Roller Coaster Update - On to the Knock-Outs ! - Venice Cup, Chennai 2015 (8)

The roller coaster is ending on a high, qualifying for the knock-out stages with a match to spare!  In the final match, we are taking on USA II and there is still a chance of a "Brucie-Bonus" - finishing second (unlikely) or third (possible if results go our way).

The issue is that, for the quarter-finals, the first-placed team has the advantage of choosing their opponents from the teams finishing fifth to eighth, the second-placed team gets second choice and so on.   One advantage of being able to choose the opposition is that it makes sense to select a team that you beat in the round-robin phase because you are able to carry-forward some of the winning margin when playing the knock-out match.  That said, this advantage is small and maybe it is more a matter of choosing the opponents you like to play against.

To overtake USA II, we require close to a 20-0 victory but to overhaul USA I (playing Denmark), something not quite so extreme may suffice although other results will have to go our way too - see below:

Venice Cup, Leading Scores After Match Twenty (out of twenty-one)

1   Denmark                                         289.72
2   USA II                                            282.63
3   USA I                                             275.44
4   Italy                                                265.83
5   Netherlands                                    263.78
6   England                                          263.13
7   China                                              262.36
5   France                                             258.31
9   Poland                                             239.97