14th World Bridge Games
Captain's Log, Stardate 120814-5
So for the open team the World Mind Sports Games are over. We had in some ways our best day of the event after we were well out of contention.
We lost the first match to Finland 23-7 (Terry & Avi, Robert & Paul), then we defeated two of the better teams in the group 17-13 (David and Zol against both, Robert & Paul against Israel, Terry & Avi against China) - which means against the top third of the group we managed three wins and two losses and a perfectly respectable average of around 15 VPs per match - why then were we so far off the pace? Our performance against the middle third of the field was appalling - we averaged only 8 VPs per match against Iceland, Greece, Finland and Japan. Our 18 VP average against the bottom third of the field was perhaps slightly below what we needed - but nowhere near as damaging.
Our ladies put their supporters through the ringer today - a 16 against Scotland would have been a mathematical certainty and anything above a ten was going to be good enough in practice. When the dust had settled they had lost 25-4 - incredibly they were still in with a reasonable chance - it all depended on how many VPs Israel managed in the last two rounds - Japan and Ireland held them to below the 34VPs they needed from the last two rounds and so our ladies are playing Sweden in the last sixteen tomorrow.
The seniors still have two rounds of their qualifying stage to go - they are lying 6th (8 qualify for the knockout stages)
Good luck to everyone playing in Coffs.
Michael Wilkinson