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Northside People Article on Battle of the Bay in support of St Francis Hospice

Very proud of this article in Northside People detailing the fabulous efforts of Dick Kiernan and Michael O'Keeffe in organising the Battle of the Bay event which raised almost €10,000 for St Francis Hospice. 

 

Individual Tournaments
Individual Tournaments 2021 - Rules and Prize Structure
Individual Tournaments 2021 - Rules and Prize Structure

  1. You do not need a partner to play in this game.
  2. You can register from 2 hours before tournament start time in BBO.
  3. The game will consist of 24 boards where you will play with a different partner on each board and each board will be timed to take a maximum of 7 minutes.
  4. All players should use basic Acol as their bidding system as there is not sufficient time to agree changes at the start of a board. This means that every player must use the following system:
    1. 4 Card Majors
    2. Weak (12-14) No Trump
    3. Weak Take-Outs
    4. Strong Acol 2 Diamonds, Hearts or Spades
    5. Gerber (4 Clubs looking for Aces)
    6. Natural Discards (1st Discard is high means you want that suit led; 1st Discard is low means you do not want that suit led)
    7. Standard Attitude and Count (When partner leads a suit and if the 1st card that you play in that suit is high, then this encourages partner to continue; If you play low then this discourages your partner. If you play “High Low” then you are showing an even count.)
  5. Where possible, players should use CHAT to greet each other at the start of a board.
  6. CHAT must not be used to discuss bids or plays.
  7. We will have the following prizes:
    1. 36 or less players
      1. 1st BBO$20
      2. 2nd BBO$15
      3. 3rd BBO$10
      4. 4th to 6th   BBO$5 each
    2. 40 to 76 players
      1. 1st BBO$25
      2. 2nd BBO$20
      3. 3rd BBO$15
      4. 4th to 7th   BBO$10 each
      5. 8th to 11th BBO$5 each
CAVBC Individual Game - 29-Jan - Results and prize winners are in!
CAVBC Individual Game - 29-Jan - Results and prize winners are in!

On Saturday we had the first monthly individual game of 2022, and it was great to see 32 members taking part and not a robot in sight. Phyllis Nolan, who normally forgets to register for our draw for partner games and individual games, actually remembered this time and proved to be a very worthy winner. Phyllis copper fastened her position with a very strong finish, scoring 100% on her last two boards when partnering Catherine Leehane and Helen Donoghue. Maria Callinan topped off a great week, following up her 2nd place in our draw for partner game with 2nd place in the individual game. Our “old reliable” John Treanor took 3rd place. (He would probably say “Less of the old now young Dan”. Brid Carter was the best B player in 4th place. The other prize winners were Grainne Courtney and Emily Rogers. Thank you to Aidan for being out TD on the night.

Our next monthly individual game is on Saturday 26th February at 19.30, so don’t forget to put it in your diary.

The top 10 in the individual game were:

Individual Game - 18-Dec - Results and commentary by Dan O'Mahony
Individual Game - 18-Dec - Results and commentary by Dan O'Mahony

We held our Xmas Individual Game on Saturday. Aidan Synnott was our TD and 31 enthusiastic players joined the game at 19.30 to play a 24 board game. Unfortunately, the BBO gremlins struck when we were playing board 3 and we all got logged out from BBO. When it became clear that it was a BBO problem, we contacted all the players and 25 players managed to reregister. So, at 20.30 we started an 18 board match with 25 players and 3 robots. The results were as follows:

1st

Dan O'Mahony

2nd

Yvonne Keating

3rd

Kathleen Broaders

4th

Maureen Deane

5th

Joyce Hammond

6th

Eileen Smyth

Spot Prizes

 

 

Eileen Smyth

Kathleen Broaders

Kay McDonald

Mary Hynes

There is no truth in the rumour that I was the cause of the BBO failure!

       

Individual Tournament 30-May at 15:00 - Rules and Prize Structure
Individual Tournament 30-May at 15:00 - Rules and Prize Structure

The final event of our birthday week is the Individual game at 15.00 on Sunday 30th and is as part of our CAVBC birthday celebrations. 

