EBU Selections and Internationals Blog

Open Team for the 2012 European Championships

2012-01-24T14:56:00.007Z

2012 is a big year for our international teams. Not only are the European Championships (Dublin, June 12-24) taking place but there is an Olympiad to consider as well, although the August dates for that have not yet been confirmed.

The following Open team has been selected for the European Championships:

Tony Forrester/David Gold

Andrew Robson/Alexander Allfrey

Peter Crouch/Derek Patterson

Reserves: Tom Townsend/David Bakhshi NPC: Simon Cope Coach: Ben Green

The same team has been selected for the Olympiad, assuming this takes place in 2012.

The selectors were fortunate to have such a wealth of talent to choose from. Just a few of the pairs who could rightly consider themselves unfortunate not to have made the team are Jason & Justin Hackett, Jeffrey Allerton/Ian Pagan and Chris Jagger, Frances Hinden and Graham Osborne, Fredrik Bjornlund and Nicklas Sandqvist, Espen Erichsen and Norman Selway, and Martin Jones and Neil Rosen. No doubt they will curse the selectors and vow to work harder to make the cut next time.

So who are the players who will be representing the EBU on the international stage and hoping to achieve long overdue success in a major Open tournament?

Andrew Robson needs little introduction. As the proprietor of the Andrew Robson Bridge Club, the bridge correspondent of the Times, perhaps the most sought-after bridge teacher and lecturer in the UK and author of numerous excellent books, Robson may have become the best-known figure in English bridge. His partner, Alexander Allfrey, is less visible to the bridge-playing public, but has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the bridge world over the last two or three years and is the captain of the team that includes all the pairs who have been selected for the European Championships. This team won the 2011 Premier League in fine style, finishing ahead of most of the other contenders for international selection. Statistically, Allfrey/Robson were the second most successful pair in the Premier League, just behind their teammates, Forrester/Gold. The same team reached the final of the Gold Cup in 2011. In 2010 they won the Lederer Memorial Trophy and the Brighton Four Stars A Final.

One or two football fans have been surprised to hear that Peter Crouch has already been selected to play for England in the European Championships this summer. He certainly has a good touch for a (not so) big man. He and Derek Patterson were, statistically, the strongest pair in the first Camrose weekend of 2012 where they teamed up with Robson/Allfrey and Forrester/Gold. Crouch and Patterson’s years of hard work on their system has paid off with some spectacular results in recent years. Besides their successes with the Allfrey team, they won the 2009 Premier League with different teammates and they had the best Butler score in the 2010 Camrose, helping England to 1st place.

Tony Forrester is another England star who needs little introduction. He is the Telegraph bridge columnist and author of numerous books. He has played for England in more Camrose matches than anyone else alive and he enjoyed a long and successful partnership with Robson, with whom he won the European Teams Championship in 1991 and the Reisinger (a prestigious US “major”) in 1998 and 1999. He has won the Gold Cup on ten occasions. His current partner, David Gold, was not even born when Forrester first started dominating the English game. Gold is now a full time bridge professional, running the St John’s Wood Bridge Club. Forrester and Gold were, statistically, the top pair in the Premier League 2011. In partnership with David Bakhshi, Gold won the 2011 NEC Cup Open Teams in Japan and he has also achieved strong results in partnership with Tom Townsend. Bakhshi and Townsend will themselves be reserves for the European Championships, having travelled the world to play in major tournaments and develop their game.

With Simon Cope once again picking up the reins as NPC and Ben Green as coach, I think this squad will have every chance at the European Championships and the Olympiad which follows. They are used to playing together (and winning!) as a team and they have the stamina and talent to do well. I am sure all EBU members will wish them every success!

NICK SMITH (selector)

2012 European Championships

2011-12-01T15:32:00.002Z

The Selection Committee have released a bulletin on selection for next year's European Championships.

Bulletin

2011 Premier League

2011-04-11T15:26:00.001+01:00

Entries are invited for the 2011 Premier League from teams of four to six players, which should be sent to the Secretary of the Selection Committee, Mrs Sandra Claridge, Tel. 01844 208629, Email. claridge31@tiscali.co.uk.

Entry fee: £720 per team - payable to the English Bridge Union. Please contact Peter or Dawn on: Tel. 01296 317203/219 or Email: comps@ebu.co.uk

Closing date for entries: Tuesday 31st May 2011

Dates & venues: 24th & 25th September – Richmond Bridge Club, London

1st & 2nd October – Manchester Bridge Club

11th/13th November – West Midlands Bridge Club, Solihull

Reserve date: 4th/6th November

Please state, as appropriate, whether your proposed team will meet the necessary qualifications to stay within your 2010 division by right.

The Premier League will be used as the selection process for the 2012 Camrose Trophy to be held in England on 6th/8th January, and Scotland on 2nd/4th March, the winning team being offered a match. It should be noted that the England team will compete on at least a partially self-funding basis.

The relevant sections of the Premier League Conditions of Contest in regard to eligibility, are as follows:

2.2 Based on divisions of approximately 8 teams each, the winners and runners-up of the Second Division shall earn promotion to the First Division. If an ineligible team (see Section 4.3 below) finishes in the top two places in the Second Division, promotion will pass automatically to the next placed eligible team, save that there will be no promotion for 5th place or below. The bottom two teams in the First Division shall be relegated to the Second Division. Lower divisions, if any, will function similarly. The Committee reserve the right to alter the number of teams promoted or relegated in the event that the size of the league is fewer or greater than eight teams. Notification of any such alteration will be given in advance of the commencement of the league.

4.1 All players in the First Division must be members of the English Bridge Union in good standing, and qualify* to represent England under the current international regulations of the World Bridge Federation, the European Bridge League and Bridge Great Britain. *Players must be qualified by the time of the date of the first Camrose match.

4.3 Entries will be welcomed from teams containing players not qualifying to represent England as detailed in 4.1, but such teams will not be eligible to participate in the First Division. There will be no limit on the number of such players, but any team which contains one or more such players shall be ineligible for promotion to the First Division in the following season. This provision over-rides that contained in section 13.

10.1 To be a qualified player for the purposes of automatic Camrose selection or the title of Premier League or Division champion, the player must play at least 10 of the 21 stanzas (or 50%, rounded down in the case of a fraction, in the event that there are greater or fewer than 21 stanzas). There is no requirement that a player must play against every team. The same standard applies for the purpose of “Team Continuity” detailed below.

10.2 An individual player failing to fulfil the playing requirement in 10.1 does not disqualify his team-mates.

10.3 Selection for the Camrose series of Home Internationals will be made shortly after the conclusion of the final weekend of the League. Any pair of the team winning the First Division of the League who has met the playing requirements is guaranteed to be offered at least one Camrose match, with a player qualifying in two partnerships being required to nominate his preferred Camrose partnership. In this event the partnership not preferred has no such guarantee.

10.4 If the winning team contains two or three pairs who have all met the minimum playing requirements and who are available for both Camrose matches, these pairs will be selected together in the same team for at least one of the Camrose weekends. The remaining places (if any) in the England team for the two Camrose Trophy weekends will be selected from amongst the eligible pairs who have competed in the League and met the minimum playing requirements.

10.5 If a team of five wins the First Division then the Selection Committee reserve the right to add a sixth player to the team for the Camrose Trophy. The selection will be made in consultation with the winning team.

