hardly to be feared.

17th place out of 22 pairs ..well 24 if you count Eamon and the Jacks.

Here is the link to the pain

No pain No gain

A player in this event in real life said I am very brave to post my losing result. I have nothing to hide ..sometimes I lose. Possibly my two table opponents were tougher than the opponents I might have played on the night. However I did tone my Jack down to 75% so that should have evened things up.

Galligan plays Malahide Tuesday with Jack6

This morning I decided to play some of Tuesday night August 20th hands with my trusty partner Jack against the Malahide human comparisons. Unfortunately I did not fare too well.
A comfortable 23rd place out of 24 pairs was a large eye opener. It must have been my partners fault.
Except it was not ... it was some of Eamons too agressive moves.

So 10 boards played and Galligan in 23rd place with only 22 pairs in the field. That says it loud and clear.

Link to Galligan dreadful 10 boards with commentary

However I will be back for the next 2 sessions of 10 boards so watch this space.

Galligan v Mullingar Man Monday AM commentary

This morning I had to finish a bridge video against my original bridge teacher. He is also known as Mullingar Man in my Bridge Video series.

Galligan versus Mullingar man

So we finished that challenge and won by 3 imps ..
However Mullingar man got about 30 imps in presents from Eamon and the robots.

Every challenge I play against Mullingar man I give him a couple of presents and he also gleans some from the robots.

Anyway the bridge keeps him alive.

Meanwhile I Played a BBO challenge against some Malahide intermediates and that did not go well.
Eye was not on the ball and the results prove it.

With Kitkatsist failing to tog out we were left with 4 players and Eamon Galligan finished last place.
However it was my turn as Eamon had destroyed the field in the previous 2 renewals.

Meanwhile Eamon went to Malahide Regional Bridge Club on Monday morning and made some good contracts. He also done several things wrong. The video below gives a quick commentary on the 21 boards we played.

Video Commentary of 21 boards Monday AM

New Bridge Season arriving fast and Malahide Bridge Congress returns

Good morning all

I have neglected my blog recently and this was brought to my attention by a top player from Malahide recently. So here we are.

First exhibit ... A video created on Sunday August 25th. However I could not upload it until the opponent completed the challenge.

Bridgebase challenge Galligan v Magic

Meanwhile the Dublin Summer Congress passed off without any hitches or anything else.
I failed to attend as I had no partner or as Magic Murphy regularly says "Nobody asked me"

Shortly I will play the Tuesday night game of Malahide from August 20th. Rachel and Martin McHale won that game with a large 65% score. I DOUBT if I can beat that score. However I will give it a run.

Dublin Summer Congress results can be found on Bridgewebs at an account called Dublin Summer Congress. One can also Google .. " Dublin Summer Congress 2019 " and probably get the results.

Two new players from Malahide Regional stormed the Inter B section of this congress winning the Teams and Pairs events.

The Malahide Bridge Congress will return in 2020 under the strong guiding arm of Rachel McHale.
Rachel has been active as Social Secretary and possibly other Council positions in Malahide Regional Bridge club. The Congress will be resident at the Grand Hotel Malahide which in the past was a host of some older Malahide Bridge Clubs before my time.

MacCormac starts the run to Spingold history

Tonght at 9pm Irish time Thomas MacCormac enters the ring against the powerful Nickell team.
Thomas is part of the Pressure team which employs a powerful method of bidding to put the opponents under pressure.
I don't know who gets shown on vugraph but I suspect it is the more closer matches like 32 v 33 send rather than 2 v 63 seed. However all will be revealed at 2100 hours. Thomas will be backed up in his efforts by the former Gonzaga bridge expert Stephen Barr.
Yesterday the reserve Pressure team had the air left out of their tyres by the coffee swilling Lavazza team. I think it was 171 imps after 60 boards but maybe they retired early.
.......................
Meanwhile other news saw Galligan power to victory over Mullingar man by 46 imps yesterday.
However Magic Murphy took out Galligan by 17-13 with 2 lucky strikes earning 13 imps.
Kelan O'Connor continues to hold the upperhand at bridge and quiz.
..............
Catherine Carabine only managed 2nd place in the Declan Murray Open Pairs on Monday morning.

Noel Hughes and Anthony McMackin think they dumped on Conor O'Hara yesterday in the evening pairs but Ronan and O'Hara still won the war with a first place finish.
...............................
Meanwhile Team MacCormac fired 18 imps past Nickell who responded in kind with 84 in the first 15 boards. The Hanlon powered Street team lead small by 4 imps against Team Amalia.
Unfortunately Team MacCormac suffered another 84 imps with nothing going back so far in the 2nd set of 15 boards. So its 170 plays 18 now.

Just to indicate how powerful an event this Spingold is ... the Street team powered by Thomas Hanlon among other world class players also went out in the first round.

The Ballina Congress 2019

I just realized that this weekend is Ballina Congress weekend. I stumbled onto Ferghal O'Boyles wonderful results website and checked out the Mixed pairs winners.

Looks like a power packed performance by the Dublin Delaneys. 68% in a Congress event is not to be taken lightly. Maeve has Paul well schooled at collecting good scores.

Looks like there was no Out of State prize for the NIBU  internationals Hilary and John  Ferguson. Maybe the prizes were planned before Brexit got postponed.

Meanwhile the Congress Pairs is about to start and one has to pick a few horses.
In no particular order we choose

1. Brady Delaney
2. Heneghan DeRaeymaker
3. Pat Quinn Enda Glynn
4. Marcin and Ronan
5. Better mention the Fergusons as some day they will win something.

Malahide Regional Bridge Club are represented on 3 pairs

Billy Ronan Tom Gilligan
Fran Ronan Mary Kavanagh
Mary Kelly Rogers Danny Liddy

One expects the top 3 to emerge from my top 4 picks but we will see ..
Maybe Malahide pair Gilligan and Ronan will turn on the style that wins regularly in Malahide.
However the Washington schooled James Heneghan is going to have too much knowledge and then there is Marcin and Ronan just back from a decent performance in European Open Pairs.
Quinn and Glynn should be able to collect lots of overtricks.
However to sum up I think I will go for

1. Heneghan DeRaeymakers
2. Delaney Brady

Ballina Congress and Bridgebase 4 hands

link to video

Bridgebase Group Challenge and THE APPEAL

Last night or early this morning I started to play a group challenge against Murphy Sean Wondercool and Kelan. This morning I logged in and decided to finish the Bridgebase challenge with the camera turned on. 

Kelan says ..."You only post when you are winning " but I did not know I was winning. 

Kelan scores 21.75

Link to last few boards of Bridgebase Group challenge

We also visited Galway Congress in the video. 

In the above video we also revisit the controversial appeal from the Moylan. 

A totally unbelievable turn over of the directors ruling of result stands. 

Eamon would lose loads of good boards in Malahide if this ruling was the standard. 

Eamon is forever bidding STOP 3NT with no agreements. 

One is supposed to ask some other folk their opinion ..

58% lead a diamond with no alert and 52% lead a diamond with an alert. 

The 2 polls are posted on bridgewinners and can be seem in the above video.

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

The Bridgebase Group challenge is a great innovation. The only bad thing is Kelan always wins 

European Teams Day 6

Meanwhile the Ireland Youth team continue their training plan towards victory in next Seasons Junior Camrose. A bye in Round 18 allowed them collect a morale boosting 12 VPS.