  1. You do not need a partner to play in this game.
  2. You can register from 2 hours before tournament start time in BBO.
  3. The game will consist of 24 boards where you will play with a different partner on each board and each board will be timed to take a maximum of 7 minutes.
  4. All players should use basic Acol as their bidding system as there is not sufficient time to agree changes at the start of a board. This means that every player must use the following system:
    1. 4 Card Majors
    2. Weak (12-14) No Trump
    3. Weak Take-Outs
    4. Strong Acol 2 Diamonds, Hearts or Spades
    5. Gerber (4 Clubs looking for Aces)
    6. Natural Discards (1st Discard is high means you want that suit led; 1st Discard is low means you do not want that suit led)
    7. Standard Attitude and Count (When partner leads a suit and if the 1st card that you play in that suit is high, then this encourages partner to continue; If you play low then this discourages your partner. If you play “High Low” then you are showing an even count.)
  5. Where possible, players should use CHAT to greet each other at the start of a board.
  6. CHAT must not be used to discuss bids or plays.
  7. We will have the following prizes:
  • 1st                         20 BBO$’s
  • 2nd                       15 BBOS’s
  • 3rd to 7th              10 BBO$’s
  • 8th to 14th              5 BBO$’s
Individual Game on Saturday 27th March at 19.30
Individual Game on Saturday 27th March at 19.30

We have an Individual game on CAVBC on Saturday 27th March at 19.30. The key features of the game are:

1. You do not need a partner to play in this game.

2. You can register from 17.30 on Saturday on CAVBC. The game will be titled “Ind. OPEN Clontarf VBC”.

3. The game will consist of 24 boards where you will play with a different partner on each board and each board will be timed to take a maximum of 7 minutes.

4. All players should use basic Acol as their bidding system as there is not sufficient time to agree changes at the start of a board. This means that every player must use the following system:

a. 4 Card Majors

b. Weak (12-14) No Trump

c. Weak Take-Outs

d. Strong Acol 2 Diamonds, Hearts or Spades

e. Gerber (4 Clubs looking for Aces)

f. Natural Discards (1st Discard is high means you want that suit led; 1st Discard is low means you do not want that suit led)

g. Standard Attitude and Count (When partner leads a suit and if the 1st card that you play in that suit is high, then this encourages partner to continue; If you play low then this discourages your partner. If you play “High Low” then you are showing an even count.)

5. Where possible, players should use CHAT to greet each other at the start of a board.

6. CHAT must not be used to discuss bids or plays.

7. We will have the following prizes:

  • 36 or less players
    • 1st BBO$20
    • 2nd BBO$15
    • 3rd BBO$10
    • 4th to 6th   BBO$5 each
  • 40 to 76 players
    • 1st BBO$25
    • 2nd BBO$20
    • 3rd BBO$15
    • 4th to 7th   BBO$10 each
    • 8th to 11th BBO$5 each
Individual Game - 27-Mar - Results and prize winners are in! Commentary by Dan O'Mahony
Individual Game - 27-Mar - Results and prize winners are in! Commentary by Dan O'Mahony

The results of our Saturday Individual Game were as follows:

1st Emily Rogers               25BBO$’s

2nd Máirin MacDevitt      20BBO$’s

3rd Nigel Hillis                  15BBO$’s

4th Mary McIlhinney       10BBO$’s

5th John Keenan               10BBO$’s

6th Peadar Buckley           10BBO$’s

6th Eileen Glackin             10BBO$’s

8th Tony Wall                      5BBO$’s

9th Ann O’Driscoll              5BBO$’s

10th Maureen Deane           5BBO$’s

11th Marguerite Cox           5BBO$’s

Our winner Emily Rogers also featured in the winner’s list in our last Individual Game having finished 5th on that occasion. For everybody else though, it was their first time in the money in our monthly game. It was great to see Nigel Hillis finishing 3rd. On the last occasion, he slept through the first few boards and never recovered. To be fair, if you looked at his first few boards this time, you would have thought he might have been sleeping again. But this time with the help of Emily, with whom he had an outright top and a very strong finish, he was able to recover from his poor start. His strong finish wasn’t quite enough though to catch Emily and Máirin McDavitt, who were awake at the start and didn’t flag during the course of the game.