10.6 There are no playing requirements for the Champions Cup (when applicable).

13.1 Promotion and relegation will be two up/two down [this based on divisions of approximately 8 teams]. The First Division in 2011 is therefore the top six teams in the 2010 League, plus the top two teams in the 2010 Second Division (but see also sections 2.2 and 4.3).

13.2 To maintain team continuity, any of the following is sufficient. A player is qualified if he satisfied the playing requirements for the previous season, and satisfies all the general conditions of section 4.1.

 Three qualified players from a team of four or five qualified players

 Four qualified players from a team of six qualified players

Philly Youngsters, Part Seven

2010-10-17T16:00:00.001+01:00

So it wasn’t meant to be. For the second World Junior Championship in a row, the U20s had to settle for the silver medal.

Starting the day 35 down and with only the single stanza to play, it was important not to let even more swings go out the gate and make the task much more difficult. Early on, we gained a game swing when Dan and James caused them to miss theirs. It went straight back after a Polish pre-empt kept us out of ours. But as the stanza progressed, we seemed to be making gradual inroads into their lead.

The advancement juddered to a halt halfway through the set. A deal which had seemed to be more IMPs in suddenly became a game swing out as the old defensive bugbears raised their ugly heads once more. This was followed by another on the next board and the critical momentum and pressure that we had built up had fully ebbed away. There were some brief flashes of hope in the dying boards, but the Polish demonstrated greater accuracy in card play at the critical moments to run out deserved winners.

Both Michael Byrne and I would like to say how proud we are of the team, the effort they put in and the performance they produced. For Dan McIntosh and Tom Paske it was a second disappointment in a world final after Beijing. For Shivam Shah, Tom Rainforth, Graeme Robertson and James Paul, this was their first international medal and surely not their last.

Philly Youngsters, Part Six

2010-10-16T12:25:00.001+01:00

They certainly don't like to do things the easy way.

After yesterday's remarkable turnaround, the team faced 64 boards against the Polish. The first three stanzas to be played today, the other tomorrow (or today as you read this). Straightaway there were opportunities. A reckless slam try from one of the opponents looked to have scored an own goal, but Tom Paske made the completely natural lead - the only one to give it away. From there, things degenerated over the remainder of the first half of the match. More no play slams and games being let through the net in an ever increasing torrent of IMPs.

At 70 IMPs down with 32 to play, a line-up change was required and the new formation brought instant success. Over the course of the third set, the team halved the deficit to close play 35 down. Can lightning strike twice? Who knows, but psychologically the team is in the ascendancy, while the Poles have to sleep while mulling over the fact that it could have been all over already.

Do these English boys really know what defeat is?

Come and support them on BBO Vugraph at 3PM UK time for the final exciting stanza - well it will be if we complete the fightback.

Philly Youngsters, Part Five

2010-10-15T09:53:00.001+01:00

I think it is fair to say that today will be burned bright into the history of English Bridge.

The World Championship semi-final against the Netherlands. As soon as board 2, the action had started. Dan and James had a mix-up using their defensive methods against a short club and conceded a 1400 penalty. However, there had been issues of whether the 1C bid had been alerted properly on both sides of the screen. The resulting ruling went against the team, but captain MGB decided to appeal. The rest of the set was up and down. Despite a couple of other big swings out, we still led by three at the end of the stanza.

Immediately things went wrong at the start of set 2. A tricky discard problem caused a slam to be let through and the psychological tone was set. The Dutch couldn't get anything wrong and we couldn't get anything right. The result? 1-78. It is fair to say that things weren't the brightest in the England camp at that time.

We regrouped. There wasn't much to the set three boards but we eked a few IMPs back. Twelve of them. So prior to beginning the final set we were looking at the wrong end of a 62-IMP deficit and only 14 boards to do something about it.

This lot are made of stern stuff. They have a lot of experience of generating obscene quantities of IMPs in very short spaces of time in online matches. So they didn't ever stop believing that it was possible to come back. Quite the opposite. If they could get off to a sharp start then they knew that the pressure would start to tell. After all, the opponents could only lose it from here.

The first few boards in the Open Room didn't encourage much, indeed we lost a further game swing next door. But then James and Dan threw caution to the winds and rolled in a couple of light games. In the other room Graeme was allowed to make a cold-off 3N and the noose was definitely tightening. We also received the news that we had won our appeal that transferred a further 17IMPs into the account.

The critical deal came four from home. The Dutch East came in over a 15-17NT and in a competitive sequence his partner made what he thought was a lead-directing double. His partner took him seriously and 'saved' over our 4H game. This resulted in a 1700 blowout and the decisive 15 IMP swing. Both pairs came out to score up thinking they maybe hadn't done quite enough. As the scores totted up, suddenly the impossible became reality. We had won the semi final.

Credit to the Dutch, they had played superbly in a memorable match. We are sorry it had to be them, because we know them well. Their coaches Marten and Monique are genuinely really nice people who have their teams play the game the right way. We hope they can win the Bronze tomorrow as some consolation.

Anyway, we are just trying to wind down now to get some sleep before tomorrow. Poland await in the final.

Philly Youngsters, Part Four

2010-10-14T09:43:00.001+01:00

World Championship KOs are places of extreme emotions.

We finished off the Round-Robin with two more wins - 20-10 against Germany and 18-12 against Poland. With first place wrapped up we exercised our rights by selecting Hungary for the quarter-finals and the winner of Sweden-Netherlands for the semi. Despite not being at our best, we prevailed in a scrappy match by 57 IMPs.

Who would we end up playing? At half time, Sweden were up by 20, but the Dutch came storming back to win by over 30 leaving several of the very young Swedish team in tears.

For every winner there is a loser.

Tomorrow we try to make sure that at least for another day it won't be us.

Philly Youngsters, Part Three

2010-10-13T09:42:00.001+01:00

Consolidation was the name of the game today. And the boys duly delivered. After a tough opening match against Israel which they drew 15-15, we had a number of other contending teams to play. USA1 were up next having climbed through the field to second place. Despite a slam swing out, they didn't really have a sniff and a 20-10 victory propelled them back into the qualifying maelstrom. The dangerous Norwegians followed and tight play in both rooms limited them to a single partscore swing out and gave us another solid 22-8. The final match of the day was against the Chinese Taipei team who by now were well out of things. Again, ruthless play saw them through with a 25-4 victory.

These results leave them 26VPs clear of Israel in 2nd and 52VPs clear of the ninth placed team. Winning the Round-Robin is a huge advantage since it bestows the right to pick opponents in the QF and then which QF supplies the semi opponents, although we were informed in the Captain's meeting that there will not be any carry over.

So, time to keep calm and finish the job tomorrow against Germany and the perenially dangerous Poles. Then, hopefully see how things lie and negotiate a 40-board QF.

Now the team feels its collective stomachs rumbling. More updates tomorrow.

Philly Youngsters, Part Two

2010-10-12T10:05:00.001+01:00

So fortunes can change. First up were USA2, who we turned over 20-10. Although it has to be said they were handicapped in that half of their team was even shorter than Shivam and could barely see over the table to see their cards. Emboldened by this, the team promptly nosedived to the Canadians 13-17. The field kept beating itself up though, so despite this reverse we were still well in contact. Knowing that a couple of big wins would see us go screaming skywards, they set right to it. The Hungarians were lasered 24-6, the French were fried 25-4 (simultaneously dropping them out of the QF spots) and the Aussies barbecued 25-4 as opponents were tilted out left, right, centre and pretty much every way imaginable. The end result? England U21s leading the RR qualifying after 9/15 rounds by 11VPs from the Germans.

