Another hand from the same club as before ...this a squeeze hand

 Good evening all 

I am hoping to start a training club/group. Something like the original Ireland Imp Pairs which was packed to rafters at start of COVID but has now been flattened by the bricks and mortar clubs asserting their presence on BBO. I think I counted over 100 CBAI accounts but I could be wrong. 

So if you have any interest in bridge training in bidding play and defense provided through the medium of say 12-15 board tournaments send an email to eamongalligan62@gmail.com indicating same. 

I will generate a list of members and email addresses and see how we go. I am aiming at the Area Master and upwards group but nobody gets turned away. I have lots of hands from various bridge tomes that I gathered up over the COVID. 

So last night

Our man found himself working at 3C contract on the Spade King lead 

He has a couple of club losers and a couple of spade losers and probably loses a 3rd club somehow for starters. 

At trick 5 our brave soul reaches this position and East leads spade 9 and our man bravely ruffs with trump queen in dummy more in hope than anything else. Happily Mr Over-ruffer is ready and bangs the trump KING  on that thus ending any hope of a 3rd trump for him. 

And after 8 tricks our man having disdained the heart finesse and not bothered unblocking the Jack but having managed to draw trumps .....was in the above interesting position. 

He cashed Ace of Hearts and now is ready to execute the squeeze play. 

Run the last 2 clubs and smile at West as you offer him the choice of poisons 

Pick your poison was the old saying 

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

Real end of story was he cashed Heart King and took Diamond finesse ......but the lad in West 

decided to hold up his King so our brave soul cashed the Diamond Ace and claimed. 

What an amazing game this is ...

Of course maybe it was a misclick by West but he did not mention this when interviewed this 

morning on Eamon Galligan TV. North South did not notice the squeeze or their excellent luck but they were well aware of their 89% score as they informed me after 4 boards that they were running on 92% average .. 

A hand from a bridge club I was in last night

 Here is a hand I watched by accident last night ...well part of a hand ..I will put the full hand later on further down the page. 

We started off with the 4th highest lead of the 2 of spades. Now I fully understand that the 4th highest lead is the most suggested lead in bridge but there should be some additional brain usage along with it. 

In my time I recall holding J54 in 3NT opposite 76 in a suit and things were looking grim. Happily the opponent found 4th highest from AKQ2. True story although it was not in the Regent or Bankers. It was from my earlier days. 

However the above hand was on lead against 3NT and spades broke 333 around the table 

So not a good start for the defence. The 5s in these diagrams indicate the possibility of getting 3NT down one.

We move onto trick 6 where we note spades have not been played since but looks like declarer and the defence played clubs. North on lead again leads off the club 5 blowing the contract again .. in a different suit. A higher semi master club like 10 or 9 was fine ..

Now we move on to declarer who is feeling good at this stage. Two good returns so far to help him 

on his way so he decides one good turn deserves another and promptly endplays himself by playing the club 7 for some reason. He might have tried a spade to the King setting up his 9th trick. 

So its on to the North defender who looking at a wonderful dummy might be about 

to deliver the final nail in the master declarers coffin ..but it is not to be 

North after perusing the dummy or not cashes the spade ACE and gives the remaining 4 tricks to 

a grateful declarer. 

Full hand and bidding is above. 

Beating the contract 1 off would have gathered 70% for defender instead of the 

earned 0%. Eventhough it looks like 3 tricks were tossed away it was probably only 

the same trick several times. Declarer made 3NT for 100%. 

I only post this hand for education or demonstration of how easy it is

 for things to go wrong at bridge. No doubt this declarer was busy watching France beating Germany in the soccer last night and not paying too much attention to the cards. 

Another possibility might be he was faced by unbeatable superstars of his area and just presumed he was beaten from the off. 

Anyway France did beat Germany in the end. 

Galligan plays the Invitational Teams hands from June 2021

 Currently I am playing the hands from the June invitational and I will no doubt drift towards the bottom as the players are quite good. Like Thomas Hanlon and Thomas Garvey are playing as well as Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon. There are also some chaps nearly as good as Thomas Garvey. 

Of course I have my Jack opponent on 75% for now so that I won't be too far out the back.

I think I might start some 12 board teaching/learning tournaments in the morning time or maybe I could start an inter county teams event or maybe I could do both for the summer. 

Any thoughts eamongalligan62@gmail.com

A normal hand from Malahide Presidents that slipped by ..Hand 3 Night 2

Ireland Open Imps Pairs around 815pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session.

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

 Last night I got a message from Mr Noel Murphy who was confessing some recent bridge sins. As is usual when someone mentions a hand we look at the big picture. 

South was dealer and after an opening 1S from North most folk went to the ambitious 4H contract or the Heart partscore. Either way there was interesting stuff coming

1. Many folk led Spade 3 ....their partners suit 

2. For some reason there were several leads of Spade Queen

3. On the lead of the spade 3 NOBODY ducked the lead in East when the KING rose

4. Did anyone even bother placing the cards after opening lead

5. the play of King to trick 1 places Spade Queen in South so danger is coming.