I am not sure what ye did to John Treanor, but it looks like ye all conspired against him, to leave him propping up the results table.

Thank you to our subs, Marian Flood, Bernadette Lacey and myself, none of whom got to play as all 44 registered members were successful in getting into the game. I got to go to the Cinema again, this time to see Six Minutes to Midnight. I will say no more other than that I would have been better off playing bridge and finishing last which would have made John very happy. Thanks also to our TD for the evening, Dick Kiernan

We do not plan to have an Individual Game in April as we are running a Team Game on Saturday 24th, but watch out for our next Individual Game which will be in May.


See prize structure in the Individual Tournaments Tab on the menubar

Individual Game - 20-Feb - Results and prize winners are in! (Commentary by Dan O'Mahony)
Individual Game - 20-Feb - Results and prize winners are in! (Commentary by Dan O'Mahony)

Congratulations to our winners in the Individual Tournament on Saturday 20-Feb!  As we had more than 40 players, we were able to give out 11 prizes 💲💲.  Well done all!

1st Rona Booth / 25 BBO$

2nd Mick Connell  / 20 BBO$

3rd Marian Flood / 15 BBO$

4th Brigid Holland / 5th Emily Rogers / 6th John Treanor  /  7th Joe Keating -  10 BBO$ each

8th Kathryn Leen / Joint 9th Michael O'Keeffe/Anne Swords / 11th Dick Kiernan -  5 BBO$ each


Rona Booth was the popular winner on this occasion. Now, I don’t think there are any of you out there who do not know Rona. She is President of Vernon, Vice President of St Gabriel’s and is also a member of Raheny and St Anthony’s and she may even be a member of Clontarf for all I know. Rona is also one of our TD’s and has been known to provide a very amusing commentary during the games that she TD’s.

Rona got off to a flying start on the very first board when partnering Mary Harrington and playing against Moya Collins and Nigel Hillis. I’m not sure what happened to Nigel, but he passed with 19 points. It may be that he wasn’t quite settled in his armchair or he may have heard of Rona’s defensive skills. But whatever it was, the board was passed out and Rona and Mary got a score of 81%.

On the next board Rona was playing with Ronnie O’Neill against Nigel again and John Keenan. John opens 1 Club with 4 clubs, 15 points and a balanced hand. Nothing wrong with that! Rona has the 19 point hand this time and doubles, which is the right thing to do. (Only two other pairs bid like this tsk, tsk). Nigel is still suffering from the previous board so he passes (he had 3 points, you would have thought he might have bid!!). Now Ronnie is sitting in the east position, also with 3 points and 5 clubs to the 10. And what does she do? Pass, turning the take out double into a penalty double. 1 club goes down 2 and 100% to R&R. Nigel just wants to curl up in his armchair and watch television and to hell with bridge!! He never recovered although he did get some consolation when he played with Rona on the last board, when she helped him to a positive score.

Rona had a number of other 100% tops. The first was when playing with Mary Courtney who bid and made a 4 heart contract when nobody else in the room was within “an ass’s roar” of 4 hearts. The second showed Rona’s defensive skills, when playing with Emily Rogers against Louise Byrne and Ursula Foley, where Rona brought Louise’s 2 spade contract down by 1. She made up with Louise later on and showing no mercy when defeating Mary Connell (one of our substitutes) and Mary Harrington her “friend” from the first board. Now, I have looked at this particular hand and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what the two Mary’s were doing in 3 spades with 5 spades between them and Louise having bid spades twice. You will have to ask Mary Connell about it.