Currently they are in a titanic battle with the always powerful Netherlands.
After a bright start where they took an early lead the Netherlands made the comeback and then the overtake.

Meanwhile Galligan finished off the Wilsopd challenge and expects a comfortable victory after gathering in some large final boards.

Galligan should tame Wilson but one never knows

The link to the final 4 boards is above.

Results from the European Youth Team championships can be found here

European Youth U26 Teams championships

Unfortunately the IRELAND East West Nathan Doyle and Michael Donnelly just suffered a painful experience. Their team mates had an imp making score of 2CX and made for 180.
However sadly our boys found their 8 trump cards were not enough to deal with the Dutch in 1H redoubled holding only 5 trumps in a 5-0 fit. Minus 8 imps.

I suppose that is called a DOUBLE BURNS law breaker.

Yes unfortunately 1H redoubled making 7 tricks.

And a final score of IRELAND 16 NETHERLANDS 41

The Final match of today is IRELAND V FRANCE ..STARTING SHORTLY

The European Youths championship 2019

Good morning folks

For the last few days Eamon has been casting a wary eye on the European Youth championships.
The Irish team of

1. John Connolly
2. Michael Donnolly
3. Nathan Doyle
4. Stephen Barr
5. Jarlath McDonnell
6. Conor Farrell.

sprinted out of the starting blocks with almost 68 VPS out of the first 100.

All going well so far but one noted the goalkeeper was leaking at the same time.

The next 100 VPS unfortunately saw Ireland only adding another 16 VPS.
16 per cent return is not too good but according to Facebook the team remained upbeat.

Round 11 saw a drilling from GERMANY
Round 12 saw a medium loss to SLOVAKIA.

Day 4 TUESDAY started with 2 wins but then ITALY AND NORWAY piled on the AGONY.

A 3 point haul from these 2 matches left IRELAND struggling in 20th place of 23.
..............................................

Now before we get too bothered about these results we need to understand that 90% of this field are damn good players. The kind of player who would easily be dominant in the top Dublin clubs. Those clubs are probably still the BANKERS and the REGENT.

Recently Eamon has been playing 16 board challenges against Kelan O'Connor and I have been shipping about 1.5 imps a board out on average. So Eamon is losing each match by about 16-4.
The IRISH team is doing better than Eamon as they are averaging about 7.5 per match.

So now they got to start winning some matches and so does EAMON..
KELAN BEWARE as the tide is going to turn.

Unfortunately for IRELAND YOUTH they just got pole-axed in the first match today ..

.............................
Meanwhile Eamon has been playing a few boards against Wilsopd ..
and I probably am in a losing position at this stage

Eamongall v Wilsopd

The First renewal of THE MUTTON CUP 2019

Good morning few and Garve

This morning I was recording a BBO challenge against Mullingar Man. Unfortunately I probably lost but I landed a good slam on the last board to give me a shot at the title.
I don't know the result as Mullingar man had not completed.

Then entered thegarve and walked all over my video.

Galligan v Mullingarman

Some of his news was good .. Jason Hackett a top English bridge player and chinease food expert is nearly 49 years on this earth.

Hence the inaugural Mutton Cup

The Inaugural Mutton Cup

This is an individual event and all entrants must be known to Mr Mutton or at least be known to someone. Maybe they might like some vugraph.

Meanwhile out in Malahide it looks like the bridgemates gave up or something happened but nobody has rang me so no need for me to vault into firefighting mode. One notes the presence of the newly honed Magic Murphy in the middle of the field

Kelan loses the head and the challenge and MacCormac delivers

This afternoon we had the end of the Qualifying 6 rounds for the European open Pairs
We have some good news. I don't know how clear this is but in short our 6 players qualified for
the A semi final of the European Open Pairs.

Thomas MacCormac B Saker
Thomas Hanlon John Carroll
Ronan McMaugh Marcin Rudzinski

This afternoon I finished the challenge with Kelan and I was successful. Kelan was unlucky on the first 2 boards as he bid a decent 6 clubs contract and hit a 4-1 break and a few other odds and ends.
Then on the 2nd board Kelan bid a good 7 clubs grand slam. Unfortunately for him there was 4 to the JACK of trumps offside. Needless to say Kelan still attempted the endplay.

Galligan v Kelan boards 1-10

Galligan v Kelan Boards 11-16

European Pairs and Kelan

This morning the 2nd stage of the qualifying for the Open Pairs takes place. We have 3 Irish Pairs involved.

1. Legendary Irish bridge teacher Thomas McCormac partnered by Saker

2. Famous Tyrone bridge player Ronan McMaugh along with Polish national and 

    Irish international bridge player Marcin Rudzinski 

3. Thomas Hanlon and John Carroll. 

All 3 are currently running well in the qualifying positions. 

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

Today while watching the scores coming through on the webfeed I was playing a  BBO CHALLENGE against the unknown bridge player Kelan from Kerry. 

He is a great supporter of Kerry GAA. 

Here are the first 10 boards and Eamon thinks he is in good shape for a tight game against Kelan.

Galligan versus Kelan 1-10    Movie

...........

Also there was a Twitch feed with commentary on the Euro Teams Final 

Twitch feed of Netherland v Mossop

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

On Monday I saw the most bizarre bid ever 

After a weak 2H open by West the bridge player found the bid of 2NT showing 12-14 hcp and the other major. Apparently this is called Hackett convention.

A few boards later another demonstration of the Hackett convention in flying form. 

Again 2H opening by West and the bridge player bids 3 Diamonds alledgedly the Hackett convention showing 15+ points and bidding will continue from there. 

Galligan is wondering why there is no 2 Spades bid in Hackett .. 

European Open Teams moving day June 23 2019

Meanwhile out in INSTANBUL  we have the European Open Team championships.

Ireland are represented by Team Moran and Team MacCormac. Starting today both teams were struggling but we had some hope for Team Moran as they have plenty of Top 32 class in their team.
Led by the lengthy partnership of Mesbur Fitzgibbon who might have 100 years of bridge experience between them. They also have Thomas Hanlon and the swashbuckling pair of Garvey and Carroll.

Hopefully they have done loads of preparation for this event. Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon have been very visible on BridgeBase Online in the last 6 months. I heard Krystoff Martens telling the lads a few years ago .. "You guys amateurs .. you guys need 10 days of warm up to reach our level" "Me proffessional ..always ready to go"

Anyway this afternoon the bridge started at 12 noon due to a local event in Turkey clashing.

Round 6

A good start for Team Moran
Round 7

A slight hiccup and loss of momentum ..
Board 29 might need some analysis if they remain alive after 2 more matches

Round 8 and still alive but still many teams to overtake and little room for error

2 matches to go and 9 VPS approx to make up .. Not only 9 VPS but also got to overtake 30 teams as well so need plenty of flat matches to allow Team Moran reach the coveted 32nd or higher position.

Meanwhile the Irish ladies team are treading water mid table just outside the top 8 about 6 VPS to make up but only about 5 teams to overtake in a much smaller event.
There is also a 4 nations team powered by Malahide stalwart Mary Kelly Rogers. They are just outsde the top 8 also although as I type they are in 8th place leading Poland by 8-5 in imps.
However Poland are awful strong.

Team MacCormac languish in the lower regions of OPEN TEAMS BUT THE Dubs are in action and Meath are keeping them at bay for now.