Chickens, however, have most definitely not been counted. The remainder of the matches are mostly against teams who are currently in qualifying positions, so the boys will need to keep it tight to retain their spot at the head of the field. Much hard work remains to earn the right to pick QF opponents.

Now we are packing the kiddies off to bed nice and early to get their much needed snooze. I think tonight's story is the one about the big bad wolf who liked to splinter with singleton honours.

Philly Youngsters, Part One

2010-10-11T14:12:00.001+01:00

Afternoon all, the coach here. Now we are settled in and play has started, it is time to reflect on a disappointing start to the event. Despite turning up bright, breezy and prepared (and with some insider advice from visiting Swedish pro Mr Hallberg) we were turned over by his countrymen 11-19 after a couple of iffy scores. Things were rapidly righted against the Dutch with a 24-6 pasting that saw the team move into something nearer top gear. However, as in many other sports, the half-time break came at the wrong time for the team and the rhythm was broken. Two more losses in the afternoon to Uruguay (13-17) and a tough Chinese team (10-20) have dropped us to ninth, one spot out of the qualifiying places.

Despite these results, the team know that things are very much in their own hands and they have much more in reserve to give than the others. The field is still tightly bunched and the short ten board round-robin matches do throw up some freak results. One or two bits of bad luck or bad play and it can be difficult to catch it back on even the weak teams.

Still, I have now devised part one of my coaching masterplan. I have located somewhere where we can get our morning cup of tea in. Can't really function until we have got a good brew into the system. That is the first thing, for part two, where can I get hold of some Weetabix...

Ostend Women, Final

2010-07-03T00:03:00.004+01:00

Well we got very close but in the end we came up painfully short - we managed to not lose in all of our last 11 matches, we could just not get enough VP's to carry us over the line to a medal.
We finished a very gallant 5th behind some of Europe's other well known teams but at least we did qualify for the Venice Cup in Eindhoven next year.

Winners were France who pipped the Netherlands by 1VP.
Third were the Swedish another 4VPs behind.
Germany were the other team in the top 5.

Watch out for the European teams in the Venice Cup - they all gave very good accounts of themselves here.

Ostend Women, Eight

2010-07-02T14:00:00.003+01:00

An honourable draw with the Netherlands and some results elsewhere going in our favour mean that with two matches to go we are second behind the Netherlands, but any one of SIX teams can win medals and no one team is standout for any one in particular.
We have, on paper, the toughest of the matches left - we are playing Denmark at the moment and finish with Israel, but if we play well - who knows?

Ostend Seniors, Four

2010-07-02T10:08:00.001+01:00

The Seniors continued their campaign on Wednesday with losses against Scotland, Bulgaria and Poland whose narrow win avenged their defeat in Brazil.

Thursday was a different story with wins against Norway, Switzerland and the hosts Belgium.

They now lie 15th, 44pts adrift of a qualifying place for the Bermuda Bowl and with only 6 matches left it is unlikely that they will qualify.

Peter Baxter

Ostend Open, Eight

2010-07-01T22:26:00.003+01:00

Today we needed 3 wins to stand a chance. We started with a good win against Latvia (20-10) and then beat Switzerland 17-13. We were behind in this match but gained 20 imps on the last board when Sandqvist-McIntosh bid a grand slam and Nick played it correctly to make it. The last match against France was the most important as they were also potential qualifiers and we won this 22-8 in a well played match by our side. 4 matches to go and we can afford no slip ups if we want our ticket to the Bermuda Bowl and today the team were playing like they wanted to get there.

Ostend Women, Seven

2010-07-01T13:28:00.002+01:00

The last match on Tuesday turned out to be a fine one for us as we gained 25VPs v Czech Republic.
We followed that with another good day yesterday scoring 19, 21 & 22 v Sweden, Spain and Turkey.
This morning's match was against a very experienced Austrian side who held their own, we managed to win narrowly 17-13.

In the meantime the German Ladies squeaked a win against France by 16-14 - tightening the top of the table a little.

1	FRANCE	419
2	NETHERLANDS	414
3	ENGLAND	407
4	SWEDEN	402
5	GERMANY	398
6	POLAND	395

Poland - courtesy of a 25-4 win over Wales are making a late rush for a medal place.

Still all to play for but it looks like we are going to need some help to catch the French.
We play the Netherlands in the first match of the last day (Friday) - to use yet another sporting phrase - "a real 6 pointer"

Ostend Open, Seven

2010-06-30T22:18:00.005+01:00

Two tough matches to start with and we got 14 against Bulgaria and 12 against Italy. It's critical we score well tomorrow in our matches against Latvia, Switzerland and France.

You hold (against Italy):

A 5

Q 8 7 4 2

K 4

9 8 7 6

It goes pass pass to you and you open 1, next hand doubles and partner raises pre-emptively to 3. The opponents bid 3 raised to 4 which is the final contract. It's your lead. David Gold earned 13 imps for England by leading the K reasoning that a heart lead was unlikely to generate enough to beat the contract. Partner held x x 10 x x x Q 10 x x K x x so if declarer won the diamond a ruff was coming and if he ducked there were two diamond losers. Well worked out and 13 imps to England.

Ostend Open, Six

2010-06-29T22:35:00.005+01:00

Today was the end of the first round robin and the open team qualified for the final stage. We start tomorrow in the final round robin keeping our scores against all the other qualfiers from, our group and playing the 9 qualifiers from the other group starting with Bulgaria then Italy. We start in 11th place and will need to move up to 7th to qualify for the Bermuda Bowl to be held next year.

Ostend Women, Six

2010-06-29T17:49:00.003+01:00

Moving day it turned out to be -

We started with a narrow loss to Portugal 14-16 but followed it up with 23 & 25 v Finland and Hungary respectively.

We were in second overnight — the Netherlands still had a useful lead. First match today we played old adversaries the French who were hot on our tails. Sadly by the end of the match we were hot on theirs — they beat us 10-20. Next up were more old adversaries — this time the Italians — but this time we did come out on top, winning 19-11

The top 5 looks like this with one match to play today...

1	NETHERLANDS	322
2	FRANCE	307
3	ENGLAND	303
4	GERMANY	300
5	SWEDEN	298

Ostend Seniors, Three

2010-06-29T09:13:00.003+01:00

The third day saw England playing three top teams and apart from a close match with France lost 20:10 to Sweden and Netherlands. Today there are two difficult matches, and then the competition eases. However, at 18th we are a long way from a qualifying place.

Against the Netherlands you hold an 0-6-6-1 with three Aces and the KQ of diamonds. The bidding reaches 6, so do you double or bid 6? England doubled and found the opposition with a diamond void in one hand and a hear void in the other. The Netherlands bid 6 only one off; huge swing.

England also missed a grand slam bid at the other table in the match v France, so not a lucky day!

Peter Baxter

Ostend Open, Five

2010-06-28T21:10:00.003+01:00

Today, the penultimate day of qualifying was good for us as we took 22, 22 and 24 to all but guarantee a qualifying position. Tomorrow we end with two tough matches against Israel and Poland who are almost certain to qualify.

Ostend Seniors, Two

2010-06-28T09:08:00.001+01:00

The second day of the Seniors championship saw them record two good wins against Israel and their old adversary Turkey before just losing to Sweden.

This enabled them to move up the field from their poor position on the first day.

Italy seem to be establishing an unassailable lead.

