Connor Doyle struggle in Ireland Imps Pairs ..Cobol Cate offers help on Grand Slam

 Ireland Imps Pairs every night at 830pm Interesting hands but I never look at them beforehand

Last I spotted legendary golf rescue coach loitering near the bottom of the imp pairs. Doctor Sean who can save you 10 shots on your golf game by using the rescue loft club. 

So the first example saw our boys take a crack at Pat Coffeys 2C contract but they only managed 

to collect down 2 instead of the possible 3 down. 

First at trick 6 Culbaire slipped by continuing a small trump ..maybe it was a misclick or maybe it was after the good play by Coffey of ducking trumps and leading Doyle into the swamp. 

However Coffey fired his gain right back like the Monaghan GAA team today. 

7 points up at half time and they lost it ... 

Play continued until trick 11 when Doctor Connor skewed his mouse off the Heart 8 and onto the big Spade. Missing out on the class play of H8 which would have skewered Coffey for another 200. 

On this board Doyle and Connor chose to stop in 3S as they only had 19 combined points. 

Thats reasonable enough. However with 10 tricks available the off form Doyle managed to 

wander into down 1 territory. It looks intuitive to cross ruff but its a better idea to make  a plan 

that is going to get you 9 or 10 tricks as opposed to going plodding and hoping. 

I think they have a thing called hit and hope in the golf 

Down 1 went Doyle and a missed chance of plus imps. 

Board 5 saw Connor not happy with having got in his 1S overcall deciding to introduce

the EIGHT high diamond suit totally ignoring zaczac negative double. 

Zaczac doubled again thunderously and the ROBO was listening and PASSED. 

4 down and 800 for the robozac. 

Next we found the Connor Doyle combo boom into 7S but unfortunately the play did not 

match the bidding. Most grand slams need a little bit of Matt Forde ....a famous Wexfordman 

from the GAA. 

Our man won the opening lead with Diamond king and set off drawing 3 rounds of trumps.

I cannot see any possible way for this line to make the contract and I expected better from declarer Doyle who can play a little some days. However this was a non-play day. 

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

So I asked Cobol Cate ... 

She said I win Diamond King 

T2 3 4 I play AK clubs and ruff a club.

T567 I draw 3 rounds of trumps and end on Spade Queen. 

trick 8 I ruff my last club

trick 9 A of Hearts ....I  think its from Austria ..Vienna coup

trick 10 small diamond to QUEEN ..

trick 11 ..I play my last trump and watch the gallant opponent with HEART QUEEN and long diamonds

CRUMBLE ...13 tricks made

Board 9 the intrepid duo pounced on Mollyhen from Athy in 3H. 

The lads took the first 4 tricks and then failed to take the setting trick and 

Molly headed for home in 3HX and 530.

Cobol Cate arrives in 6NT in the Ireland Imp Pairs

 The Ireland Imp Pairs takes place every night at 830pm. None of this 715-740pm stuff when BBO building cleaners are around with need to plug in their hoovers and unplug a server or 2. 

So its Cobol Cate on declarer against the Defenders Double Declan and Double Deane who claim

they are better than what it says on the double dummy printouts by Deep Finesse who can see all the cards. 

So Cobol Cate hoovers up the Diamond lead with King 

T2. Advances a small Heart to reach dummy.

T3 Runs Spade 10 successfully keeping lead in dummy

T4 plays spade 5 to spade Jack winning and reaching the below position

One small point ..Cobol Cate would be better use HT and keep the hearts fluent for later finessing.

So what next ... The Deanster points at the clock and puts the rush on Cobol Cate who remains 

unmoving doing her sums .. A club finesse looks nice 

T5 we do the Club finesse and that wins ...

T6 we do another Club finesse and note the Deansters hilow with trepidation ... and Lightning swoops 

in with the Club King.. 

Lightning can see that HEART and SPADE returns are hopeless so returns Diamond 10 

won by Cobol Cate with Ace. 

Cobol Cate notes the Deansters discomfort on discarding on 2 winning clubs and feels some hope

4 cards left and only 3 winners so looks like one down ... 