Hmmm I almost forgot my next video including 4 more boards of the challenge versus Kelan.
Galligan v Kelan 2

The Waterford Whisperers strike oil

Sometime towards the end of last week the news filtered through about the Waterford Whispers.
The Whisper was that they won something. Now the Waterford Whisperers often win things but normally it is in Ireland or up the North.
Normally John Phelan is touted for how dark the glasses are on a Sunday morning. A great man to drink a pint and for many years has been known for great ability to fall asleep when sated.
The man can fall aleep on a bar stool and then suddenly awaken and start drinking again like nothing happened.
Anyway for some reason I downloaded some bridge bulletin to see how other things were going and was greeted by a page that said 3rd place John and Lucy Phelan. Good God I thought.

Now I know some people will say its only the EBL Cup 2 but most of those people are hurlers on the ditch. Somewhat like the poor Waterford hurlers this year. Still those same hurlers remain on the same ditch as pre tournament possibilities GALWAY and on a much higher ditch then OFFALY.

The Phelans favourite convention is WEASEL and also John Phelan's partner is the BPIW.
The Phelans never seem to be very good when it comes to playing bridge but they seem to win loads of stuff. They must be nearly GRANDMASTERS of BRIDGE at this stage.

I ALSO have a video about the first 8 boards of myself against Kerry crook Kelan in bridge

Galligan v Kelan June 23rd

Kelan the Kerry Bridge player loses and Murphy bids a slam

This morning one took on the might of the Kerry Bridge player in a BBO challenge.
Now the Kerry bridge player is a much more refined animal than the tantrum throwing wild child of the late 2000s. I played against him once in the Duais when he was a kid and he almost danced on the table when I stroked him. I was playing with Gordon Lessels. He was a right murphyslaw back then.

Murphy goes outside and bangs his head off the railings outside Malahide Regional Bridge club everytime Jumping jumps the bidding beyond the reasonable.

Anyway Kelan has been beating me regularly and heavily. if I have a bad set its 37imps in the bin.

So this morning I hoped for better ....and I got a great stroke of luck.

6 spades making off 2 aces ...the thing of dreams

So the robot led off the Heart Ace and switched to a non diamond
Now Galligan needs 3-3 Hearts or doubleton Jack.
And blessed are the overbidders.
plus 1430

Here is the full video including the celebration
Galligan slams Kelan

I have heard there was some good action in Malahide last night. Magic Murphy says he bid 3 slams.
However he missed one on board 14 it seems and one of them must have revoked on board 11.
On board 21 it appears some one failed to make the matchpoint effort of converting to NoTrump.
37 points between them.
I also noticed a board where several strong players played in HEART part score when Magic Murphy drove to a SLAM .. Ronan and Gilligan declare 1H safely while Magic Murphy roars into 6S.
I think the throne is under attack .. Murphy is about to take over the crown.

The Magic not only bids game but moves on and bids a slam. Down the bottom you can see 3 pairs not even arriving in game. Looks like Malahide has a new boss.

Wednesdays are bad days for BBO challenges

Wednesday is Bridge-Now day as come 1am its the end of the Bridge-Now week.
Therefore all challenges must be finished early in the day so Galligan can have a run at getting 70 boards played. Usually Eamon comes up short as he leaves it too late in the night.

However its a great way to get in some practice and warm up for real bridge.

Link to Bridge Now

Meanwhile out in Europe Open Bridge the Waterford Whisperers are toiling away.
Otherwise known as John "Brick" Phelan and Mrs "Brick " Phelan.

They always put down bricks in dummy.
Promise 6-9 and its always 8-9
Their motto is never go Minus ...as plus in part score beats down in SLAM ..

The Waterford Whisperers qualified into the SEMI FINAL A in Mixed Pairs
along with the non-whispering WALSH and KEMPLE.

Poor Murphy ran into some heavy flak in this latest battle.
We also played a BASH recently and Noel was semi content with his 41.5%

Galligan v murphyslaw


I also finished a challenge with Peter from Donegal. He likes Pink Floyd in the background.
We don't know the result of this challenge as Peter is still to finish.

Galligan v Donegalman

Meanwhile storm Kelan has been on the horizon for several months.
I don't like playing Kelan as he is a fully active bridge player whereas Eamon has retired to Directing.
However one of these days Eamon might make an effort.

I mean whoever heard of a Kerry bridgeplayer apart from Nicky Wheels and Bernard Goldenfield.
I used to think Bernard was the best player in Kerry but then I found out he was from Manchester.

Eurobridge Mixed Pairs 2019 and Shane returns to bridge

Meanwhile over in Instanbul the first stage of the Mixed Pairs qualifying is over. Of our aforementioned two pairs who were bringing up the rear after 5 boards one Walsh and Kemple climbed all the way to 77th place out of 240. They might sneak a place in the A semi final but due to dropins from the Teams knockouts will probably end in the B semi fnal.

Boland Onishuk and Waterford Phelans placed in the early 100s and its B final for them
The best in the west according to Mairead got spanked badly and ended in early 200s. The Bray terrors failed to get moving too much and qualified for the B semi final.

However many world reknowned bridge players failed to make it into semi final A so thats the way it goes.

...........
Bridgemaster..1

An another subject the Bridgemaster program one of my favourite pieces of bridge kit for many years. We had some new developments.
I advised an up and coming bridge player from Malahide to give it a go. The person returned and indicated Bridgemaster should be sent to Panda recycling and fast. The person could not work out that when the program told him down 1 at trick 2 it was being nice and not wasting time.

Bridgemaster was written by Fred Gitelman about 25 years ago or more as a DOS program.
Its still a fantastic piece of kit but Fred has now placed it free of charge on Bridgebase Online.
However my person could not understand that it was getting a good deal.

My person could not grasp that when he took a losing finesse that the next time when it disdained the finesse that the finesse now worked. So it threw a strop.

Bridgemaster 2

The other night in the local pub due to circumstances unmentionable here the legendary barman Shane Maxwell was pressed back into service. Now I took the liberty of attempting to teach Shane bridge several years ago. This was a hard task as Shane at the time knew everything about everything. He would tell a fishing correspondent how to fish and a boat how to float.

So Shane knew bridge and even more so when the first hand he played saw him defending against 6NT by the WBridge5 robots. Shane held KQJT of clubs and like any newbie led off the CLUB 10.
Later on as robot cruised towards 12 tricks Shane noted he was getting squeezed but did not know the term squeeze so he discarded KQJ of clubs as he saw no way out. Then his partner was able to win trick 12 with Club 9 and trick 13 with some other card. DOWN 1 and Shane the Unblocker was born.
Now the bugger was even more unbearable. He had added bridge expertise to his long list of know all things.

3 years later Shane was on the drinking side of the bar and now almost qualified electrician and still knowing lots about everything. We got Shane playing some online bridge. Slowly I realized and noticed that Shane never bid past 3 level. So I took the bait and asked.

Shane explained that you get game bonus for 3 level.

Apparently Shane was so busy talking as Eamon was giving him the crash course that he only heard the part about 3NT getting a game bonus and presumed it was same for 3C 3D 3H 3S.
You see I wondered why he was stopping in 3H and 3S with big hands. He said ..game bonus and too far from a slam.

So I educated Shane a little more ... REVELATION he said ...
This is a game changer ...You did not tell me the full rules.
It was all my fault ..