When Rona sat down with a large glass after the game and wistfully contemplated her victory, she could be heard murmuring Blanche Dubois’s line from a Street Car Named Desire - “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”. Alright I am only joking. You were brilliant Rona. 25BBO$ are on their way to your BBO account.

Mick Connell (another one of our substitutes) was 2nd and will get 20BBO$’s for his troubles. He also had a couple of 100% tops and funnily enough he was playing with Mary Courtney for one of those boards and Emily Rogers, who finished 5th overall, for the other.

Marian Flood was 3rd and would have given Rona a run for her money except for a few unfortunate bottoms. Marian gets 15BBO$’s.

I was supposed to be 3rd sub, but Breda Dolan kindly offered her services, so I got to go to the pictures with Brenda the wife. Now before you all jump up and say “What about Level 5 restrictions?!!”, we have a small room with a couch and a television which we euphemistically call “The Cinema” since we can no longer go out to THE CINEMA. Anyhow we curled up together on the couch with the wolf pack at our feet and watched “To Olivia” a film about Roahl Dahl, which I highly recommend. From my point of view it was much better than being eviscerated by Rona at the bridge table.

Thank you to Aidan for being our “goto” TD for these types of games and thank you to all who took part. Watch out for our next Individual Game in March.


See the full set of results in the CAVBC results section - note results in old BBO format as new results format not possible for Individual Games. 

See prize structure in the Individual Tournaments Tab on the menubar.

Nolan's Individual League - FINAL RESULTS and Dan O'Mahony's view from his window 🤩
Nolan's Individual League - FINAL RESULTS and Dan O'Mahony's view from his window 🤩

Finally!! The results we've all been waiting for!!  And the winners are.... Well done to everyone who took part and especially to the deserving winners!!



"The view from my window" by Dan O'Mahony

And so it arrived, the final game of our Individual League, sponsored by Nolan’s of Clontarf. Could Grainne be caught? Who would win the best Novice and Best B prize? Well 40 brave souls braved the cold and signed up for the final showdown. Now this was a lower entry than in previous weeks, but maybe it was because we had just moved from Level 5 to Level 3 and there were other distractions such as shopping or eating dinner in a restaurant or even watching Mayo beat Tipperary to get to another all Ireland final against the dubs! Whatever! I was on the subs bench again this week as was John Treanor and Bernadette Lacey and unfortunately none of us made the final cut. It was particularly sad for John as he did have a chance of getting into the top 3. So a big thank you to John for “taking one for the team” as they say (whoever they are!).

This week I have turned my back on the window as the Xmas tree is in the way, but I can report that there is not a sign of a rat or a squirrel or any other vermin behind my back as I have taken the drastic action of putting down a new patio, laying a new lawn, putting up new fencing and investing in a new bird feeder which catches the seeds before they hit the ground, all to control the wolfpack and discourage vermin, but still entice the tits to flit through branches of my apple blossom tree. But enough of my non view from my window, back to the all important last game.

On the day Maria Callanan was victorious with a score of 65.51% with Colm McDonald in 2nd  with a score of 62.73% (enough to give Colm bragging rights in the McDonald household as it moved him to 29th position in the overall league, one place ahead of Kay) and John Keenan was 3rd with a score of 62.27%. As this was the final week, we had a draw for two €25 vouchers and they went to Margaret Rowlands and Brenda Drury.  

The above results from round 5 however did not have any bearing on the final winners of the Individual League. By finishing 4th with a score of 59.26%, Grainne Courtney extended her lead at the top of the league and thoroughly deserved her overall victory. Patricia Quigley had her worst round so far, but none of the players behind her did enough to catch her, so she retained 2nd place in the league. Ann O’Driscoll who tore into the lead after round 1 and was still in 3rd place after round 4, had her worst round and dropped to 4th position in the League. But Ann had done enough in the previous weeks to ensure that she took home the Best Novice Title. Frances Gill did just enough in round 5 to overtake Ann and claim 3rd place in the league for herself. Andrew Smith captured the best B title by improving his overall average and finishing 7th overall in the league.