Trick 10 Heart to the King ..and the Deanster follows easily 

Spade Ace is cashed and the Deanster wobbles a little ... 

The poor Deanster is caught in the vice like grip of Cobol Cate and can throw a winning diamond or bear the Heart Jack ... 

6NT bid and made by Cobol Cate ... and our intrepid defenders would be 24 imps worse off if they played Cobol Cate .... 

Happily for Mary Deane they played Mr Potato and he cashed Spade ace at trick 4 and left all the pain

go away. 

Cobol Katie shows how to make 3S doubled against all the odds

 Recently Cobol Katie took up bridge and tried to use her programming skills to work the cards. Unfortunately her partner Accounting Dora swears by the Hackett convention. 

So poor old Cobol Kate ends up in 3SX and looks in Deep Trouble

Trick 1 .. North leads and wins Hearts

Trick 2 North leads another Heart and Cobol Katie ruffs

Trick 3 Cobol Katie being short of trumps starts off using her reserve suit Clubs as a kind of trumps. 

Club to the Jack ...she uses finesse as entry to work the diamonds

Trick 4 Cobol Kate leads a diamond towards KQ and South starts to feel the pain 

lets say Cobol Kate is allowed win King diamond and Kate advances another Club finesse 

South ruffs

Nothing better to do except play a trump 

Meanwhile Accountant Dora is doing the sums in her spreadsheet and sees NINE is possible and starts bouncing in her managerial chair as the BOSS looks through the window. She can see that slowly a bright light is coming down the tunnell and its not a train ..its Cobol Kate cycling the Club Suit as reserve trumps. Eventually South will ruff for the final time and win her 4th trick but Accountant Dora will be totting up the score for 3S doubled and made .. 

What a player is this Cobol Katie. 

She might replace Declan the Donplayer or Shane the Unblocker in my stories. 

How not to bid a slam in 6NT from Ireland Imps Oct28th 2020

 Nightly Ireland Imps Pairs ... this is the best session of bridge on BBO .. 830pm Irish time

2 BBO dollars ... 24 hands with some nice interference bidding on some boards 

Sacrifice bidding does work on some boards

Good morning folks 

Last night despite the BBO blip at around 7pm Ireland time BBO managed to get everything up and running in time for our nightly games. I understand that many folk think they are the only single person in the world locked out of BBO at any one time but its not true ...it is 50000 other folk all banging their keyboards and tablets and mice and Ipads at the same time with the same problem. Eventually BBO will solve the issues ....last night the cleaning person pulled out the plug on a server in Las Vegas to run his hoover for 20 minutes and we bridge players had to wait while he or she cleaned the room. 

So we pushed back the start times by 15 minutes or so and off we went .. 

I saw a hand in the Ireland Imp pairs last night with a regular partnership of a couple of years at the helm. This pair has many successes at the intermediate A and B level. So lets see them bid a slam. 

North South remain silent ..sitting in awe of their well known opponents

1 diamond goes number 1 after picking up a nice 19 count with a VOID

1 spade replies number 2 as she caresses her 6 spades to the AQ

STOP 3NT goes number 1 as she rushes to tell partner the good news of her 19 point hand

Number 2 opens the kennel and unleashes Frankie otherwise known as Big Dog GRRRR BRRRRR

4C from number 2 ....how many aces you got 

4H from number 1 ... I got one of them aces 

Thats not grand says number 2 we are only missing one but  we can still bid a small slam 

She sends off Frankie again and asks how many KINGS ...

5C ... 5NT roars number 1 ... I got 3 big kings ...

Hmmmm says number 2 ... we are missing an Ace and a King ... oh well ...

Locks Frankie Gerber away and says sure my 6 card spades will be trumps ...

Yikes goes number 1 ... we can hardly play in spades with my VOID ... 6NT she goes 

..........

A club is led and number 1 attempts to count 12 tricks .... and can only find about 10 

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

So what went wrong ...