6. Transportation is there via spades to have diamond switch 

7.Seriously bad news for those in 4H who draw 3 rounds of trumps and then think. 

8. Lots of folk going down in 3H and 4H despite 4H being very cold contract.

(on the spade lead )

9. There are even 2 Spade Queen leads from Qxx holding

Leading the Spade Queen eliminates the entry for the diamond switch later ..

I think its an interesting hand but maybe I have a twisted mind. 

Now in fairness when I glanced at the hand after the Murphy tribunal I noted the spade duck being touted by the double dummy solver and knew there was something to examine here. 

A sweet hand indeed .. 

Another hand from Malahide ..here the West asked about 4C in middle of auction causing a delay

 

Here the auction proceeded to 4C which turned out to be Gerber or Big Dog GRRRR BRRRR

as we call it sometimes .. West decided to attempt to find out what 4C meant and on not getting any answer decided to await the answer before moving on with the bidding. 

4 minutes went by as the players  sat and waited the response. Eventually the explanation was given and play moved forward. However I was called to find out "Why are you averaging board 9" 

Em says I ... "because ye never played it so has to be average most of the time"

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

Now I have no idea why West needs to know about 4C in the middle of the auction. Maybe it is a reflex action or maybe they always ask about 4C in middle of auction in real life. 

Asking can only help the opposition who might not know the meaning or might not have an agreement or might be about to have a disaster .. I personally never ask in middle of auction in case I might help out my opponents. 

I wonder should I have penalized West for the 4 minutes and the subsequent lack of play  of board 9 ? 

 

A hand from Malahide last night .. Director call and play and other items

 

This hand popped up in Malahide Presidents Prize last night. 

When dummy hit North screamed DIRECTOR ... NO ALERT 

I got there and found 3 humans and South robot sitting silently looking at the walls. 

No play happened and there was no sign of anything happening 

......

So I asked and found out that the double of 2C was not alerted. In my view no big deal as North is seeing the dummy hand and now has all the information. As South is a robot there is no way to tell the robot the meaning of the double. 

....

Further interrogation found out that double of 2C was "stolen bid " ...meaning Stayman.

The only thing to do was point out that West should have alerted the "stolen bid" meaning 

West did apologize and made no excuse or pain about it. 

I think North just called the director automatically thinking NO ALERT I might get something here. 

A little thought might have brought forward the point that there is no damage and North is lucky West failed to double his robots 2H bid. That would have gone lots off. 

..........

A non-alert has to cause damage before director can fix the damage. 

10 boards gone in the Bankers Mini Teams and I am doing ok but my opponents are tough.

  Ireland Open Imps Pairs at 815pm every night on BBO. This is a good training session as well as competition. You won't leave this event without some story. 

https://www.bridgewebs.com/irelandimps/

I am playing the Bankers Teams 30 boards and I am not winning. Other folk have more generous opponents. However I am beating Mamie MacCormac. 

I remember the days when if you got away from Mamie's and Michael's table with a few matchpoints it counted as a success. So I am 6 imps ahead of Mamie after 10 boards. 

Have to go to the shops now for grub and wine.

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

I spotted Granda Tom on fire last night in Devenish Club. He crushed all including Graham and Pascal despite getting a zero on the final board. Its not often the Granda gets a zero. Guess Grandma done him in. 

Bankers Mini Congress Teams and board 3 is a grand slam for some folk

 I made up a file for the Bankers Mini Congress Teams from Sunday May 2nd 2021..thats yesterday. 

I am proud to announce that my Jack robot sailed into 7H on a nice auction on board 3 of round 1

1. 2 plus clubs 

2. Roman Key Card 

3. 3 key cards 

4. Have you got queen of trumps 

5. Yes but I don't have any kings 

Grand so I will bid 7 says my robot 

We had a few only getting to game and a good few more who managed to bid the small slam 

Names are withheld on this site but can probably be found on the Bankers bridgewebs 

The 3 folks in games might need to have a little look at their bidding maybe ...I did not look to see who they were. 

From Norths point of view once it gets some heart support and 3 keys from the blackwood it is pretty much in Grand slam. Even with ordinary Blackwood and a little support from partner in Hearts its enough. Looking for Trump Queen is probably overkill but will cover a 3-0 break offside. 

An article I wrote in the past when I used to play bridge

 Poor Bridge of the Week

Overducked Cook with Discards for Dessert

By Eamon Galligan

On Monday 13th June I was hunting for poor bridge in the Regent Bridge Club. The occasion was the 2nd session of the Sean Stack League finals. This is probably the strongest bridge event that takes place in Dublin each year. We start with 2 divisions: the Premier Division comprising six teams and Division 1 comprising the rest which is usually eight. We hope to grow the Premier Division to eight too but currently we don't have the teams. Anyway this is a good hunting ground for poor bridge as most of the players are very experienced. To reach the final four, the top three teams from the Premiership and the winner of Division 1 qualify.