Peter Baxter

Ostend Women, Five

2010-06-27T22:08:00.003+01:00

We have had a good day today 43 out of a possible 50 - we beat Lebanon 25-4 and came back from a very bad start v Switzerland to record an 18-12 win.

In the overall ranking list we are back up to 6th but it is worth noting that positions 2-6 are covered by only 5 VPs. We are, however, quite well placed having played 4 of the other 6 in the top 7.

The Netherlands are the clear leaders - we play them on the last day, hopefully we will be in a position for that match to still be meaningful.

We have another three matches tomorrow where we are playing teams from the lower half of the ranking list - let's hope it is moving day, to coin a golfing phrase!

Ostend Open, Four

2010-06-27T18:31:00.003+01:00

Not a great day with a heavy loss against Netherlands followed by a narrow loss against Luxembourg. We are still qualifying but we need some VP's tomorrow.

On the good side the Seniors after a poor start on Day 1 have perked up by winning the first two matches today.

Best image of the day was a large crane on the beach lifting people up and down in a large basket. When the basket had reached it's highest point you could see that on the bottom it said "Benji fun"

Ostend Seniors, One

2010-06-26T16:09:00.001+01:00

The England Seniors joined the European Championships in Ostend today, hoping to add the European Championship to go with their World Championship in Brazil.

The opening two match's against the Czech Republic and Austria did not go well with losses of 20:10 and 18:12 leaving the team next to bottom overall.

Tomorrow they play Israel, Turkey and Denmark not an easy day.

Peter Baxter

Ostend Open, Three

2010-06-26T14:13:00.003+01:00

First of all an answer to the bidding question. At the table McIntosh bid 4 (normal in my view) and that went all pass and down 4. In the other room South bid 4 and it went pass pass and North went to put the bidding cards away but Justin was having none of that and doubled. The contract was not a success and went for 800. If you bid 3NT hoping to escape you might get lucky and have it passed out but probably not and that will result in a big penalty when you eventually come to rest. The advantage of bidding 4 is that you have a chance to move it to 4 if the double seems swift and confident.

Yesterday started with a narrow loss against Romania but then a chunky win against San Marino revived spirits. San Marino have been a bit hit and miss with some good wins and some big losses.

In the final match against Sweden the pairs in one room sat the wrong way. This could have been spotted by either pair concerned, either coach, either captain or the BBO operators but wasn't. Naturally the regulations don't cover this and the decision was a replay today which has just started and England are down after 10 boards of it. It maybe that a replay happened just because there is the time for this as today is only a one match day but also because it was on BBO. At all tables not on BBO there are large signs showing how the players sit and they are hard to miss. On BBO these are not visible from the table and the operators are also supposed to check.

It's not the only event for which the regulations are deficient. In an early match between Netherlands and Russia, two strong teams there were some fines meted out for slow play and there is now discussion as to whether this fine is carried forward to the second stage if either or both teams qualify.

Tomorrow sees England have a tough match vs Netherlands followed by an eaiser one and the bye then the last two days of qualifying have what looks like a relatively easy day but on the final day we end by playing Israle and Poland which is a tough finish.

Jeremy Dhondy

Ostend Women, Four

2010-06-26T12:48:00.004+01:00

Only one match today, against Germany. A dramatic last two boards saw us go from 18-12 to 15-15 and finally 16-14 in our favour.

We are still well placed with tomorrow's matches against two of the teams nearer the foot of the table than the top; both teams, however, have given good accounts of themselves versus strong opposition and so nothing should be taken for granted.

Ostend Women, Three

2010-06-25T15:13:00.003+01:00

After two matches we are now up to 5th courtesy of beating Greece 18-12 and Belgium 25-5. We are only 6VPs behind the leaders.

About to start Match 3 v Ireland, who incidentally have just beaten a strong fancied German team 19-11.

Ostend Women, Two

2010-06-24T22:02:00.005+01:00

Day two was not good for us - we did not have a good match against Russia and came out losing 8-22. The afternoon match v Belarus was a very tight affair that once again we came out on the wrong side of - although this time it was only 14-16. The early evening match against Croatia gave us a chance to steady the ship and this we managed with a 21-9 win.

We are currently lying 11th out of 28 but there is a lot to play for. Tomorrow we play Greece, then the home nation, Belgium and finally Ireland. A good day will see us right back in the hunt.

Ostend Open, Two

2010-06-24T15:42:00.001+01:00

Day 2 was a significantly tougher day, with matches against three potential qualifiers. We ended Day 1 2nd in our group. So far on Day 2 so good. It's been quiet which means that Townsend-Gold can play a match or two without a brass band rehearsing in the next room. We won the first match against Spain 19-11. If you want to try for the team decide what action you would take on:

975

Q1043

10965

You are vulnerable in 4th seat and it goes 3 — Dbl — Pass to you. Answer next blog (no cheating and looking it up on BBO).

The second match was against the fancied Russian team and we managed a narrow 4 IMP win including bringing home a grand slam on a finesse (no law against being lucky). Last match of the day is against Denmark just started. Ostend is basking in sunshine and it is not too hot to play bridge.

If you have nothing to do pop over.

Jeremy Dhondy

Ostend Women, One

2010-06-23T22:08:00.005+01:00

Hopefully you will have read about the Open team's first day and know that they have started well. The English Ladies have also begun in fine form. Their lot is a 28 team Round Robin which means 27 x 20-board matches. Our goal is obviously to get a medal; failing that, to finish in the top 6 to earn a place in the next Venice Cup.

We had a tough start against a competent Norwegian team — we managed to win that one 18-12. A nice homeland tussle against the Welsh followed — we dispatched them 20-10. We finished with another tough one — the Polish — we managed to sneak a 17-13 win against them.

All in all a very satisfactory start that leaves us lying third at the end of the first day.

Ostend Open, One

2010-06-23T17:18:00.003+01:00

The Open series started today (Wed 23rd). There are so many countries that the field is divided into two groups. We will play every other team in our group and then the top 9 out of 19 qualify for the second and final round robin together with the top 9 in the other group. We will carry forward our entire score against all other qualifiers. Our first two matches were against teams from the lower half of our group. We beat Monaco 25-5 in our first match. We played them first in Pau in 2008 also but then lost 8-22. We then played Estonia in the second match winning 25-5 again to head our group at this early stage.

Jeremy Dhondy

European Championships 2010

2010-06-23T10:45:00.001+01:00

The European Championships kick off in Ostend on Wednesday so good luck to all our teams. We'll keep you up to date with progress here throughout the event and you can also view a lot of the matches on Bridge Base.

Date of U25 trials announced

2010-04-23T10:47:00.000+01:00

This year’s trials will be held on the weekend of October 16/17th. These trials will help the selectors choose teams to play in the Channel Trophy, the Junior Camrose and the Amsterdam White House tournaments, as well as selecting the squad for the 2011 Europeans.

The venue is West Midlands Bridge Club. If you would like to take part, please click here to email the organisers.

Blog In Japan

2010-02-08T14:19:00.005Z

To tell the truth Blog is from somewhere considerably less exotic than Japan, but a few of our leading players are in Yokohama for the 15th NEC Bridge Festival. Here's the link:

http://www.jcbl.or.jp/game/nec/necfest.html

Our official representatives are England Ladies, Olympiad (or whatever) champions Heather Dhondy and Nevena Senior:

http://www.ebu.co.uk/general/biographies/players/heatherdhondy.htm http://www.ebu.co.uk/general/biographies/players/nevenasenior.htm

and newly recruited (for the Europeans in Ostend) Fiona Brown and Susan Stockdale:

http://www.ebu.co.uk/general/biographies/players/fionabrown.htm http://www.ebu.co.uk/general/biographies/players/susanstockdale.htm.