Congratulations to all the winners of the Individual League and those who won prizes from the weekly games. We will have a Nolan’s voucher out to you all this week and we hope you will join us at our Zoom Prize Giving session on Thursday 10th at 19.00 where you will have an opportunity to dress up and maybe raise a glass to each other.

To all those who didn’t get into the winner’s enclosure, thank you for taking part. I think it was a great opportunity for us all to play with each other if only for one game. A huge thanks to Aidan who TD’ed four of the games and Dick who TD’ed our 2nd game and also to Orla who has put such a wonderful effort into maintaining our CAVBC Bridgeweb Site and collating the results for each week of the Individual League.


Check here or in the Competition tab if you want to see the full results of all 5 tournaments.  Reminder:  for those that played all 5 tournaments, only the best 4 scores were counted in the final results.

Dan O'Mahony aka The Rat Catcher - View from his Window during CAVBC Individual League on 15 and 22-Nov 😆

I didn’t get to tell you about the view from my window last week during the 3rd round of the Nolan’s Individual game because I just didn’t get the time. I was a sub for the 4th round and unfortunately myself and Kay McDonald were just not needed. But then last week Mick and Mary Connell and Bernadette Lacey all suffered the same faith. Such is the lot of the Sunday afternoon substitute. So instead of playing bridge, I can sit here sipping my G&T and tell you about my view last week.

So, there I was all ready for the games to commence. The wolf pack were walked. The chicken was stuffed and waiting with anticipation to go in the oven along with the bacon and the veg. Outside the window, the tits flitted from bird feeder to tree and back, being choosey as to which seeds they preferred, dropping the rejects on the ground, adding to the small hillock that is growing under my apple tree, (In fact this may turn into a mountain by this time next year!), when all of a sudden something grey sprinted past my window to the hillock, collected some tit rejected seeds and sprinted back to the fence. I could see that it wasn’t the return of my squirrel as this grey thing did not have a bushy tail. IT WAS A RAT. I jumped on to the table, put my socks around my trousers, screamed and then realised that it was going to be very difficult to play bridge from this position, so I returned to my seat and proceeded to ignore the view from my window for the rest of the afternoon and play bridge.

And an excellent game it was too, except that Grainne Courtney (who was sitting on top of league before round 2) was stalking me throughout the game. On the first two occasions we met, my partner and I managed to get an above average score. Then Grainne eventually caught up with me and we played a board together which went quite well, but after that Grainne returned to haunt me twice more and showed me how to really play bridge. Signs on she was still top of the league going into round 4 today. The winner on the day was Tim O’Sullivan from Foxbay. Tim did not get any help from me as I didn’t get to play against him. Patricia Quiqley was 2nd on the day, and her consistency in the previous two rounds has meant she sits in 2nd place in the individual league going into todays 4th round. While Patricia and I play together on a regular basis, I didn’t do her any favours when we played a board against each other. Andrew Smith dropped out of the top 3, but is still in the winners’ enclosure as the best B player. Ann O’Driscoll is still leading the Novice pack. Moya Collins was the winner of the draw for a €25 and also hammered me in one of the games.

Now round 4 is still going on so I can’t really say anything about it. So, in the meantime, let me tell you about what happened to THE RAT. If you have been following my “Views from the Window”, you will know that I purchased a humane trap when I discovered a squirrel was terrorising my wolf pack. I never got to use it because the squirrel decided that discretion was the better part of valour and went to pester somebody else’s wolfpack. Anyhow I again placed my trousers in my socks and put some rat poison in my humane trap (I am not sure if that makes the trap inhumane) and placed the trap near the fence where THE RAT appeared from. When I examined the trap on the first morning, THE CLEVER RAT had taken a piece of rat poison and retuned to his family. On the 2nd morning THE CLEVER RAT was not so clever as the trap had shut on him before he managed to bring the tasty rat poison back to his family. So as well as putting my trousers in my socks, I put on my Bio Hazard suit, put the trap with THE RAT into a box, put the box with the trap and THE RAT into my car and drove him to the Alfie Byrne Road, where I released THE RAT into the wild by side of the estuary. Disney are now going to make a movie about how THE RAT finds his way home to me. (It hasn’t happened yet – the movie and the homecoming!)

