Wow! USA 1 is glad Day 3 is over! More on that later… USA 1’s Captain made the September 20th Issue of The Hindu with the caption “Compton Relishes Her Job.” Perhaps the captain shouldn’t have been so sarcastic in the interview, but overall a very nice article. Click Here to Read Article.
Overnight, the Bermuda Bowl Teams submitted a Petition requesting that Poland remain four-handed during the remainder of the event. Whether or not the Eligibility Committee considered the petition or not, the team captains were notified at 8:22am (Chennai Time), the Polish pair of Gawrys-Klukowski were officially added to the team. They must play one of the submitted systems of their teammates and may begin play immediately. It is a very complicated situation with at least two sets of interpretations of the WBF Eligibility Code. I know a lot about the legal situation facing the WBF (which I can’t share at the moment) that helps me to understand their “side”. To the general public, nothing makes sense because the WBF has “gone quiet”. Once all of the details are allowed to be released, everything will make a lot more sense (IMO). I’ll continue to give you updates as I become aware and are allowed to share. Needless to say, the air is getting thicker in Chennai.
OK. I have put off talking about the first match of the day long enough. USA 1 played USA 2 on Vugraph for all to see (in the middle of the night for most of you) and it is just as well you slept through it. Wish I had! The slaughter started on board #1 and continued through board 11 with USA 2 racking up 60 imps to USA 1’s 1 imp. Luckily USA 1 did win 12 imps on board 13 so the final result gave USA 1 .84 VPs (out of 20). Let’s just say it was a bad morning at the office!
In an effort to erase that match from my mind, just a quick reminder about my FREE Webinar on Wednesday, September 30th at 11am (New York Time). The title is “Bid These Hands with Me” where I will be sharing expert ideas on Raises in Competition, Advancer’s New Suits, Aggressive Balancing Actions, Hand Evaluation, Responding to Quantitative 4NT, Blackwood vs Cuebidding and Voidwood. It’s a two hour session. Click Here to Register.
Match 2 was against Team Denmark who finished in 8th place in the European Team Trials but took Team Monaco’s place when they withdrew due to the cheating allegations against one of their pairs. It was a slow scoring match going into the last 5 boards (out of 16) with the score of 7-7. Unfortunately, Denmark won the BIG swing hands 2 to 1, including a 16 imp win on the last board to go ahead of USA 1 24-22. The 16 imp loss was a very sad story of slam down one which made in the other room. To see all of the scorecards for the matches, go to the Running Scores & Bulletin Page and click on the Round in which you wish to see the scorecard. Then click on the Table Number of the match you are interested in checking out. There you will see the scorecard for both tables. You can take it a step further once you get to the match scorecard, you can then click on an individual board number and see how all of the Bermuda Bowl teams did on each board. For those analyzers out there, you will want to worn your loved ones that you might be busy for a while. Great learning tool! The good news is that USA 1 did get 6.72 VPs out of the match (unlike Match 1). How did I do in distracting you from the 2nd USA 1 loss of the day?
Between matches, I was approached by a very energetic young local player who has a great idea about how to get bridge into schools. His name is Amaresh Deshpande and he is working on an APP for double dummy puzzles. His idea is to introduce it as a unit in a math class where the students are presented with double dummy hands which means two hands (declarer’s and dummy’s) with the final contract and opening lead. Then teach the kids how to apply assumptions, presumptions and conclusion to solve the puzzle. He had heard I was an advocate of youth in bridge and wants me to critique is APP which should be ready in 3-4 days. I’ll keep you posted. I think it would be a great APP for all ages and all levels of play.
The final match of the day was against Bulgaria who was in 3rd place and had just been beaten up by England pretty badly in the previous match. Always good to draw a team who just had the wind knocked out of them! By now, USA 1 had slipped to 6th place (remember top 8 qualify) so it was time to stop messing around! USA 1 allowed Bulgaria to score a measly 9 imps on 16 boards, winning the match 41-9 and taking home 17.03 VPs to end the day on a high note!. Once the dust cleared, USA 1 moved up to 5th place ~ 13 VPs out of 1st.
In the Venice Cup (Women), USA 2 and USA 1 both had great days finishing in 2nd and 3rd place, respectfully. USA 2 is 10 VPs off the lead. In the D’Orsi Bowl (Senior) USA 1 started the day in 4th but slipped to 7th, while USA 2 started the day in 9th position and moved up to the last qualifying spot (8th) by the end the day. USA 1’s roster is made up of some familiar names: Bob Hamman, Mark Lair, Hemant Lall, Zia Mahmood, Reese Milner, Michael Rosenberg. NPC: Petra Hamman. Coach: Pepsi. Team USA 2 has new faces to the Championships including Jeff Aker, Dennis Clerkin, Jerry Clerkin, Doug Simpson, Mark Tolliver, Marc Zwerling. NCP: Kate Aker. Coach: Marty Bergen. Click Here to see all of the team rosters.
Tomorrow’s Matchs for USA 1
11:00am (Chennai Time) vs. Canada ~ BBO
2:30pm (Chennai Time) vs. Egypt ~ BBO
5:20pm (Chennai Time) vs Jordan ~ Running Scores.
If you are awake, you can watch USA 1 on Bridge Base Online for matches 1 and 2. For match 3, you can follow the results on the “Running Scores” Scorecard.
Well, it’s about time to start turning off the 20 light switches in my hotel room. I am not being sarcastic (I learned my lesson from the interview). My home away from home has only two rooms and a bathroom but it takes a good period of time to figure out how to get all of the lights out! Apparently, you can use either of the hotel room’s IPads to shut all of the lights off at once by pushing on the button that says “Good Night”. Perhaps I will give that a try tonight.
Go USA 1!