So last week Shane indicated he was still a top bridge man but he was flying under the radar and was somewhat busy. However this night he indicated willingness to have a go at bridge after first offering 20 shots handicap in a game of GOLF. I don't play GOLF so that was not going to work.

So I offered him BRIDGEMASTER and SHANE said " Well I guess I will try level 3 for starters and then maybe level 4.... Level 1 is for dunces "

I put him going on Level 1 and those red circles indicate FAILURE.

That shut him up for all of 10 hours ...Shane rose the next morning and pulled out his laptop before work and scored 27 out of 30 on level 1.

I said "Great so is it level 2 tonight .." He said "Nope I got lots of Level 1 to finish first"

European Bridge Opens continue Instanbul

A woman asked me yesterday was there any bridge on last weekend. I replied "Yes of course the European Open championships in Instanbul" There is an interesting name wonder what does it mean.

Anyway the Joan Kenny plus 5 team qualified comfortably in 3rd place in the European Mixed Teams qualifying. 32 teams out of 86 qualified for the knockouts. 

Now as far as I know leading teams can pick their last 32 opponent. 

(v) In the Mixed knockout the teams placed 1–10 in the Swiss are seeded nos. 1-10. They, in that order, get to choose their “round of 32” opponents from the teams placed 17th -32th in the Swiss. Those chosen teams are assigned seed nos. 32-23 respectively. The remaining seed nos. 11-22 are assigned in ascending order according to the final Swiss ranking.

So the Kenny team picked some Lu Dong team. Now that is always going to end in tears. 

Simple maths indicates as China owns 1/5 of the worlds population then any folk who travel to European Open Bridge championships are going to be damn good. So the last thing you want to do is pick Chinese as your cannon fodder. 

And so it became a good hiding for the Kenny Team. 

That Chinese team finished 3rd place in the last Mixed World championship in Orlando Florida. 

3 minutes on Google got me this. I would have picked a team who came out of the depths whereas Team Lu Dong has form and spent most of qualifying in the qualifying positions so playing tougher teams. However in the last 32 of any Euro championship all teams are very capable. 

Still look for one coming from the depths or a trans national team as partnerships unlikely to be as practiced. 

Meanwhile this morning I finished off my challenge against Mullingar Man and beat him by 32 imps. Mullingar man is not playing too well these last 2 months. He of course will say its Golf time and not bridge time. However he might be struggling at the golf as well. 

Here is a link to the last few boards plus some commentary on Euro Open championships

Galligan v Mullingar Man

Meanwhile Fearghal and Mairead will be touting Joan Kenny as a superstar now as she qualified in this and that and she done this and that. However its easier to be a superstar West of the Shannon. 

Best woman player in IRELAND they say .. Well there is no Shannon in China.

First thing this morning I spotted the Irish Terrors were struggling in Euro Mixed Pairs.
However I know they will improve some.

However things have imporved since but all 5 IRISH pairs remain below halfway for now.

European Open Bridge begins 2019

This morning the European Open Bridge event begins in Turkey. Teams led by Johnny Phelan and Terry Walsh enter the fray from Ireland. There is also a team which includes Wooden Spoons Kenny.
The Spoons team might trouble the scorers.
A disappointed Johnny Phelan has already suffered the hurling pain with Waterford losing 4 matches in a row at the stickball. However at least it was good for some people who bet against Waterford.
There is always next year. However those hurlers will be able to login to BBO and support the Waterford card playing star who supports them.
Johnny Phelan the best bridge player in Waterford these days. However he is not allowed say that as its best for Johnny to declare her indoors as the best. That way he gets to drink more beer and stay up later.

Meanwhile in recent challenges Mullingarman is no longer at the races and just loses most challenges.Even Murphyslaw can defeat Mullingarman regularly these days. Wilsopd got beaten this morning by a small margin. Same happened Murphyslaw.
Finally Murphyslaw played 20 boards last night and was very happy to manage 41.5%. I am struggling to understand how that is a win. Most people after getting 41.5% zip up their coats and pretend they were not in the bridge club.

Galligan versus Donegalman    video

At this moment in the European Mixed Pairs Wooden Spoons Kenny is taking on the might of Pierre Zimmerman. After 4 boards Wooden Spoons Kenny is giving him the porridge. 10-2 in oats.
Then on Board 26 with 43 tables in play ..Wooden Spoons Kenny is the only pair not to bid 3NT with a 26 combined high card points and a good 5 card diamond suit.

Somehow the only pair in the whole room of  43 matches thus 86 tables to stay out of game.

Then the Zimmerman overstretched and got into 4H and Wooden Spoons Kenny doubled and got it off loads .. Maybe 5 off. Zimmerman thought Kenny was a dunce but found out the hard way and 1400 points later. 

Meanwhile the aforementioned Waterford hurlers led by Mick the  Brick will be watching carefully as they note how Johnny Phelan put Osbourne and Hinden to the sword.
25 imps ..thats like the drubbings Waterford used to get off Cork 40 years ago in the stickball.
However one expects Team Badger to arrive at the cutting point when the qualifiers are sent into the knockouts while Team Phelan will meet with same fate as other Waterfords.

Sligo Bridge Congress 2019

Good morning or evening folks

The Fearghal extravaganza is upon us. I hear several Malahides mentioning they are going on their annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Fearghal just beside the funny mountain with no peak.
One woman cannot go as her leg is hurt and thus she cannot climb some Gullion mountain.
All the others are going because they love either BRIDGE or SLIGO or Fearghal.

Now Fearghal just sits on his throne and directs operations. There are loads of Sligo and further afield folk motoring in the background sorting out all sorts of stuff. I don't know their names but Fearghal knows them all.

However Sligo better beware as the Malahides are coming. They will be telling about their own extravaganza next March in the Grand Hotel Malahide. First weekend in March I think.
The Carabines are coming and the Dolan as well and a few others in the B Pairs.
However they will find the going much tougher down the country. All these opponents are well groomed by Fearghal and Mairead and come armed with Stayman and Lebensohl hatchets.

Then in the A pairs the Malahide assault continues .. The Deane squad along with Rachel one of the Malahide Congress leaders. There is also the men from Mayo McHale and Cunningham.
Cunningham has been ruling the Monday morning Malahide game with an iron fist for the last few months. He is also the fastest player in Malahide. The cards just fly off the table. Sometimes the opponents don't get to quit their last trick or 2 before the flying Mark has another trick in the bag.
However they will find the opponents armed with extra Lebensohl and some Keycard Blackwood axes from Fearghal and Maireads Monday night training sessions.

We don't have many Congress Pairs entrants yet but the Ronans and Kelly Rogers will fly the flag.
No sign of Thomas Gilligan this weekend but he must be busy elsewhere. However there is time yet to get more entries. Delaney Brady and Boland Raymaeker will give the Congress Pairs a good run.
There is also the unknown (to me) capabilities of Brown and Pender. One should also beware of the unknown 3NT convention axe wielder Kelan O'Connor. He claims no agreement but 3NT to play is an agreement. Fearghal will be checking all 3NTs declared by South and removing all tops gained by the agreement.

I hear some thunder outside.