1. They only had 30 points 

2. They were missing an Ace and a King 

3. One had a VOID in partners main suit 

4. They had no trump fit 

5. They never met my friend Sally Dawson  from Fitzwilliam ......she says 

"Plus in part score beats down in slam or even plus in game gets a game bonus" 

After dropping 28 imps on the first 3 boards our intrepid pair did well to end up on only minus 10 imps after 24 hands ..

There was no hurry on the above board ... spade void should slow things down 

1D 1S 

2H 3S

3N 

2H shows 17+ so thats the 19 hcp taken care of 

3S shows 6 card spades ..no good opposite void ...also no other suit or secondary diamond support

Thus better stop in 3NT having shown all our stuff and got no good news ..

Leave Frankie in the kennel

Painting oneself in the corner. Ireland Imps Pairs 830pm every night

This evening I was reviewing the big scores from Malahide this morning to see what tips I can learn for when the COVID tide recedes. I spotted an opponent of one of the leading pairs bidding 6NT. However he declared from wrong side and I presumed leading pair got him down for their 100%. I looked anyway. I could not see any way to lose the slam. 

Just play Diamond King and next trick he sees Spade Queen ... 

Unfortunately a trick ahead of himself probably and instead of a nice 100% in the bag he ended up with 0% as he locked himself in dummy to lose the last 2 tricks in Hearts. I did this myself once in Drogheda Congress was racing towards making 7C grand slam against Ciara Burns and Murchan but got a trick ahead of myself and blew it . 

Last night in the Ireland Imps one chap called the other a chimp for bidding 3H jump bid and not alerting it. Then he called me a jellyfish...Hopefully someday Garve meets the Lions Mane and finds out the real deal. 

I mean does this really need alerting. Its simple Acol bid ..limit raise 10-12 hcp. 

Then he started crying about 4C makes but sure the robot does not understand alerts. 

Then he put on a big sulk and would not bid on the next board. 

Eventually I had to put in a robot to play last hand of the set. A grown man sitting there sulking.

What a whinger and crybaby. 

However at least he is an honest whinger so we won't be blocking him yet. 

I guess he will do a sulk now and not appear for several days but he will return. They always return. 

I do understand a little bit but sulker is basing his whinge on allways3 being an Expert. Its great for allways3 that thegarve rates him as an expert player. 

Hand 1 Charles Higgins Session 2 ....we missed again

 A few days ago I was playing the Charles Higgins Session 2 boards and hand 1 was annoying me. I tried the effect of passing my partners weak 2 opening but the robot EW roared in with a double and a jump to 4C. So we looked at that and figured well we should get 2H tricks and 1 diamond  and 1 spade trick so down 1 is surely good for us ..

So we defended 4C and no matter what I tried the North robot insisted on giving a ruff and discard in Hearts thus allowing 4C to make .. Later on it slowly dawned on me that 4C was cold and the North robot was not giving away the contract. 

So I had a look at the results in Malahide. We have 24 results and 14 of them are an unmolested 2H contract. The EW folk just sit there and take the medicine with no argument. Most of them blow a trick on defence and shrug ...Nothing we could do ...and take their 25% scores. 

1. East could try an aggressive 3C bid ...Now that is fairly hungry......

2. Coming around to West he or she could consider a takeout double 

3. push them up to 3H ...you might defend better and get them down 

4. Opponents who are under pressure often struggle to make contracts

5. 2H is nice and soft ..not much pressure or danger of going down.....

6. so 14 tables where we can attempt to improve the EW score up from 25% ...

Moving on ...to the other 10 tables 

7. First line we have a 3D by West ...doomed to failure as only 6 tricks available 

but at least they had a go .... Now a little education and we might get this West 

to bid DOUBLE ..not put all eggs in one basket and enlist partners help in choosing a 

suit to play in ..

8. Looks like 8 pairs went willing to 4H and got bad scores for this ...However these

folk are closer to the mark as they have sacrificed against the cold 4C contract but the poor 

souls get 9 points out of 46 .. a fairly miserable return for taking the best action. 

Why is bidding good getting such a poor return. 

9. Finally the one EW pair who almost got it right ...5C-1 ...despite going overboard they still 

hauled in a nice 75% score ..stopping in 4C would have been nearly all the eggs. 

