Saturday, March 24, 2018

National Pairs Weekend 2018 and more Donplayer stories

This weekend in Athlone the 3 National Pairs events take place.

For the Inter Bs we have the Civil Service Trophy. For this event my 2 horses picked before the event were No 52 Dorothy Arthurs and Beatriz Brain along with No 61 Giles Murnin and David Connolly.
I have no idea who pair 61 are but I have seen the names before and the Connolly chap anchored the Great Mullall team to victory in the Fun Teams some years ago as a novice. Anybody who can keep the reins tight on the Great Mullall must know something.
Arthurs and Brain are from my home club and seem to do well there. However it is tougher out in the real world where many card playing cute hoors lie in wait for unsuspecting soft bellied Dubs.

For the inter As we have the Laird Trophy. This Trophy is called after Graham Laird a former CBAI President from Donegal. Here I chose pair 44 and pair 47 as my horses. Pair 44 as I have seen the names before and they are stabled in Declan Byrnes magnificent stables in Waterloo Road. I think he calls it the Regent Academy on tour. I think some of them turned up at Elm Park Charity night a few Wednesdays back. Elm Park Charity night raised 12000 plus euros for Brother Kevin.
Unfortunately my Regent Academy horse is not fit for purpose this weekend.
My pair 47 is from Malahide Regional Bridge Club but would hardly be match fit for an event of this calibre with so many hardened cute hoors around.

In the secondary event for Monsters my selections were  deRaeymaker Boland and and the in-form Delaney Brady recent dominators of the Clonmel Bridge Congress Pairs. As an aside Madam Delaney annexed the Clonmel Intermediate event. My 2 selections are running 1st and 5th after 2 sessions. In the lower regions of the Davidson we note former Regent Bridge Club star Conor O'Hara partnered by Malahide No 1 David Terry. David Coyne and Jeannie Fitzgerald are also under performing so far but might rise into the top 10.

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Meanwhile here at home Galligan is getting into training for the DNR Kirwins League.
A leading pair from the depths of Clare played the Vanderbilt 2018 hands recently and I made up a tournament using the live play and some robots and the Clare humans for some practice.
After 20 hands here is the situation



I am using cross imp scoring .. The Clare pair played against GIB robots on BBO.
Eamon is playing against off line Jack robots.

I used the bridge program Jack from Holland
www.jackbridge.com

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Meanwhile on www.bridge-now.com Declan the Donplayer continues his search for Bridge mastery.
I spent a few hours in the local pub sitting with Declan as I took on Murphyslaw on BBO in our regular BASH. That night we had famous bridge teacher Thomas MacCormac kibitzing. Thomas agreed with one of Murphys comments .. " GIB is an idiot"

Declan the Donplayer really loves the game. Recently he has ascended to scoring regularly past 50% on www.bridge-now.com .   He knows the part about putting the opponents out of their comfort zone.  One time he wanted me to bid 4S but I was vulnerable …
Declan said .. " Bid 4S ..don't listen to everything you hear on the news .. Its not all true "
Vulnerable does not matter … they cannot see your hand … Put them under pressure … They will bid 5H and we will take them down .. As it happened 4S was hopeless but 5H went down ..



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