Then we have Kendrick. Unimaginative teamname, highly imaginative players. David Kendrick from Royston partners Brian Senior from Nottingham. We all know that Brian on a going day can play like a magician. David also has a few ideas about the game, the pairing is very effective when these don't interfere with Brian's spells. Last time out they reached the final of the Reisinger in San Diego. Their team-mates are Jon Cooke and Martin Garvey. These two have spent many hours developing their complex strong club system. Another high variance pair, they were on last year's winning EBU Camrose squad. On one of their going days Cooke-Garvey can dismantle any opposition. On a not-so-going day for this team you can look up the scores on the back of the bidding cards.

Two of the strongest of many Davids in English bridge, Gold and Bakhshi

http://www.ebu.co.uk/general/biographies/players/davidgold.htm http://www.ebu.co.uk/general/biographies/players/davidbakhshi.htm

play on team CANUKUSA (pass the sickbag) with North Americans John Carruthers and Howard Weinstein. This team are a banker to make the knockout stages.

It's all on BBO, here's the schedule:

http://www.bridgebase.com/vugraph/schedule.php

Good luck to you all!

Lady Milne Trials

2010-01-22T14:38:00.004Z

The selectors have chosen the team for the ladies European Championship in Ostend. The "Big Four", reigning world champions Brock/Smith and Dhondy/Senior, selected themselves. (Not literally!) Youngsters Fiona Brown and Susan Stockdale got the nod to complete the team, ahead of Catherine Jagger and Sarah Teshome who are the reserve pair.

Trials take place this weekend to find England's teams for the Lady Milne Trophy, the ladies home international series. I do mean teams plural, we have two this year, to make the numbers even.

The top three pairs will automatically be the funded "England" team. The next three may play on the self-funding "English Bridge Union" team if they wish, and then down the list in order if a pair declines.

20 pairs have entered in total, a very good turnout. Perhaps we will have debut internationalists by Sunday night? A list of pairs and further information here:

www.ebu.co.uk/internationals/ladiestrials.htm

It's going to be on BBO, starting 7.15 tonight (Friday). Good luck to you all!

1st Camrose weekend

2010-01-06T12:58:00.003Z

The first of this season's two Camrose weekends takes place 8-10th January at the Edinburgh Novotel. There's plenty of information on the local website:

www.camrosebridge.com

The England team looks like this:

Peter Crouch & Derek Patterson from Kent, the only English pair selected for both weekends. Peter and Derek are in fine form. They topped the Butlers whilst winning the Premier League, and faced each other in the final of the Gold Cup, Peter coming out on top. Derek was on the winning British team in the 1987 World Juniors.

Michelle Brunner & John Holland from Manchester, where they run a bridge school together. John has recently won the Senior Bowl in Sao Paulo. Michelle has won the IPBA prize for the best defence two years running, and everything in the ladies game over the years.

David Price & Colin Simpson, from Suffolk and Buckinghamshire respectively, were also on the Senior Bowl team. They played on the 2004/5 England team, the only one ever to qualify for the Bermuda Bowl.

The captain is Paul Hackett, vice-captain Simon Cocheme.

As usual the Irish will be the main opposition. Four of the six "whaaaales of Irish bridge" (as per their npc David Jackson) will appear each weekend. I don't suppose Jacko will risk his third pair very much, so the whaaaales will have to play more or less throughout. This might just give England the edge. Wales won't be far away. On form Scotland and the two Northern Ireland teams are there to make up the numbers.

The first match starts 7.30pm Friday, if you'd like to cheer on your team every board will be broadcast live with commentary on BBO.

Review of weekend's international action

2009-12-21T15:21:00.006Z

Hello everyone, I am going to try to replace David Muller as Internationals blogger. Please feel free to chip in with your questions and comments.

Last weekend's international action featured seniors and juniors.

Stage I of the Seniors trial was at the Young Chelsea. The day before play, team captain Denis O'Donovan was a player short and threatening to scratch. A phone call to Malcolm Lewis proved productive, he was recruited to join Denis and his team-mates, Patrick Collins and John Short. Even with four players at the table, this team wouldn't have been favourites to qualify at the expense of Tony Waterlow's all-international quartet, and other respected opponents, but they managed it. O'Donovan lost the head-to-head match 14-16, but outscored Waterlow 54 to 53 VPs over the weekend round-robin, ahead of Jepson and Palmer who scored 36 and 35 VPs respectively.

This entitles Denis and his men to play Ross Harper's exempted gold medallists over 96 boards, winners to represent England in the Senior Camrose and the Senior European in Ostend.

Ostend also hosted the Junior Channel series, in which the EBU fielded three teams. Our girls finished third behind the Dutch, and our Schools team trailed in fourth behind the French. But our U-25s team carried the flag, winning for the first time for ages, but I think slightly less than the 25 years of hurt as reported on the front page. Perhaps someone can recall the exact year and winning team?

Many congratulations to our 2009 Junior Channel champions, hope they've all made it home by now:

Tom Paske, Ed Jones, Ben Paske, Graeme Robertson, James Paul, Alice Kaye, and n.p.c. Simon Cope.

Thanks David

2009-10-09T12:56:00.001+01:00

I am sad to report that David Muller is stepping down as the Selection and Internationals blogger as he is no longer a member of the Selection Committee. David first took on this role in April 2008 at the inception of the blog, and since then has produced numerous reports of European and World Championships, bringing the excitement of those events to a wide audience of bridge lovers on a daily basis. His good humour and detailed insight will be missed by all who regularly read this feature.
On behalf of the Selection Committee and the readers of this blog I would like to thank David sincerely for his contribution.
Heather Dhondy
Chairman of Selectors

England, Senior World Champions, reflection

2009-09-13T13:23:00.015+01:00

A key to the success of the English Senior World Championship winning team was their excellent defence. Here is just one example which occured at a crucial stage of the final against Poland, just 8 boards from the end.

Final - Board 89 (of 96) Dealer N EW Vul

K 9 8 4 3

8 3

A 9 8 6 2

A 10

A Q 8 4 3

A J

K J 5 3

Q J 7 5

J 9

Q 7 6 4 2

10 7

6 2

K 10 7 6 5

K 10 9 5

Q 4

At this stage with eight boards to go England led by 12 imps.
In the other room England were in 4 after a 2 opening by the Polish north. This had no chance with the trumps 5-1, down 3 for 300 to Poland. In this room the Polish east got to 3NT after a 1 overcall by north. If this contract were to make the Poles would pick up 14 imps and take the lead, so it was vital to defeat it, one down would mean a loss of only 5 imps and England would still be in front by 7 imps.

Against 3NT Simpson (south) lead the 6, dummy played low and we saw the first good play when Price played low so that he didn't set up two spade winners in declarer's hand. Declarer now played A J and Simpson won with his king. He exited with a spade, declarer winning it with the ace in dummy. Now declarer played a low heart to the jack and Simpson took it with the king and was on lead again. He returned the 10, pinning declarer's nine and putting the lead back in dummy. Declarer cashed dummy's ace and queen of Hearts, the tried lead the K from dummy. Price (north) ducked this while Simpson (south) unblocked his club queen, and it was all over, the defence had control and communications, declarer could not avoid going one down. 5 imps to Poland which could so easily have been 14 on less sharp defence. In the final seven boards that followed this one, England picked up 23 imps and lost just 6, to run out match winners by 24 imps.