And so the dinner is over as is round 4 of our league. I can’t say what the overall league position is as I will have to wait until Aidan and Orla put it together on Monday 23rd. But congratulations to Una Bowler who was the winner of round 4 today and to Teriona Rogan who was the winner of the draw for the €25 voucher. Ann O’Driscoll appears to have consolidated her position as the leading Novice by finishing 4th with a score of 59.21%. Patricia Quigley had another consistent round and should stay in 2nd place. Grainne Courtney had her worst round so far, but I expect her to stay in the lead and she can always discard this result if she has a better result in round 5.  Andrew Smith also had his worst round so far and it remains to be seen if he will retain his place at the head of the “B”’s. Rona Booth, who was in 3rd place in the league, may also drop out of the top 3. Unfortunately I can’t regale you with how I got on against all of these as I was unable to play to today (Sob! Sob! Or Sub! Sub!). It is all very very exciting though!!!

I hope to see you all playing in the last round on the 6th December when everything will be revealed.

PS. If anybody would like to share their “View from the Window” story, please send it to me and we will publish on CAVBC

Dan's view of the second round of the CAVBC Individual League on 01-Nov 😆

60 brave souls fought their way through the wind and the rain to get to the bridge table for 15.00 on Sunday for the start of the 2nd round of the CAVBC Individual League sponsored by Nolans. Ok I know that may be an exaggeration as all you had to do was get to wherever is your favourite place for bridge playing at home. In my case it’s the dining room table and the wind and the rain were outside doing the playing against my window. The dining room table is also where my leg of lamb is resting so I can make sure that my pack of wild dogs don’t get to sample it before I get to put it in the oven.

Anyhow what another great afternoon of bridge we had with Grainne Courtney taking the honours and our €25 Voucher from Nolans with a magnificent score of 82%. In getting to this score Grainne did not have one game where she scored less than 50%. In fact, her lowest score was a measly 53.57% and she had 4 outright tops where she got a score of 100%. I am proud to say that one of those was when she was playing with me, but she had to do all the work herself to make +3 in a 1 Spade contract. I was so dazzled by her play that I nearly forgot to turn on the oven for my leg of lamb.

I didn’t get to partner or play against Andy Smith who came 2nd with a score of 66.52%, but he didn’t need any help from me. His score would have been good enough to win on any other day. It was a totally different story though with Marcella O’Donohue, who came 3rd. I felt I was playing against her all afternoon. I played against her on the first table when my leg of lamb was resting on the table and in 2 of the last 5 games when the smell of roast lamb was wafting between me and the laptop. Rona Booth, who won the draw for a €25 Voucher, partnered Marcella in one of those games. In the other one,  Marcella bid and made an excellent 3NT contract when partnering Shelanne Purcell (She with the gin swigging profile picture). This ended any hope I had of scoring over 50%, but I did ask Shelanne to view my Guinness swigging profile picture and I think I have a date for drinks when all this COVID thing is over!!

So, after 2 rounds, Grainne and Andy sit in 1st and 2nd place in the league after their excellent results this week, with Ann O’Driscoll dropping to 3rd. Patricia Quigley moved up to 4th and Owen Treanor moved up to 5th with both having another consistently good result. 

Thank you to Dick Kiernan for carrying out the TD duties that enabled us all to have a great afternoon and thank you also to his team of subs from Foxbay who made sure we didn’t have any pesky robots playing (And even if they did play, Grainne would have out played them.)

Don’t forget the 3rd round of the league is on Sunday 15th November. I hope to chat with you then

Stay Safe

Dan

PS. My squirrel has not returned to my garden since the first round of the league. Somehow, she must have heard about my humane trap!!