In this case the East player produced a 3C bid and partner overcooked it 

going all the way to 5C ...

10. How are so many capable players missing this hand by so much. 

There are no names mentioned here .. but most of the players above are playing past 30 years 

and consider themselves capable .. 

The hand was dealt normally and not created or fixed but I think it tells a story on not being 

competitive enough. 

Many years ago an old lad called Walshe in the Bankers Bridge Club ..He is dead since and suffered from what is now called dementia but he did his best and generally managed ok. 

He told me ...if you do nothing else ..don't let the opposition stop in 2 level if you can think 

of any excuse to bid. You can let them off if you have trumps as then I am short and have not done anything. Paddy Walshe was his name and he is neither of the more famous Galway and Listowel Paddys. 

A few hands that went awry in Ireland imps pairs Monday

 Ireland Imp Pairs every night at 830pm ... a great workout or training session ...

No 4333 hands here ..,. No 1NT all pass here ... 2BBO dollars 28 boards ... The real deal .. 

The despondent return of the Tranmers did nothing for the Ireland imps pairs. After a dismal round 2 when their Northern com-padres Connell and Marge destroyed them the Trannies were fighting a hard battle to rise from the depths. 

Board 27 saw the Trannies receive a nice gift from former international woman player Maria someone as she gifted them a going down all day partscore 

I mean why can you not have 2D 1H and 1S for down 1. 

Somehow Maria chose to roar up with Ace of Hearts and create discard for Tranmer to roll home 

the no play 4C ... plus 8 imps for Tranmer 

Then we were onto 3S on board 23 ... again 5 tricks off the top ...but no ...the defenders chose not to

do the business and Tranmer was away again for slates .. West even made the perfect Club lead .. 

Another 6 imps in the Tranmer bag ... No wonder people think he is too good for the Ireland Imps .. 

He is like a reverse Santa Claus. 

And we move on and we find Bruree in a cold 4S ...He knows from bidding where HA is but chooses to forget that opening bid ... down 1 in cold one and Tranmer is flying ... another 13.5 imps in the Tranmer bag . 

  My final example on this run sees Tranmer take the push to the failing 3D contract and then MaryPT pushes on to the hopeless 4C .. another 5 imps in Tranmers bag.. 

With a flash of his wand Tranmer has landed 32 imps in the plus ...and not a sign of MrT1000 on these boards. MrT2000 might be the greatest bunnybasher of the Covid era ...He is certainly racking up the imps since mid March .. However these 4 boards were all gifts from above.

Meanwhile ..its time to examine how the Tranmers came a cropper against the non-descript Donegal duo Connell and Marge... 

Board 5 Tranmers gained 2 imps for a missed slam 

Board 6 .. 

Its a going down 4H but it is quite tough it seems to me ... something about spades and trumps and thus Tranmer could not find the double dummy switch of a small spade 

Then Mrs1000 came alive and bid a decent 6D ..but again it was off as had to lose Ace and an offside trump queen. 

Board 8 saw the whole world making partscore or game in spades but Tranmer stopped off to collect plus 100 in 3HX. 

Finally revenge of the Bruree Joe as he roared into a cold 6S and played it perfectly to make loads of imps. Go on Bruree .. This left the shell shocked Tranmers down in bunny land hoovering up the lettuce and carrots .. 

The Donal is not the Tommy at the bridge

 Ireland imp Pairs every night at 830pm Good hands competitive bidding and Donal bidding 

Tonight I spotted this rare bidding

1C P 1S! X

P 2D  P 2N

P P X

I think a redouble happened and 2200 happened ...just like me in Brighton right Tommy. 

The West made an error in the bidding and the John Comyn was there to show

him the error of his ways 

It was hand 13 of the Ireland Imps pairs last night 

The Blindspot series continues with a hand from Ireland imps. Game at 830pm nightly

 Ireland imps pairs takes place every night at 830pm with 24-28 boards of Elvis deals ..no passouts and not much 1NT all pass. 

Right so with partner opening the bidding and Thomas holding a juicy 10 count of Ace and 2 Kings one fancies this will go down which it will. 