England Seniors are World Champions!

2009-09-12T07:03:00.006+01:00

After a roller coaster ride of a match, where they were down by 60 IMPs after one set, fought back brilliantly to lead by 30 IMPs after five sets and had to face an exciting late rally by Poland, England Seniors emerged victorious by 187 IMPs to 163.67.

Congratulations to all the team (pictured here):
David Price & Colin Simpson
Gunnar Hallberg & John Holland
Ross Harper & Paul Hackett
NPC Peter Baxter

England Seniors recovering after bad start in Final

2009-09-11T08:58:00.005+01:00

The England seniors started the World Championship final really badly against Poland losing the first stanza 1 - 59 to trail by 61.7 imps when the carryover is added on. However they fought back in the second and third stanzas, taking them 57 - 23 & 37 - 31 respectively, cutting the Polish lead to just 21.67. The final will be concluded today, with stanzas 4 ,5 & 6 being played.

England Seniors In World Championship Final!

2009-09-10T07:09:00.004+01:00

England are through to the final of the Senior Bowl in São Paulo. Those watching on BBO were treated to another close match, with Indonesia coming within touching distance towards the end, but England held on magnificently. They play Poland, who beat USA, for a gold medal in the final.

Good luck to the team:
David Price & Colin Simpson
Gunnar Hallberg & John Holland
Ross Harper & Paul Hackett
NPC Peter Baxter

England Seniors fighting back against Indonesia

2009-09-09T06:00:00.000+01:00

It's the half way point of the semi-final match between England and Indonesia in the Seniors World Championship, and England are trailing Indonesia by 12.5 imps. After two stanzas they we trailing by 43.5 imps, but they made a great comeback in the third stanza and have fought their way right back into the match. In the second half they will need to continue what they did in the 3rd stanza, if they can do that they should win. In the other semi-final USA2 are 22 imps ahead of Poland. The two semi-final winners will meet in the final where they will play for the gold and silver medals, plus of course the trophy, while the two losers will play off for the bronze medal.

Seniors Trials for 2010 European and Camrose

2009-09-08T08:15:00.000+01:00

1. The teams who have provisionally entered are required to confirm their team line-up and pay the entry fee of £260 per team by 4 October.

2. Teams may add players to their team (up to a maximum of six in a team) at any stage, provided these players have not played for any other team.

3. Should the England Senior team reach the Final of the Seniors Bowl in Sao Paulo, it will be exempted into the final of the Trials, on the condition that it contains exactly the same six players.

A. Preliminary Round:
- A Preliminary round may be necessary to reduce the field for the Round Robin stage.
- The entries will be seeded according to Gold Points to determine the Preliminary round.
- A maximum of one match to be played privately.
- Teams eliminated at this stage will receive a rebate of £200.

B. Round Robin
- To be played on the weekend of 18-20 December.
- To be played at the Young Chelsea Bridge Club.
- A round-robin, with probably six or eight teams.
- Approximately 48 to 56 boards a day.
- Each player must play at least one third of the boards.

C. Final
- To be played by the two leading teams from the Round Robin, subject to para 3, above.
- 96 boards to be played over two consecutive days.
- The location will be determined after the conclusion of the Round Robin.
- To be played on Jan 23-24.
- The teams may play at a different venue or on a different date, if mutually agreed.
- The match must be completed by 28 February 2010.

5. The team that wins the trials will have the opportunity to play as a team in the European and the Camrose. In the event that the full team is unavailable for either event, the Selection Committee will select a team. If a team-of-four wins, the third pair(s) will be chosen from trials participants by the SC, in consultation with the winners. If a team of five wins the trials then the Selection Committee reserve the right to add a sixth player to the team, in consultation with the winners.

6. NPCs will be selected by the SC, in consultation with the winners.

England Seniors squeak into world semi-finals

2009-09-08T04:37:00.006+01:00

The England Seniors made it into the Semi-finals of the world championships by the narrowest of margins, just 1 imp. There was drama right to the finish. With one board to go England were 10 imps ahead, this was the last board of the match:

Board 96
Dealer W / EW Vul

10 9 8 6 5

A K 7 2

Q 10 5

A K 2

6 5 3

A 8 3 2

A K J

J 7 4

Q 10 8

K 9

Q 9 8 7 3

Q 3

J 9 4

J 7 6 4

10 6 5 4

THe Egyptian EW played in the routine 3NT contract makng two over for a score of 660 to Egypt. In the other room the Egyptian NS stole the contact in 2 and went five down for a score of 250 to England. This resulted in a swing of 9 imps to Egypt, but it was not quite enough to catch England.

In the semi-final England will face Indonesia who beat Belgium in one of the other quarter-finals. England start with a carry-over of 14.5 imps. The other Semi-final is berween Poland & USA2.

England Seniors have slender half-time lead over Egypt

2009-09-07T05:40:00.006+01:00

It's the half way point of the Quarter final match between England and Egypt in the Seniors World Championship, and England are just holding onto the slender lead they started with. Their lead is now 15 imps, so since they started with a carry over of 12 imps, it means they've gained just 3 imps in the first three stanzas. In the second half they will need to show some of the form they showed in the round robin matches, if they can do that they should win. If England win, they will play the winners of the match between Belgium and Indonesia, which at half time could go either way.

England Seniors coast into the Quarter-finals

2009-09-06T10:45:00.006+01:00

The England Seniors have qualified for the quarter-finals of the Seniors World Championship, finishing the round robin a comfortable 23.5 vps ahead of second placed Belgium. The knockout stage begins today. All matches in the Seniors will be 96 boards in length played in six stanzas of 16 boards, spread over 2 days. As round robin winners, England could pick their opponents from the teams that finished between 5th and 8th place, and have chosen to play Egypt. They also get to pick their semi-final opponents, snd they have chosen the winner of the quarter-final match between Belgium and Indonesia. In the other half of the draw, Poland play Sweden and USA1 play USA2, the winners of these two matches meet in the other semi-final. England begin their match against Egypt 12 imps up due to the carry over from the round robin match. The first three stanzas will be played today, and the match will conclude with three more stanzas tomorrow.

England Seniors big favourites to win round robin

2009-09-05T07:04:00.004+01:00

England Seniors surged ahead of all their rivals yesterday, just as I predicted they would. Today is the final day of the round robin, and England start the day 22.5 vps ahead of second place Belgium. They have one hard match today, USA 1 who are 6th. They need just 53 vps from their three matches to day to be certain of winning the round robin, and I'll stick my neck out again today and say I predict they'll win the group and finish between 15 to 20 vps ahead of 2nd. Winning the group will give the team a very useful advantage going into the knockout stages, as it will enable the then to choose their opponents for the quarter & semi finals.

England Seniors lead into the finishing straight

2009-09-04T06:57:00.005+01:00

Just six matches to go now in the round robin stage and the England Seniors are still holding onto their lead as they "round the final corner into the finishing straight". They had a tough day yesterday having to play two of their main rivals, Poland and USA2. The lost both these matches, but only by narrow margins, not enough for them to be overhauled, and they have probably the easiest run in of all the teams at the top. The only top team they have to play is USA 1 who are currently lying 7th, their other 5 matches are against teams in the bottom half of the standings. I feel confident the our Seniors will gain ground on their rivals in the next six rounds, and finish the round robin comfortably in first place. If they achieve this it will give them a big adrantage in the knockout stage s it will entitle them to pick their quarter final opponets, and choose who plays who in the semifinals.