"The view from my window" - Dan O'Mahony's recount of the Individual League Oct-18th 😂

13.00 on Sunday. Registration opening for our Individual League. Will we have enough players? Aidan, our brilliant and conscientious Tournament Director, texts me at 13.03. We have 6 registered. I am on the hunt for oysters in Howth and only see the text at 13.20. I reply – “There are 24 now”. Aidan immediately replies – “26”. It’s like watching the results come in on Election Night. By the time I get home and manage to register, I am the 59th player. When we start at 15.00, we have 61 players. Will they all get in? They do. Brilliant that means our 3 subs (Mick and Mary Connell and John Treanor) will get a game. Aidan has them all seated within 2 minutes of the start and we are off. 16 Tables. That is really great, surpassing all our expectations.

Now I have talked before about the view from my window when I had the Fastnet Lighthouse shining its light on me as I TD’ed a game from the wilds of West Cork. Now that I am back in Dublin, my view is much more mundane. It is an apple blossom tree with three bird feeders which are in constant need of filling. In fact I think I have been singlehandedly responsible for an explosion of tits in the Killester area. Where was I? Ah yes I was about to play the first hand and what should I see at the foot of my apple blossom tree, but a squirrel. I was so excited, I had to share this news with Catherine, Grainne and Kathleen who were playing at my table. They didn’t seem very interested because they were actually playing bridge, while I got to be dummy. I got to play the next two boards and I was on a high. My average score was 85%. Playing bridge and watching a squirrel at the same time is a doddle. Then I got to board 4. Colm McDonald is my partner. He opens the bidding 1NT. The dogs have been let out, the squirrel has scampered up the tree. I have 12 points and a balanced hand (oh and 4 spades). The dogs have surrounded the tree and are in deep discussion. No time to think. I bid 3NT. Sure Colm will be fine. Lillie the Lurcher has decided on a strategy of climbing the tree. Snipe the Setter thinks that chopping the tree down by biting the bark, is the best option, while Scout the Setter pup, who is really inexperienced in these matters, just barks at the tree and the squirrel. I run from the room to restore order to my garden and when I get back, surprisingly the round is just ending and Colm still has some cards to play. The pesky TD tells us the contract has gone down 1 – a joint big bottom.

Now you are probably wondering, why am I telling you all this. Well it was a giant big top for Ann O’Driscoll, the first of many, as Ann went on to score a magnificent 68.33% in the first game of our Individual League. You may not know it, but Ann is a Novice player and she is also from Cork, and when I talked to her this morning she said she was “standing on the shoulders of giants”. I think Ann had the reins and managed those giants extremely well. A great victory for Cork and a great lesson from a Novice for the “giants”.

I did get a text this morning from Colm “Dan, have you not heard of Stayman? PS it’s a bridge convention. PPS I forgive you!!”. I hope when Colm reads this, he will realise that if I had used Stayman, the dogs would have chopped down the tree and the squirrel would be dead. Maybe playing bridge and watching a squirrel is not a doddle after all.

The rest of the game was a bit up and down for me.  Don’t worry, I am not going to describe every hand. But I did get to chat with loads of people. Kathleen Briody told me about her swimming exploits on Sunday Morning. Shelanne Purcell, who has a wonderful profile picture of her toasting us with a large gin glass in her hand, told me it was too early for me to be drinking gin and Patricia Quigley told me that I needed to concentrate more. It was easy for them to say that. They did not have to deal with a rabid squirrel and a pack of wild dogs while playing bridge.

I also got to play with Emily Rogers who won one of two €25 Nolan vouchers. We had decided that whoever finished in 37th place would receive a €25 voucher. As luck would have it both Emily and Margaret Kinsella finished in 36th/37th place with the same score, so what else could we do but give them both a voucher. This was made possible by the generosity of Dick Kiernan and the Foxhall and Bayside committees who have added to our prize fund.