This morning I took on Magic Murphy at bridge. I barely got over the line in a tight finish.
Tonight Magic Murphy will showcase his talents to Malahide Regional Bridge Club.
I made a big mistake in forgetting to be aware of a long spade in the West hand on a 3NT where I was heading for 11 tricks ... ended up with 8.
However my extra class was able to outrun the Murphy by a few imps ... 4 I think.
The video is here

Galligan v Magic Murphy June 6th 2019

No sign of any Malahides in the Congress teams but Zrinka is arriving with Pat McDaids fridge.
Michael O'Kane is definitely playing .. He is entered on 2 teams. Or could there possibly be 2 Mickael O'Kanes.

Sligo Congress 2019 Brochure.

No Inter A teams ... How weird is that
What will the Deane squad do on Sunday.

2 videos versus Peter

This morning as requested by my many times opponent Peter I recorded the challenge for his knowledge. I did not think the first 8 boards went too well and expected to be about 18 imps down
However turned out Peter got no imps in the first 8 boards so Galligan was ahead.

1st half of live video Pedro

So this morning with end of challenge time looming and a morning session of bridge to play in Malahide ,,,Eamon played the 2nd 9 boards at 7am or so with a cupan tae.


2nd half of live video Pedro

Seems all bridge should be played first thing in the morning and without any Guinness the night before. Galligan was like the Liverpool goalkeeper against Barcelona and Peter returns from his trip abroad demoralized.

............
So after playing that challenge it was back to the leaba for a few hours and up then just after 9 for ablutions and the trip to Malahide to partner Mark Cunningham.

So Board 2 I managed to make a complete mess of ..after ending up in a poor contract.

Eamon as dealer opened a weak 1NT and the normal thing would be partner would transfer into HEARTS and Eamon would play 2H probably making for about average score. 

Unfortunately Eamon got passed out in 1NT and the opponents came out smoking with the first 5 Club tricks. Now I needed the rest and I was doomed as one would expect longer HEARTS with the short CLUBS. North discarded a small HEART and Eamon decided it was surely from 4 to the Queen as the odds indicated North had more SPACE for hearts. So down went Eamon by 3 tricks for a horrible ZERO. 

A good HEART guess got me the 100% score but I GUESSED wrong and I was only after finding out that the opponent was a teacher in my local national school. 

Galligan v Mullingar man and Zar points

This afternoon I finished off a challenge with Mullingarman.

Galligan v Mullingarman video

Later in the video we touched on some Zar points and also a hand where someone made 3NT when it was more likely 3NT makes the opposite direction.

Last night in Malahide Regional Bridge Club there was a popular winner of the Presidents Prize in Maria Ewing and Marisa Curran. The singer accompanied their victory march with Viva la Spanya,

Yesterday I made a short video of the end of a Murphyslaw challenge. I was not sure what to expect but in the end I won by 27 imps.

Galligan v Blanchman ..the revenge

The above videos give running commentary as I play and mention any silly things I might do.
I never go back and edit the videos to make myself look better ..it is what it is.

Galligan tries Wbridge5 Daily tourney with Video

Yesterday morning Eamon attempted the Wbridge5 daily tournament

http://bridgez.net:3002/playonthecloud

The link is above.
New players will need to register.

The link to the video of my efforts is placed below .. I struggled home with about 52% and well down the field. However I might have beaten Willem.

Video of Eamons struggle on Wbridge5

Since then I have played a challenge against Murphyslaw from BBO sometimes referred to as Blanchman as he lives near there sometimes.

When the smoke cleared Eamon was shocked to be 57 imps behind after 16 boards.
Murphy is an ordinary Inter A player in Malahide Regional Bridge Club and suddenly he does this to me.

I will just have to take that as an outlier something akin to Liverpool and Spurs both making the Champions League Final from 3-0 down.

..............
Tonight is Malahide Regional Bridge Clubs Presidents Prize but they can be at rest as Murphy is working the night shift so will not appear at that event.

It was a wonderful sunny day today

...............
I found a great website from Israel but one might need to learn Hebrew.

http://bridge-tips.co.il/

Thanks
Eamon Galligan

Bridgebase version 3 video with Peter

Folks

This afternoon  I made a video by request of a challenge against Peter. Unfortunately despite playing steadily and avoiding most of the pitfalls I lost by 20 imps.
On further EXAMINATION I noted that my robot team mates had allowed 2 beatable games to make. This cost me 20 imps of loss. However team mates often do this in bridge so what can one do.

3NT with no play on a club lead and the robot made a club lead and then failed to finish the job.
4H with no play on any lead and the robot managed to let it slip through.

However the good side is that our Peter is representing Malahide against the dreaded enemy Saint Anthonys from behind the church this afternoon in the FA Cup final of Bridge.
Hopefully he will lead his team to victory and show them my video on his phone.
Peter is very techy sav. Next year he will be minding the bridgemates.

Here is the link to my 16 board loss against Peter the Shadow.

Peter crushes Eamon

.............
Tonight I am off to Malahide to run the Kirwins League Final evening.
It starts in Malahide Regional at about 730pm.

May 11th 2019

Good afternoon folks

Today we have Galligan versus Mullingarman video.
We also show a flyer for the Muldoon Cup that came in the post ..

Muldoon Open Cup takes place on
Sunday June 9th 130pm
Two sessions
Dun Laoghaire Bridge Club

Entries .. Michael Rowan 087 7638948
michaelrowan62@yahoo.com

So we have a video below of Galligan v Mullingar

Galligan v Mullingarman

Galligan defeated Mullingarman for the 7th challenge in a row and I don't even play bridge
anymore.

....................
Later on this month we will be going to Belfast to run the Egan Trophy on vugraph.
This has 10 teams .. 7 Teams from CBAI and 3 teams from NIBU.

All will be well .. I understand our champion Moran team is playing.
However they are resting up at the moment.

New Bridgebase Test with Advanced Robots

This morning I am doing another test of NEW BBO with Advanced Robots. The last time it was boot out Eamon regularly. Later I ran a new test with Basic Robots and that seemed to roll along well.
Today it was a struggle with Murphyslaws Advanced Robots.

Then I found the touchscreen was working good or better. So I Tried some of that.

Then Peter Wilson came along and he always wants it now and right now.
Patience is not his virtue. He burst into my video like Batman in a Robin video.

So I had to leave my challenge and put up a teaching table for him. He wanted to play a loser on loser hand that he had attempted about 10 times already. I even told him how to make it but he was not listening so down he went again.

Anyway here is link to latest video test of NEW BRIDGEBASE ONLINE.

New Bridgebase Online test

Click on above link for a workout on the new BBO VERSION.

The bloody dog made a loud bark there. Scared the robots.

He must have heard Peter Wilson arriving into Bridgebase unexpected to learn about LOSER ON LOSER.

New Bridgebase Online ...better today

Today I made another video with the brand new version of Bridgebase Online.

Yesterday in my last post the new version was struggling terribly so I had to switch to the OLD version. For some reason my I AND O keys are struggling on this keyboard. Must get the Google out and find out why. Its only the capital letters.

Anyway i played against Mullingar man. He is the chap who first tried to teach me bridge and still thinks he is a master of bridge. However he does not realise that AREA MASTER is just jumped up intermediate player. The MASTER is just like the MASTER in masterpoints .. .

its like " I love you long time , you give me mastercard "

Play long time ...get lots of masterpoints ... not good at bridge ..

So here we have a video of Eamon v Sean playing a 16 board challenge on BBO.

Eamon v Sean video     click on that link

...............................
Last night in Malahide Regional Bridge Club we had the Cowhie Trophy ..
Dan Cowhie .... I think he told me he was 95 or nearing 95 last night.