North makes the italian lead of a singleton as is not certain of the ability of HJ to work in its own right. 

So spade5 lead actually drops a trick but thats okay as the "expert" Allways3 often pays back a trick. 

So on we go and the North after winning spade ruff with HJ for some reason figures a club King will be a good idea despite the void in the dummy. So a club it is and now Allways3 can see the light and starts to bounce in his chair and starts counting in the 9 imps for making. 

He does some ruffing and draws a round of trumps nicely and now has only 4 cards left and is still in a winning position. However now his facemask drops over his eyes from his forehead and the blindspot sets in. For some reason allways3 draws another trump as he does not learn about cross ruffing method yet. The bad news is thegarve might read this and learn some information for his next battle with allways3. So allways3 clicks on a trump and feels the same feeling as the nephew felt in Homeland as his beloved uncle pulled the trigger. 

So Uncle Thomas finally reaches the stage but unfortunately only has a loose grip on allways3. 

Uncle Thomas does not realise that allways3 has made a booboo and follows the old book rule of if you can draw 2 trumps for one its normally a good deal. 

However it is not a good deal when there are 2 winners left for declarer and you have just dispatched your final trump. 

All Thomas has to do is play a diamond and allways3 becomes allways1downdoubled. 

Eventually TRUMP 6 becomes a master card and there is nothing that allways3 can do. 

I presume it was a blindspot or a reflex action by Thomas but its 16 imps gone in the bin ..

Just in case the naysayers start whinging about highlighting a chaps bad hand ...I did speak to Thomas last night on this hand and told him I am firing up my blog...

He replied "LOL" ... which means "laughing out loud " 

Many years ago when I made my debut on the online bridge I was greeted with all these "lol" messages ...I wondered why so many people were talking about "little old ladies" or "little old lads" 

There was also "lmao" ...which I eventually learned meant "laughing my ass off " 

or rotfl meaning "rolling on the floor laughing " 

Board 9 Gala Pairs Malahide ... continuing the Blindspot series

 Ireland Imps Pairs takes place every night at 830pm. Good hands no Pass outs .. a little shook up and stirred. 

Meanwhile I was perusing through the Malahide Gala Pairs results and the Declarer had played and noted the Declarer had taken part and noted several boards for declarer to examine. However that is another story, Tonight we are going to look at Board 9. 

Many declarers made 3NT despite being short of tricks and eventhough they got a fine lead into AJT. 

14 declarers made 3NT .. and 12 of them received a killing HEART lead so what went wrong. Well I don't know what happened but seems the defence dropped their guard. Lets look at the first one. 9v36

Small H lead and when declarer tackled clubs they both duck .. East is correct but West should take as this club is the 9th trick for declarer .. West wins club and puts heart thru and its down 1. Both ducking club means 9 tricks is there. 

Next exhibit saw a HK lead and all went well until Defender East failed to cash the last winning heart for some reason ...maybe was a misclick or maybe a misbrain or something but declarer was left away. 

We will look at one more ... Facelle and Picolino ... same as first exhibit they ducked the club and that is declarers 9th trick .. This declarer actually made 11 tricks when sheet indicates it should only be 8 

There are 8 or 9 more exhibits of declarer being allowed make a contract that should be down. 

Link to BBO result

Maybe its because its matchpoints and the defence are afraid of giving away the 10th trick. Who knows but the 3NT folk should all be going down on the above board .. 

The Ireland Imps Pairs is a nightly competition of IMPS scoring and is a great training session. 

Ireland Imps Webpage

Have a look at previous results  above link .. We also run a ladder competition of best 40 results added together in the year. 

Board 5 Malahide Gala Pairs ..is it a blindspot or what went wrong

 Ireland Imp Pairs takes place every night at 830pm ..Good hands decent opponents.. a couple of cute hoors ..a village idiot and a clown ..