The teams were:

Team 1 led by Tom Hanlon (Ireland's top bridge player and unlikely to ever appear on poorbridge.com) and including two other Camrose winners. Peter Pigott, Mark Moran, Cearbhall Daly, Terry Walsh and James Heineken.

Team 2 led by Ranald Milne and including at least four players who have represented Ireland at Open level. Des Scannell, David Jackson, Pat Barry, Michael Fitzgibbon.

Team 3 led by John Comyn and winners of Division 1. BJ O'Brien, Liz Taffe, Jill Kulchysky.

Team 4 led by Paul Delaney backed up by Eamon Galligan with support from Thomas MacCormac, Dave Terry, Sean O'Lubaigh and Ronan McMaugh. Thomas MacCormac is our sole full international but he was unavailable for the second session.

So onwards and downwards. Team Delaney is -56 IMPs after Session 1 and continued downwards with plenty of poorbridge, but we would never report ourselves to the poorbridge site. After finishing our two easier matches (the matches we were only behind in by 2 and 17) and losing some more we went into the final half-match suitably armed with 2 pints of liquid — amber for David Terry and black for Eamonn. We were 37 imps behind.

We started with Board 26 where my third opponent, across the table, picked up:

	J
	J
	A K J 8 7 2
	A K Q J 6

After two passes he opened 2 (not as strong as 2 benjy), got jostled a little on his left by a guy with a fistful of hearts and received a positive bid in spades from his partner. Launching into Jackwood and finding he had all four jacks he bid a slam whereupon the opponents took the first two tricks with Aces as this game is not about Jacks, so 6-1 and 37 increases to 47 probably.

Anyway, I was not hopeful of finding any poor bridge as we were on the final match with two international opponents and 47 imps down.

However, I got a bite.

I picked up as dealer

	A 9
	A K 9 8 3
	Q 10 8
	Q 10 9

Being vulnerable I opened a strong NT. This encouraged my LHO to jockey in with his 10 major cards with a 2 bid. My cross table opponent bid 3 which he being a solid citizen was probably enough for game so I placed the 3NT card on the table.

Receiving the 7 lead I saw:

	K J 4 2 A 9 7 K 7 6 4 3 2
	A 9 A K 9 8 3 Q 10 8 Q 10 9

I counted up five club tricks, two spade tricks, two hearts and a diamond or two and maybe some squeeze at the end, so 11 or 12 tricks. Winning the spade lead in hand by overtaking the winning Jack with my ace to the applause of Terry Walsh, a member of the opposing team who was sitting out (and has since been dragged to the European Mixed Pairs final by the lady who he shares his life with, Brid Kemple). Quickly I led a club towards the king and as LHO started to consider his discard I went a little green as my 12 tricks slowly condensed to 7.

Eventually a small diamond was discarded and I passed the 10 losing to the J. A spade return set up the spades for the defence and I led a club off the table to the 9 which won and brought another considered discard from LHO. However, as I was already considering my next pint which Mr Walsh had kindly gone to the bar to collect, I did not care what the opposition discarded as I was only ever getting 7 tricks. To pass the time I played the Q and after another considered discard my RHO allowed me to win the trick.

Now the pint had arrived so it was time to get down to business. Current tally is one trick to opps and four tricks in my bag so I decided it was time to collect my other three high tricks which I did, noting the appearance of the 10 on the table. I decided to exit with the 9 and as both opponents revoked, I quickly played the 8 and they still revoked so I wound up with 10 tricks and a pint and +630 and no idea where the Q went.

The full hand was:

	K J 4 2 A 9 7 K 7 6 4 3 2
Q 10 8 7 6 4 Q J 7 5 J 5 4 —		5 3 2 10 6 K 6 3 2 A J 8 5
	A 9 A K 9 8 3 Q 10 8 Q 10 9

We'd better leave the purveyors of poor bridge nameless as they are not impressed, nor was their leader Tomas Hanlon.

Sean Stack

Sean Stack was a civil engineer who I met several times standing in gateways and once in a pub in my non-bridge travels. When starting out in bridge back in the late 80s I went to a masters event to watch as I figured I was too weak to be allowed to play. I watched these two middle-aged men getting top after top against other decent players in my view. After session 1 they had 9.1 tops over average and many years later I heard they finished with a score of nearly 16 tops above average after 2 sessions. They were Sean Stack and Peter Grant.

Sadly, one Friday night about four years ago while my team played a playoff match in the Regent a rubber bridge game took place in the same room involving the same Sean Stack. I returned the following Monday to be informed that Sean Stack was buried that morning, 60 odd hours after I saw him happy as Larry playing rubber bridge. He was gone and the Dublin Bridge League which he organized for many years now bears his name. Sean also proposed my application to the Regent Bridge Club when I was a budding player and knew few Regent members.

Original article http://www.poorbridge.com/?pbotw=14