Dan Cowhie who started bridge aged 58 approximately ....now a good many years playing.
His wife Mary also playing a decent number of years but a late starter also.

Anyway the bearded masters won the Trophy last night ...
Charles Higgins and Phil Murray ....Charles is approaching 85 ... and Phil is a right age too.

We also had the annual appearance of Ray McConville a true master of bridge from Malahide.

He could have stroked me good last night when I chose to Double him in a hopeless contract.
As it turned out he could have escaped into 3 hearts making ....from a hopeless 3C doubled.

Hearts was my partners 2nd suit bid so from my point of view looked unlikely but further attention by me would have indicated an 8 card heart fit for them .. so probably I PRESSED on the trigger too foolishly. You see McConville is no fool and 40 years ago he probably worked out he is fecked in 3CX and bids his side 5 card suit ....and gets doubled by my partner in 3H MAKING.

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

New BBO versus Flash BBO

Good evening folks

Today I decided to try out the new HTML BBO as opposed to the flash BBO.
I used a CHALLENGE against my good friend Murphyslaw as the material.

From the start I had problems.

1. The advanced robots were slow
2. I kept getting booted out of the CHALLENGE
3. Eventually I started getting messages about cannot connect to GIB robot.
4. Finally I switched back to FLASH BBO and evenything ran like a dream.

You can find my experience here in a video.

Thankfully I managed to defeat Murphyslaw and put him to the sword.

Video of New BBO compared to old BBO

.................................
Last night I saw a bridge player of inter B standard win the last 4 tricks.
However it took about 40 seconds a trick.

I wondered about it so I asked her and she said .. I wanted to make them think they might get a trick.

YIKES ..

Thanks
Eamon Galligan

Lady Milne Match 3 Stanza 2 video

This morning I made a video of the 2nd Stanza of the Ireland England Lady Milne match.
IRELAND led ENGLAND by about 15 imps the halfway stage. However Ireland tossed away about 43 imps in slight misjudgments thus putting them in a losing position.

http://fob.ie

The link above goes to Fearghals Wonderful World of Bridge and I use it in my videos to get information.

Here is the link to my latest video

Ireland England Lady Milne Stanza 2

...........
At the end of the month I am going to La Mon Hotel to put the Egan Trophy on vugraph courtesy of the Irish Bridge Union. 10 of Irelands top teams will take the floor and we will show TWO MATCHES PER ROUND.

Alan Hill will be the tournament director for this event. It takes place on May 25th 26th at the La Mon Hotel.

Lady Milne Match 3 Stanza 1 Ireland England

Good morning all few of ye

This morning  I am continuing my Lady Milne series of videos. This is the 5th video of hopefully 10 videos telling the story of the Lady Milne 2019.
The event was held in the City North Hotel and it was a great venue.

Today we have

Ireland v England as my main match. We also glance at the other 2 matches if we notice anything interesting.

http://fob.ie is my source for results and scores and all things Lady Milne

Thats Fearghals wonderful world of bridge above

Here is the link to my video on Youtube

Ireland v England M3 S1

.....................
In the Kelbourne Cup I think 2 of my picks placed in the top 3 but maybe I need to check again.
WESTERN won the event leading the field a merry dance.

In the Inter A event some team led almost all the way and then Murphys Law came into play.
Murphyslaw is a well known bedroom bridge player only emerging from his cocoon to play as a replacement in Ireland National Finals  with his favourite partner Michael O'Mahony.

So the long time leaders were cruising to victory playing the final 4 boards of the weekend against a mid table team who presumably wanted just to head off and reach Malahide.

However Team Murphy somehow exploded into action or got loads of luck on the final 4 boards to oust the long term leaders and present the prize to the Mid Leinster Region which happens to be Murphys home region. Murphyslaw ...the Kingmaker.

National Team Finals ..Kelbourne Cup

This weekend 16 teams contest the Kelbourne Cup. To my passing eye there appears to be a large gap in bridge ability.
The possible winners in my view are in no particular order.

EASTERN
WESTERN
NORTH MUNSTER
DUBLIN SOUTH
HOLDERS
RUNNERS UP

Of those 6 WESTERN DUBLIN SOUTH and HOLDERS are my top 3 picks.

The DUBLIN NORTH team could get lucky and storm the event but its going to be hard for them to beat all 6 of my top 6 picks. DUBLIN NORTH last won the Kelbourne in 2006 or so powered by the powerful Dave Terry Pat Kelly imp machine with Paul Delaney holding the reins. However many years later its Dave Terry and some new kids on the block.

......................
In the Intermediate section the online player Murphyslaw emerges from his computer and sets his sights on the National Inter A championships. However Murphyslaw will not be used to real cardplayers so could find the cuteness of the country boys and girls to be too much.
Murphyslaw is assisted by Interprovincial superstar Michael O'Mahony and new Master player Mary Deane and her good friend Rosaleen Murphy.

I am writing this without view of the running scores.

The HOLDERS are a powerful squad with Derek O'Gorman Cian Holland and the mercurial Ciaran Coyne. Tom McCarthy is also a very capable force of nature.

DUBLIN SOUTH could grind it out DELANEY ROCHE DUNNE BRADY look a little on the boring side but they have plenty of national titles along with the added artistry of Sean O'Lubaigh.
Sean once played in TWO pairs events at the same time. A Mens Pairs and an OPEN PAIRS.

WESTERN with KEAVENEY GLYNN SCANNEL and WALSH on board have a chance as
there is plenty of flare  there, However WALSH GLYNN were medium in the CAMROSE and Paul Scannell might not be at his sharpest as I have not seen him around too often recently.
This is my fault as I don't be out on the sea sailing.

...............
Now I look at the running scores

In the Inter B event I see the Carabine sisters back in 11th place of 22 teams.

In the INTER A event Murphyslaw is being held tight at the back of the field.
However one expects O'Mahony will let him off the leash soon

NOW to look at the big one and check out my picks

2 of my 3 picks are in the top 3 after 4 matches but my HOLDERS are after getting a trimming from North Munster 19-1 so are well back for now.

I am afraid WESTERN are after dispatching HOLDERS so that might be the end of HOLDERS for this year. They are 38 VPS out of the lead having already played the leaders WESTERN.

DUBLIN NORTH have just dispatched MLR by  18-2.

In the INTER As Murphy just ran into the famous Martin O'Briens and came out the wrong end.

Lady Milne Match 2 Stanza 2 Ireland Northern Ireland

Good morning

Here is the 4th video of the series on Lady Milne Trophy 2019.
Match 2 Stanza 2

The event was held at City North Hotel and organised by CBAI Office.

Fearghals Website

I am using Fearghals website to show the boards and results along with Bridgebase onlines vugraph archives.

Here is Match 2 Stanza 2 video link

Ireland Northern Ireland

Two of the big boards of this match happened near the end so ye will have to wait.

Looking at the abovc screenshot one can see a large number of imps transferring on the final 5 boards. 50 imps out of 129 happened on the last 5 boards.
The big one was Northern Ireland venturing into 7S on what seems to be a misunderstanding.
The opposition took the 3 aces that Blackwood missed.

Lady Milne Match 2 Stanza 1 Scotland CBAI

Good morning folks 

This morning we continue with the Lady Milne 2019 series of videos. Video 3 of probably 10 videos. Today  I planned to cover the Northern Ireland v Ireland match but unfortunately the vugraph operator stuck in the wrong names or did not know the players. So instead of Kenny Rigney we had McDonagh Sharkey and it did not look good. 