Meanwhile in the leading club in the Broadmeadows area something bad happened. We had the opening event of the season and this year it was online due to the pandemic. However the pandemic of generosity was clear on board 5 as all defenders offered up free contracts 

Many defenders as west led off with spade 6 keeping their nice diamond suit for later earnings when partner gets on play. However it all seems to have gone wrong after trick 1. So what went wrong ..how did 9 10 and 11 tricks happen when the flogger indicates 7 tricks are the most for declarer. One thing is for sure the Malahide defenders are very HONEST and most generous. 

Looking at all 4 hands one can see .. 5 diamond tricks and a spade Ace but something went very wrong for most of these defenders.

Maybe they were still waiting to do their SIGNAL as declarer wrapped up the 10th or 11th trick. However something is clearly wrong with defensive signalling or thinking in Malahide Regional. 

I understand that the clubs motto is CARADEAS TRI IOMANIOCHT ...but its a long time since I have seen that written down and I think it comes from the past and means something like "We play hard ..We beat all but we remain friends " ...However these days something is wrong with the defenders ...

Maybe its because its matchpoints and they are afraid to give away an extra trick or maybe its because in the old days the jeweller would be shining his diamond ring with his handkerchief after leading a spade. 

At table 1 the mighty William Ronan is on declare and the defence leads spade and wins Spade Ace .. 

Returns a spade and the mighty claims 11 tricks quickly or slowly ..I don't know as I was not there. 

1NT and a Stayman auction saw Ronan bid 2D response ... Could West have mentioned a double of this 2D to indicate interest or is it too risky .. Anyway did not happen and 76% to NS. 

Table 2 and we have the powerful Doyles versus some other defenders ... Here Lando opened 1D so that might stop any switching to diamonds despite the singleton in the dummy ... 

Spade 6 lead and Ace wins and spade 10 is returned for some reason and Lando does the Billy Ronan thing and its 11 tricks and 76% 

Table 3 ..any better luck .. maybe ..here we have ping pong man on defence .. a table tennis superstar of the past ... No its not Alan Roughneed.. 

1D 1H 1N 3N ...and a spade 6 is led and the Ping Pong man slaps it with his Spade Ace bat .. and slams back his partners lead and South does the Billy Ronan thing and its 11 tricks and 76% NS. 

Table 4 and its the mighty Wed night star Facelle in the East seat but all that happens is more 76% NS. 

I blame Patrico Engoldsby  ... Rule number 1 ...Make sure you return partners suit ...its sacrosinct or sacrosanc or some word like that ... I know there are folk who still have a folder 27 years later with the Patrico Engoldsby notes from the first bridge class ... and Rule number 1 is ..return partners suit .. and rule number 2 is return partners suit .. and rule number 3 is return partners suit .. 

However what if you did not get lessons from Patrico Engoldsby ... what if Patrico Engoldsby never said return partners suit ... what if Patrico Engoldsby said ... ARCH ... 

Analyze the LEAD 

Review the BIDDING 

Count the TRICKS 

Have a PLAN ... 

The above is normally for declarer but it probably works for a defender as well ... 

Anyway if you did go to lessons with whomever was the bridge teacher in your local area ... those were lessons to start you off as a bridge player ....after the lessons ended you were meant to develop your game and beat all the opponents .. 

You can perform your own analysis on the other 20 odd tables of Masters and Inter As but all left out a plus score North South ..when none is there ... 

find board 5 here

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=24406-1599244213&u=ronanb

Several other boards like board 15 were much the same generocity 

Ireland Imps Pairs every night 830pm

 Folks every night at 830pm  we hold the Ireland imps pairs. 28 boards with lots of bidding and very few 4333 hands or 1NT PPP hands. Competitive bidding a plenty ... the opposition here interfere and interfere lots. 

Here is a hand where one opponent called his opponent something not so good 

South found a double of Easts opening 1S bid and West expressed sorrow about this bid. 

North South found their way into 5D doubled and disrupted Wests drive towards a slam.

However maybe Wests 4S bid was a little timid with such a strong hand. Playing 5 card majors we can hardly call Qxxxx of spades as 2.5 losers ..its probably 1 loser at most. So the hand is very slammish.

Being favourable vulnerability its open door for South to try any sacrificial move.

