Me, Myself and I (or at least the last two years)

This is my first blog so I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is David and I'm an Irish Junior. I have represented Ireland in two Junior and one Schools events. My Mum started me on it about 2 years ago. I had been playing on BridgeBase Online for about a year. During this period I sent an email to the C.B.A.I. (Contract Bridge Association of Ireland) telling them if I was out there and if they knew of any partnerless juniors. I got an email back telling me they knew of such a junior and he had also recently started. I later played in a teams match on B.B.O. One of the opposition at my table was a member of the C.B.A.I. Junior Committee told me a young Junior had sent an email to the Junior Committee I think we can all see where this is going.

So my first international event was the 1st World School Pairs in Piestany, Slovakia. I got a call from a member of the Junior Committee telling me a player had dropped out from it at the last minute and he asked me to play in her place. As you could imagine I was excited I never believed I'd be playing international bridge so quickly. We met for the first time in the airport. We agreed a basic Acol system. Our hopes weren't high and rightly so but we finished over 40% so it could have been a lot worse. We we were happy enough with the result. Although in session 2 we were playing against 2 polish girls who were leading we managed to get an excellent round and I appeared in the bulletin the next day for the two boards I declared, click here for (P.7). The camp following the Pairs was brilliant my best result was a 4th I think with a team comprised of me a Swedish pair and a Scottish Junior.

More recently I played in the Junior Camrose a friendly tournament between Rep. of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. It is similar to the Open Camrose and Lady Milne. It is a two day competition usually played usually in February. We started promisingly win two wins over Wales and Northern Ireland. We then were then hammered by England 25-5.
Next was Scotland and after a very loose match with Imps flying everywhere and lost somewhere in the region 8-22. Overnight we were 4th but had a match in hand over everyone else. The next day started badly losing to Northern Ireland 8-22. Then beat Wales with 19 again got 5 from England. We then played well enough and lost by 1 imp to Scotland. Unfortunately we finished a disappointing 4th, click here for the final results Then it was Amsterdam in the Junior White House International. A terrible tournament for me with one moment of brilliance with a 20-10 victory over Netherlands red followed by a hysterical loss of 90-0 imps in a 10 board match against Netherlands blue.

That was my bridge career to present. The Junior Europeans are next month. The Junior Committee has made not said whether or not we are going but at present I am assuming we are not as no trials have been arranged. However, I still have the World Bridge Camp in Bristol to look forward to in August.