So I decided to switch to Scotland CBAI. This was not good watching if you are a CBAI fan or player. A good hiding was had by all. 

Fearghals Website  has all the information on the Lady Milne 2019. England won the event but these videos will focus on the Ireland teams.

Team IRELAND were captained by the well known bridge coach and teacher MR PETER PIGOT.

Team CBAI were captained by former rugby international Diarmuid Reddan or maybe it was former bridge international. 

Eamons video on Scotland CBAI

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

Last night there was 32.5 tables playing in Wed Captains prize in Malahide Regional. I forget who was winning. 

Lady Milne Match1 Stanza2 video

Good morning folks
Here is the 2nd of hopefully 10 videos on 2019 Lady Milne Trophy. This event was held the weekend of  April 12-14 2019 in the

City North Hotel

The link is above. A grand spot if you doing anything near the airport.

Information on the boards and results can be found on Fearghal O'Boyles website

http://fob.ie

And search for Lady Milne Trophy 2019. Loads of stuff is there on all the boards and plays.
England won the event in comfort with half their top team. Scotland had the full squad on duty but failed to take full nourishment from the 3rd to 6th teams.

Paul Porteus CEO of  Contract Bridge Association of Ireland indicated afterwards that the event was there for Ireland to win but  I personally think it was always Scotland or England.
...............................

Last night in Malahide I had 10.5 teams turn up for a team event. So rather than send someone home we went with a pairs movement scored by imps. I think it went well.

Looks like Youtube has done its job ..

Lady Milne Match1 S2

Link to video at above link ..

No offence is intended to any player. Its all about improvement for the next time.

Lady Milne Match 1 Stanza 1 City North

Last weekend in CityNorth saw the Home Internationals for the Lady Milne Trophy take place.
6 teams from England Wales NIBU CBAI Scotland and Ireland took part.

I made video report on the first half of match 1 with reference to Ireland and CBAI in the main.

The link to the video is posted below

Lady Milne 2019 M1 S1

CBAI took a trimming from Ireland in first stanza .. 53-5 in imps

However looking through the boards there were plenty of chances for CBAI especially to close the gap to at least manageable levels.

Fearghals website has information

Hopefully another video tomorrow.

John Carroll plays well in USA

Thomas Hanlon reports that John Carroll visited Graceland while in Memphis last week.
After getting trimmed in the first round of the world renowned Vanderbilt Trophy Team Street with Hanlon and Carroll on board managed to place 2nd in some teams event later.

I think it is called North American Swiss Teams but I will look it up as we go.

We will go to ACBL.org and look up Thomas Hanlon. I don't think they do GDPR in America.

ACBL Live

Then you click the above link and you enter the search for Tom Hanlon ...

ACBL calls him Tom but a long time ago I was severely reprimanded by Annie Hanlon who explained to me clearly that her sons name was Thomas.

Then you will see that Tom Hanlon won 93 masterpoints for 2nd place in the Jacoby Swiss Teams
I think it is called after Jim Jacoby or his dad Oswald Jacoby.

https://live.acbl.org/event/NABC191/SWIS/4/summary

If you go on the above link you will find many great players placing behind Hanlon and his gang.

...............
Moylan Cup on the weekend in Malahide sees Hanlon Carroll in action again ...
3 sessions Sat Sun starting at 1330 on Saturday.

Cannot remember who won it last year but maybe it was the Phelans or was that the year before.
Time goes by so fast ..

Down in 7S is not good and National Pairs Final

This morning  played the end of a challenge on Bridgebase Online against Mullingarman. Happily I launched myself into 7S contract. Sadly having a suitable layout I put it on the floor and lost 20 imps.  Moral of the story down in slam does not beat plus in game.
I knew I had a good shot at making the contract on the lead but I took the eye off the robots left hand. Left hand lead mean SINGLETON ...  I suffered the Denis Dillon fate.

In Mens Teams in Galway in 1996 Dennis uttered in his best Cork accent. "I WOULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT EAMON" The capitals are meant as Dennis had a loud voice. Down Eamon went in a cold one. I thought I had learned but today I did it again.

Meanwhile the video Galligan is beaten by Mullingar Man

Meanwhile down in Athlone the champions of all regions are doing battle for the various
National Pairs titles. Some pairs got a shock yesterday when they found out there exist other big lads and lassies in other regions.

I made a few tips but they are not running well yet.

Davidson ... McNeill and Scannell ... Delaney Brady are the form pair here

Laird .. I don't really know any players here except Deegan Deane and the old chess player from skerries Pat Mulholland. He was good at chess not sure about the bridge but he is partnering famous vugraph operator Carol Sheridan from the bridge playing family of Tom Rose Brendan and Helen.

Civil Service Cup ..... I thought Hughs McMackin had a chance but they ran into some heavy weather in Session 2. Maybe they will produce a 74% 3rd session to win the thing.

Good luck to all

I found Hugh McGann on a podcast today.

Today while nosing around the google I found our very own Hugh McGann.

Some NZbridge podcast

In this week's episode Bruce and Jane catch up with Brett Glass, one half of the winning Babich NZ Wide pairs partnership. Hugh McGann, Irish International player and newest Hamilton Bridge Club member also joins the show and Ed Roggeveen from Blenheim talks about plans for tournaments in Top of the South.

THE BRIDGE ZONE takes you to the broadcast.

I fully understand Irish bridge players are lazy and unlikely to even listen to this. 

However a small amount of effort will get you to a 10 minute piece of radio where McGann talks.

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

Meanwhile the inaugural Irish Mixed Bridge Team is winding down their attempt at qualifying for the World Mixed Teams championships. They are not making it and are currently taking a good hiding from the low table Greek bridge team. the score is 0-34 after 9 boards. However Ireland have plus scores on boards 10 and 11 but so have many other NS pairs so no more than a small gain is possible. 

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

Meanwhile I have branched out in the challenges on Bridgebase. I have offered to thrash Kilkenny youngsters under the tutelage of the famous Margaret Murphy school of bridge. 

Currently its Eamon 1 Kilkenny 0 

I hope to make 10 in a row of 8 board challenges  

The legendary Donal MacAongusa rolls back the years and storms Lederer

World champions English champions European champions were scattered all over the RAC club in London as Donal MacAonghusa rolled back the years and tackled the world reknowned Lederer bridge event. Donal and his 3 Irish team mates placed a very credible 2nd place in the high class Lederer trophy held this weekend in the RAC club.

I noted last week that the dress code for the venue was quite nice

 Very posh. A 2004 low slung automobile might not be allowed in the parking garage.

Any yes Team Ireland placed 2nd ...Donal Mark Moran John Carroll and Thomas Hanlon the bridge player. I think 2 of them went to the same secondary school. 

I think only about 8 Irish players have won the Lederer Trophy and its much tougher these days.

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

Meanwhile the Irish Mixed team is tacking its was through some heavy storms out in Portugal. 

Happily some opponents bid a 7NT and we got it down and on same board holding 33 high card points our other half managed to put the brakes on in 4NT. No slam made and the Irish gained 13 imps. I need to learn that system. They even owned every first and 2nd round control in the deck. 