England Seniors lose unbeaten record but remain comfortably in the lead.

2009-09-03T06:25:00.008+01:00

The England seniors finally lost their first match of this championship. It happened in round eleven, when they were beaten 19 - 11 by Belgium who have moved up into 2nd place as a result. Nevertheless England had good wins in the other two matches, so they are still in the lead with a slightly reduced margin of 16.5 vps over the field. England have still won eleven out of their twelve matches, and there are now nine matches to go to the end of the round robin stage. England have probably their toughest day today, they play fifth placed Poland in their middle match and third placed USA2 in their final match, both these matches are being shown live on Bridge Base Online and BBOTV.

Today's Matches
3.00pm Turkey
5.30pm Poland (on BBO)
8.20pm USA 2 (on BBO)

England Seniors have clear water

2009-09-02T08:49:00.007+01:00

After three more wins on day three making it nine out of nine, England are now 20 vps clear of 2nd place Egypt. We are still less than half way through the round robin stage so it's far too early to count chickens, but certainly the team have done everything asked of them so far and I see no reason that should not continue. England will be hoping to keep their lead at the top and win the round robin, as this would allow them to choose their quarter-final and semi-final opponents.

Today's Matches
3.00pm New Zealand
5.30pm Belgium
8.20pm Venezuela

Board by Board Round 7 v Sweden

2009-09-01T15:21:00.024+01:00

Round 7 England v Sweden 33 - 29 imps 16 - 14 vps at the end of the match

Board 5
Price sitting north plays in 3NT. NS have a combined 25 count and no major fit. However there is no heart stop and hearts break 6 - 3 wth the six card suit on lead, so Sweden cash the first six tricks and get one more later for down three, 300 to Sweden. At the other table England buy the contract in 3 and make it 140 to England, but a 4 imp swing to Sweden. England now trail 1 - 15 imps, 12 - 18 vps.

Board 4
Hallberg, sitting East plays in 3NT. The defence can cash the first four tricks after which he has to get three tricks from a diamond suit of K J 10 3 opposite A 5 2. He guesses the suit wrong and goes down one. Sweden play in 3 making four for 170 to go with the 100 in the other room. 7 imps to Sweden. England now trail 1 - 11 imps, 13 - 17 vps.

Board 3
Sweden play in 1NT by North for -90. England play in 2 which goes one down for -50 when the hearts break 5 - 1 offside. 4 imps to Sweden. England trail 1 - 4 imps, 14 - 16 vps.

Board 2
4 by South at both tables. England pick up 1 imp for making an extra overtrick. 1 - 0, 15 - 15 vps.

Board 1
3NT by West with 9 tricks on top at both tables. A push. 0 - 0, 15 - 15 vps.

Board by Board Round 6 v Italy

2009-08-31T22:03:00.030+01:00

Round 6 England v Italy 32 - 27 imps 16 - 14 vps after 16 boards.

Board 32

J 10 9

A 10 7 5 2

A 5 4

K 6

7 5 4 3 2

Q 9 3

10 3

9 8 4

A Q

J 8 4

Q J 9 7 2

A J 10

K 8 6

K 6

K 8 6

Q 7 5 3 2

Holland (west) led a club against 3NT. We don't know the auction but probably clubs had not been bid. 3NT made for -400. 3 +1 was made at the other table but that was still 6 imps back for Italy, making the final score 32 - 27, 16 - 14 in vps.

Board 31

A 10 8 5

9 5 2

Q 10 5 4

9 8

J 9 7 6 2

A 9 7 6 3

J 5

K Q 4 3

7 4

A Q 7 6 5 2

—

A K Q J 8 6 3

K J 2

K 10 3

A missed opportunity for England here. England play in 4 by south making. In the other room the Italian south is in 5, presumably pushed there. This can be beaten on a diamond ruff privided the right lead is chosen. Holland (west) led the 6 so the contract made. 1 imp to Italy when it could have been 10 to England. England's lead reduced to 32 - 21, 17 - 13 in vps.

Board 30

7 5

J 5 4

A 9 3 2

J 10 9 2

K 8 4

K 7 6 2

K 6 5

K Q 7

A Q 6 3

A 10 9

Q 9 4

6 4 3

J 10 9 2

Q 8 3

J 10 7

A 8 5

For both teams East was declarer in 3NT. Hallberg for England made it on the J lead, the Italian East went one off on the J lead. 10 imps to England who are now ahead 32 - 20, 18 - 12 in vps.

Board 29
5 by West made by both teams. Another push. England still lead 22 - 20, 15 - 15 in vps.

Board 28
A push in what looks like a routine 3NT+1 by NS. Still 22 - 20, 15 - 15 in vps.

Board 27
4x -1 by West at both tables. England still lead 22 - 20, 15 - 15 in vps.

Board 26
3 by East at both tables, but England made an overtrick. 1 imp to England who now lead 22 - 20, 15 - 15 in vps.

Board 25

6 4

A K 8

10 9 3 2

A 9 5 2

Q 9 8 5 3

K 6

K J 10 6 4

K 10

Q 6 5 4

Q J 8 7 5

Q 7

A J 7 2

J 10 7 3 2

A 4

8 3

For England, Price (North) plays in 1NT making +1 for +120. The Italian North lands up in 2. This is not a success. Down five and +250 for England. 9 imps back and England regain the lead 21 - 20, 15 - 15 in vps.

Board 24

J 8 6 5 3

K J 8 2

9 6 3

A Q 10 5

A K J 5 3

J 8 7

A Q 2

9 4

10 9

A K Q 10 4 3

K 10 9 7

7 6 3

8 7 6 4 2

Hallberg sitting East plays in 7 and gets a heart lead. It's makeable double dummy but most lines will fail. He goes one down, -50. Italy stop in 6 in the other room for +920. 14 imps to Italy. England now trail 12 - 20 imps, 13 - 17 vps

Board 23.
Price (North) is in 3. His hand is J9873 AQ A64 T73, dummy's is KT62 KJ97 953 Q9. He guests a small spade lead. We don't have play records but my guess is that he read the lead correctly and rose with the K (the lead unlikely to be from Qxx or Qx). Made for +140, down 1 in same contract on heart lead for +100 and 6 imps to England who now lead 12 - 6, 16 - 14 in VP's

Boards 17 - 22. Score is 6 - 6 15 -15 Vps after 6 boards. I pick up the story here.

São Paulo Focus - Day 2

2009-08-31T08:50:00.006+01:00

Round 4 England v Argentina 15:00

Argentina's last appearance in a World event was at the last World Championships in Shanghai, where they finished 12th in the round robin. Two of the pairs from Shanghai are here, so we're facing a similar team. After their great start yesterday, England will have high hopes of consolidating their position with a good win over this team.

The pairs are
Carlos DE MIGUEL & Adolfo Daniel MADALA
Jorge GUEGLIO & Jorge ZANALDA
Marcelo LERNER & Martin MONSEGUR
Click on their names to bring up their international records.

Board by Board news from São Paulo

2009-08-30T16:25:00.084+01:00

Round 3 England v India

Final score England won 46 - 7 imps, 24 - 6 vps.

Round 3 England v India 46 - 7 imps 24 - 6 vps after 16 boards. 1st on 64 vps, USA 2 2nd with 61 vps.

Board 9. For both teams North declared 4 just making for another push. Another pretty common result. Still 25 - 2 to England, 20 - 10 in vps.