The result of Sept 19th above

Link to Sept 19th results

Sept 15th Ireland Imps Pairs Comyn and Curragh win

 830pm every night we run this Ireland imps pairs 

Malahide Congress Teams runners up John Comyn and Guy de Maupassant dominated the Ireland Imp Pairs on Monday night. They both had good helpers in their partners molleyhen and curragh8. 

Curragh8 got home in 6H to get the winners off to a good start on board 3 

but maybe it was the experience who leapt to 6H over 4H. 

Confidence in partners play I guess. 

Then we came across an east west pair who made nice bids but 

unfortunately they got a little high in the bidding and got sent the 

Curragh kiss. 

5D down a few and a nice stash of imps 

And above are the results showing the broad back of Curragh8 tranporting J Comyn 

over the line fending off the fast closing Carolyn Donnell and Kenny from Scotland.

September 16th Ireland Imps Pairs results Terry Gilligan

Ireland Imps Pairs runs every night at 830pm .. 24-28 boards in 6 or 7 rounds.  

Last night Tom Gilligan and Dave Terry posted a fine 68 imps plus score in the Ireland imps pairs. 

This left them 40 imps clear of 2nd place but they did not hit the front straight away. They had a 12 board battle with fellow Malahide players Elaine Caulfield and Agnes Kelly in rounds 4 5 an 6 and eventually won by polishing off Carolyn O'Donnell and Kenny in the final round. 

A good start as the robot sitouts opted to go all the way to 5Ds missing out on the better 4H contract. 

This generated 9 imps for Terry and Gilligan. 

However the 9 imps went back as this 5H was too tough to bring home with

5-0 trumps offside. 

These boys appear to be playing strong NT which they would have indicated on

arrival at the table. However I don't see any alert of the redouble. However

in this case the opps damaged themselves after the unalerted redouble so could have no

complaint. Unalerted bids can cause a pair to lose any gain connected to the non-alert. 

Here the 5CX might have made but the 5S offered was definitely not making. 

And above the results for September 16th

Sept 5th Ireland Imp pairs Bob and Martin Garvey win

 Last night in the Ireland imp Pairs the much "put your own word in " Martin Garvey saddled up with Bob the Robot and stormed to victory. There is an idot from Yorkshire who I don't even know but for some reason she decided to term me as someone who washes Garveys car or donkey but she used more coarse words than that. A nasty piece of work I am advised. Hopefully she will stay away from Ireland Imps pairs forever more. 

Anyway here are a few hands 

Anyway for some reason thegarve figured 3NT was a good idea. 

The defence stayed off HEARTS for much too long and thegarve gathered in 12 imps.

Again thegarve sails into 3NT and again the opps leave him alone to build 9 tricks and thegarve sails off with another 8 imps in the bag. Only round 1 and he has the bat out and ready for enlever. 

Finally in the last round the opponent and his robot climbed into 6H and thegarve waiting patiently delivered the hammer. Another 12.5 imps. Who says you have to be good. Just wait in the grass and the food will arrive. 

Plenty of decent players show up in the Ireland imp pairs. A good session for Teams practice as you can call the 4 board rounds as Team matches if you choose. 

sept 4th Ireland Imp Pairs sees the aspiring Sean Connor win the day

 Last night we continued the nightly Ireland imp pairs and we saw Sean and Brian win the day. 

Our intrepid lads climbed into the making 6Ds. I am not fully sure what the rest of the field were doing but 3NT plus loads seemed the order of the day. This is a good 6D and needs just to play high cards. However many players who consider themselves quite decent are not getting past 3NT. Of course they will say we took the middle road and got average. Average does not win. 

Surely a Strong NT in South facing the North monster should be examining slam. 

Then board 8 saw West stick it to the lads with a low point 3S opening. No problem a Skibbereen 3NT bid and a 5D bid and a 6D bid and we were in the making slam again. Not to be out done EW tried to save but were too many trick off at non vul. 

Meanwhile Dave Terry and his Bob were kicking up a storm and leading into the final board but failing to find a vulnerable game or at least take the insurance in case it made saw Terry and Bob overtaken on the final board .  number 28