Cavendish 2019 and some videos

Today the Cavendish Pairs 2019 the best known pairs bridge event outside of the World and European championships started. Nearly all pairs are well known professional bridge players.
Our own John Carroll and Thomas Hanlon are taking part. Currently lying in 47th place of 65 pairs.
One wonders why the organizers did not come up with an even number of pairs. Probably no big deal in a large event like this to have a sitout. After all we have sitouts every night in our clubs.

Meanwhile this morning I played my latest challenge against Blanchman.
This man fancies himself as a bridge player but he has a little to learn yet to reach A1 level

Galligan v Blanchman

Having finished off Blanchman one wandered around BBO and spotted a short 5 board challenge from Malswan. Now Malswan is a very decent opponent and plays for the Irish junior team so it
will be hard to win. However the plan was to play these 5 boards and then record a little screen of the
live Cavendish in running scores in case someone might want to find the website and watch.

Galligan loses to Malswan and Cavendish

Meanwhile this week we have the CBAI Simultaneous Pairs.
Same deals played on same night in various clubs across Ireland.

www.simpairs.com

The link above should get you to the results pages.
Even if you did not play you can find the hands and booklet here.

Finally don't forget Mark Knopfler is a fine guitarist and Emmylou Harris can sing

Knopfler and Harris

Regional Teams 2019

This weekend we have the Regional Teams played in all Regions across the country.In Dublin North Region we are struggling to get Master Teams. So far only 4 have entered, Normally we get about 7 or 8 teams but this year the Masters are thin on the ground.
We have only 3 B/novice teams entered so far .. but on Tuesday I ran a competition for Bs and novices in Malahide and we had 19 teams just in our club alone. Regional Teams is at same venue but where are the teams.

This morning  Galligan played Kilkennyman in matchpoints. Unfortunately Kilkennyman did not complete so hopefully he played a decent number of the 12 boards.

Galligan v Kilkennyman

Last night in Malahide Regional Bridge Club we had the annual Maurice Quinn Trophy.
and the winner was Sheila McCabe who knows Philip Quinn son of Maurice.

The hands were good ones but nobody complained. Sometimes they like good hands.
More later.

Thanks
Eamon Galligan

Cork Bridge Congress Weekend and Blanchman video

Meanwhile down in Cork they also play bridge but the Bossman is in town with his Irish paassport. Hopefully he took time for a haircut before his arrival. Bossman failed to keep it going in the Mixed Pairs so no prize there.

Cork Bridge Congress Mixed Pairs

Today we will watch the running scores on the Diarmuid Reddan organised event.
He is a one man dynamo tournament director. Mairead Basquille runs many events but she has Fearghals help. Diarmuid rolls on his own and sometimes plays in the events to boot.

This morning I did a challenge against Blanchman. He got 20 imps on two boards for free.
Eamon won by 4 imps but robot gifted Blanchman 12 imps on one board and Blanch man got 8 imps for what in my view is a dramatic underbid. See for yourselves .. board 4 and 15

However when you have not completed the cardplay module you better not be bidding too high.

Eamon v Blanchman

Next weekend sees the annual running of the Regional Teams ..a qualifier for National Teams ..
Magic Murphy won't be there due to work commitments.

Maurice Quinn Trophy 2019

Last night in Malahide Regional Bridge Club we had the first session of the Maurice Quinn Trophy.
Generally the hands are racey. However herself did not like them as she spent the night looking for the catches. However there were no catches so she caught no fish.

Earlier this morning  I played a challenge against Mullingar Man. Unfortunately the man from Mullingar lost by 5 imps and has now lost 5 in a row and is descending into the depths of gloom.

Galligan beats Mullingarman

Galligan made a return to combat last Sunday. Playing on a team out for the experience we placed nicely in the middle of the field.
We are thinking of offering oursoelves as subs for the Camrose Trophy as the mainstays of Irelands Camrose team placed behind us ...even the aging but great Thomas Hanlon.

Magic Murphy made his debut in the big leagues at the Mens Teams. I think he done okay.
We won 4 matches and lost 1 narrowly. Some dunces from Galway bid 7NT against our team mates
and our lads could not cash their ace. The English would call it "An Irish grand slam"
Off an Ace.

Premier Pairs after 70 and how not to play bridge

Yesteerday morning I played a Bridgebase online challenge against Donegalman and it did not go well. I performed about 4 methods of not playing bridge. I got doubled in 4S on a partscore board and lost 800. I went down 2 vulnerable in a making 1NT. The other table made 8 tricks.

Of course one could lie low and not upload ones heavy loss but its hardly right to only sing when you are winning. So here is my bad bridge video below

Galligan loses to Donegalman

Lets be clear now Donegalman is Intermediate B and Galligan is somewhat higher grade.

Meanwhile over in Wales Irelands top bridge players headed into the Camrose. The weakened 4 man team strolled through the Camrose Trials and then added a couple of Butler performing pairs for the 2 Camrose weeekends. However you cannot take 2 long term partnerships apart and make up 1 semi regular partnership and hope for some semblance of reality. This was the Hanlon McGann Garvey Carroll world class partnerships divided into Hanlon Carroll. Added to this we had the functioning Moran Boland partnership replaced by new partnership Moran MacAonghusa. This is not to say that the players are not very capable but 55 years of partnership agreements and cooperation is on the sidelines for the moment.
We also had Camrose debutants Ronan McMaugh and Marcin Rudzinski both capable players but being a relatively new pairing they won't have anything near a bunch of years of partnership understandings to go with their capability. Being Camrose debutants is also moving to a new level of bridge and taking on pairs with enormous years of partnership agreements.

We won't publish any results except to note that Team Ireland languishes 20 VPs behind the NIBU squad that finished so far behind last year their NPC indicated they could be visited in the zoo the next day. Blessed are the porridge makers for they shall not go hungry.

Meanwhile Galligan played another 7 boards of the Jim Cahill Premier Pairs event.
I am still climbing even if still below average.

I got a chance to play a 4S contract very well and gathered in a nice score. This was Board 65 of the 149 board event

The Jack robots cashed AK of diamonds and played a 3rd diamond and I had to ruff high. 

From here careful timing allowed me bring in 10 tricks via the 2 time club finesse. Of course I got lucky with the 2-2 trump break. Of course the contract is down from the gate as 2 diamonds and ace of club and a ruff but Galligan lucked out for a decent score. 

The scores after 70 boards are above. This includes the addition of a set of plays by 4 GIB robots as well as the 3 Jacks with Eamon so won't be exactly as the live competition went. However it serves to ease the pain on some boards for some humans. Here we are running 12 pairs as opposed to the original 8 pairs. 

Galligan v Clareman plus Premier Pairs after 63

Good morning all

This morning I finished off a bridge challenge against a new opponent who we will call Clareman.
Unfortunately I lost the challenge by 15 imps. I think my opponent got lucky.

Galligan loses by 15 to Clareman

mWhile the above video was uploading to Youtube I played another 7 boards of the Jim Cahill Premier Pairs. Unfortunately I dropped to 10th place of 12 with the lethargic BJ 'Brien getting some lucky few boards with his partner Terry Walsh and passing me out.

Meanwhile presure has been applied to me to tog out in the forecoming Mens Teams.
Having expressed severe resistance it was no good. Now I have to play.
However the only thing I am missing is Spurs v somebody on the box.

So as can be seem above I am not making a big impression in the Jim Cahill Premier.
Maybe thats why I am assigned vugraph duties instead of being allowed to play.