Sunday 12 October 2008

Beijing Open. Part Three

We completed the qualification stages on Friday, and courtesy of a game swing on the last board of our match against Serbia we managed to finish second in Group D. We discovered that our round of 16 opponents would be Bulgaria.

Saturday was our busiest day — with four sets of fourteen boards against a strong Bulgarian line up. The first segment saw us 19 IMPs to the good, but after the second we were only 8 up. The third segment was the one which decided the match, both pairs had superb cards and we galloped out to a 50 IMP lead. The last set gave us one nervous moment, when the Bulgarians who were obviously pushing bid a poor grand slam which made, but we came out comfortable winners by 45 IMPs.

The draw will see us line up against Romania today and tomorrow in the quarter final, and should we get through that we would face the winners of the Netherlands/Germany semi final. It is 1h30 until play starts here, so I must go and brief the pairs on the systems of the Romanian team. But, keep your fingers crossed for us!

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