Anyhow I really had a great afternoon and it was fabulous playing bridge with and against so many of you and I felt that there was a lovely atmosphere throughout the game. Anybody that I have spoken to today has echoed this sentiment. I am looking forward to seeing you all again on the 1st November and maybe more people will join us if you spread the word.  It is a lovely way to spend Sunday afternoon especially now that we are at Level 5.

Stay safe

Dan

PS My dog pack are resting for the moment, but they think it is open season for squirrel hunting so I have just ordered a humane trap to capture the squirrel so that I can get him to move back home to St Anne’s Park and I can get back to playing bridge.

Individual Tournament Sat 29-Jan at 7:30pm - Rules and Prize Structure
Individual Tournament Sat 29-Jan at 7:30pm - Rules and Prize Structure

  1. You do not need a partner to play in this game.
  2. You can register from 2 hours before tournament start time in BBO.
  3. The game will consist of 24 boards where you will play with a different partner on each board and each board will be timed to take a maximum of 7 minutes.
  4. All players should use basic Acol as their bidding system as there is not sufficient time to agree changes at the start of a board. This means that every player must use the following system:
    1. 4 Card Majors
    2. Weak (12-14) No Trump
    3. Weak Take-Outs
    4. Strong Acol 2 Diamonds, Hearts or Spades
    5. Gerber (4 Clubs looking for Aces)
    6. Natural Discards (1st Discard is high means you want that suit led; 1st Discard is low means you do not want that suit led)
    7. Standard Attitude and Count (When partner leads a suit and if the 1st card that you play in that suit is high, then this encourages partner to continue; If you play low then this discourages your partner. If you play “High Low” then you are showing an even count.)
  5. Where possible, players should use CHAT to greet each other at the start of a board.
  6. CHAT must not be used to discuss bids or plays.
  7. We will have the following prizes:
    • 36 or less players
      • 1st BBO$20
      • 2nd BBO$15
      • 3rd BBO$10
      • 4th to 6th  BBO $5 each
    • 40 to 76 players
      • 1st BBO$25
      • 2nd BBO$20
      • 3rd BBO$15
      • 4th to 7th   BBO$10 each
      • 8th to 11th BBO $5  each
Individual Tournament Sat 18-Dec at 7:30pm - Rules and Prize Structure
Individual Tournament Sat 18-Dec at 7:30pm - Rules and Prize Structure

We have our Xmas Individual game on this Saturday 18th December at 19.30 on CAVBC. The key features of the game are:

1.  You do not need a partner to play in this game.

2.  You can register from 17.30 on Saturday on CAVBC. The game is titled “Clontarf VBC Xmas Individual”.

3.  The game will consist of 24 boards where you will play with a different partner on each board and each board will be timed to take a maximum of 7 minutes.

4.  All players should use basic Acol as their bidding system as there is not sufficient time to agree changes at the start of a board. This means that every player must use the following system:

  • 4 Card Majors
  • Weak (12-14) No Trump
  • Weak Take-Outs
  • Strong Acol 2 Diamonds, Hearts or Spades
  • Gerber (4 Clubs looking for Aces)
  • Natural Discards (1st Discard is high means you want that suit led; 1st Discard is low means you do not want that suit led)
  • Standard Attitude and Count (When partner leads a suit and if the 1st card that you play in that suit is high, then this encourages partner to continue; If you play low then this discourages your partner. If you play “High Low” then you are showing an even count.)

5.  We may have Robots in the game if we to not have “Real” people to fill a table. The Robots don’t play basic Acol, but they will tell you what they mean by their bid and what your bid means to them, so be careful if you find yourself partnering a robot for one board!

6.  Where possible, players should use CHAT to greet each other at the start of a board, and of course you should be polite to each other throughout.

7.  CHAT must not be used to discuss bids or plays.

8.  We will have the following prizes for the top 6 players:

  • 1st BBO$30
  • 2nd BBO$25
  • 3rd BBO$20
  • 4th BBO$15
  • 5th to 6th   BBO$10 each

9.  We will have 4 spot prizes of BBO$10 each.

We hope you have a great game!