Board 8. For both teams East declared 1NT and was down one for a push. A pretty common result. Still 25 - 2 to England, 20 - 10 in vps.

Board 7. For both teams East declared 4. 7 can make due to a very fortunate lie of the cards but even 6 is a poor contract. India made 2 more overtricks than England, so picked up their first imps of the match. 25 - 2 to England, 20 - 10 in vps.

Board 6. Price (North) held T AQ42 964 A9743 while Simpson (South) held K753 KJT65 Q87 J. They bid to 4 doubled played by Simpson. AK were both right, as was A and diamonds broke so the contract made, +590 to England. At the other table the board was passed out. 11 imps to England who now lead 25 - 0 imps, 21 - 9 in vps.

Board 5. EW for England made 3 on their 5 - 3 fit while India just made 1 on a 5 - 2 fit. 2 imps to England who move ahead to 14 - 0 imps, 18 - 12 in vps. Overall score 58 vps.

Board 4. EW for England made two overtricks in 3NT whereas Indian EW only made one. One imp to England who now lead 12 - 0 in imps, 18 - 12 in vps. Overall score 58 vps.

Board 3. 1NT just made by N at both tables. Another push so England still lead 11 - 0 in imps, 17 - 13 in vps. Overall score 57 vps.

Board 2. Both teams made 4 vul with the NS cards. By no means a gimme, game went down in many of the other matches. A push so England still lead 11 - 0 in imps. 17 - 13 in vps. Overall score 57 vps.

Board 1. Price/Simpson sitting NS for England bid to 6 missing AK which are cashable but the Indians don't find the spade lead so the slam makes. In the other room India stop in 5. 11 imps to England. 17 - 13 in vps. Overall score 57 Vps.

Round 2 England v Egypt

Final score England won 25 - 1 imps, 21 - 9 vps.

Board 20 was a push in 4 up 1 by NS. England still lead 3 - 1 imps, 15 - 15 vps.

Board 19. Hackett/Harper took their Egyptian EW opponents 2 off in a 3 contract that most pairs were making, while Hallberg/Holland sitting EW for England were in 4 doubled down 1 for a push. England still lead 3 - 1 imps, 15 - 15 vps.

Board 18. Both teams played in a fairly normal 4. Hallberg's more aggresive Q lead picked up the suit for an extra overtrick imp to Egypt. England now lead 3 - 1 imps, 15 - 15 vps.

Board 17. Hallberg/Holland defended 1 doubled by the Egyptian North and took a +500 penalty, meanwhile Hackett/Harper defended a routine non-vul 3NT for -400. 3 imps to England who lead 3 - 0 in imps, 16 - 14 vps.

Round 1 England v Japan

Final score England won 47 - 30 imps, 19 - 11 vps.

Board 4. Flat in 5 +1 by S. Six is makeable but only because East has to guard KQJT and QJT and can be squeezed. England still trail 12-13 imps 15-15 vps.

Board 3. West has J AJ74 A984 9643. East has A K862 KJ AKQJ87. 6 looks excellent while 6 is good provided hearts don't break nastily. South has Q953 so double dummy 13 tricks are possible in clubs, hearts or even no trumps although of course you wouldn't want to be in a grand slam on this. Ohno/Yamada for Japan bid it to 6 while Hallberg/Holland for England only reach 5. 13 imps back to Japan who take the lead. England now trail 12-13 imps 15-15 vps.

Board 2. 4 +1 by South at both tables. England still lead 12 - 0 in imps, 18 - 12 vps.

Board 1 Price (North) is doubled in 2. His hand is J9 KQ9 A92 AJT94. In dummy is K8753 43 J3 Q853. He gets a diamond lead and makes it for +470. Holland (West) makes 3 in the other room for +130. 12 imps to England. England lead 12 - 0 in imps, 18 - 12 vps.

Peter Czerniewski

2009-08-30T08:24:00.002+01:00

Sadly I must report that Peter Czerniewski, who captained the England Seniors team in the Europeans in Pau and was a playing captain at the World Mind Sports Games in Beijing passed away yesterday.

São Paulo Focus - Day 1

2009-08-30T07:58:00.029+01:00

Round 1 England v Japan 15:00

Not the easiest of opening matches for the England team, in the first match of the tournament they play the winners of the 1st World Mind Sports Bridge Championships in Beijing, Japan. The England team were beaten by Japan in the Quarter-Finals in Beijing last October, so will be keen to put the past behind them and start with a win.

Japan were very much the surprise package in Beijing, previously they had never even reached the knockout stages of any World Level Seniors Championship. So are they one hit wonders or the new force in Seniors bridge? We shall just have to wait and see.

Japan will be fielding two of the three pairs who played in Beijing.
They are
Makoto HIRATA & Yoshiyuki NAKAMURA
Akihiko YAMADA & Kyoko OHNO
Click on their names to bring up their international records.

Round 2 England v Egypt 18:30

Round 2 and another tough match for the England team. Egypt were another team that surprised everyone in Beijing. They eventually went out in the semi-final to the USA, but on the way had good wins over fancied teams France & Australia. They, like Japan had never previously reached the knockout stages of any World Level Seniors Championship. So I ask the same question as I did for Japan. Are they one hit wonders or a new force in Seniors bridge?

Egypt will be fielding the same team as the one that played in Beijing.

They are
Amr El ASKALANI & Marwan KHEDR
Mohsen Mohamed KAMEL & Wael WATTAR
Mohamed Shaker GHAMRAWY & Mohamed Yehia KHALIL
Click on their names to bring up their international records.

Round 3 England v India 21:20

An easier match, at least on paper, to finish with. India have no track record at all at Senior level and finished in a mid-table position in the qualifying rounds in Beijing. Only one player, Vinay Mohan Lal, survives from the Beijing team, the rest of the team are different. I'm not going to try to guess the partnerships but the team is
Ramavatar AGARWAL
S K IVENGAR
Vinay Mohan LAL
Dipak PODDAR
Ashok RUIA
R SRIDHAR
Click on their names to bring up their international records.

São Paulo Focus - Preview

2009-08-30T06:52:00.019+01:00

The championships in São Paulo begin today and the England Senior Team begins its campaign to win the Ernesto d'Orsi Bowl.

The Ernesto d'Orsi Bowl is the trophy awarded to the winners of the Seniors World Championship. This is the fifth to be held, USA have won the first four, time for another country to wrest the trophy from them, why not England?

Twenty-two teams from eight geographical zones have qualifed for these championships. England are one of six teams that qualified from the European Zone.

The event begins with an all play all round robin, three 16 board matches a day for seven days, twenty-one matches in all.

At the end of the round robin the leading eight teams will qualify for the Quarter-Finals and the teams will then play 96 board knock-out matches from then on.

The winners of the round robin get to choose their Quarter-Final opponents from the teams that finish 5th to 8th. The 2nd team gets to choose next, then the 3rd team and the 4th team plays whoever is left over.

The round robin winners also get to choose their semi-final opponents, unless both USA teams qualify for the semi-final in which case the two USA teams MUST play each other.

So from England's point of view the first aim is to ensure they finish in the top eight in the round robin, but ideally they want to qualify in the top three so that they can choose opponents in the Quarter-Final.

England Seniors embark on World Championship trail

2009-08-27T11:28:00.023+01:00

The 2009 World Championships begin on Sunday in São Paulo, Brazil.

England have an interest in the Seniors event.

In the European Championships in Pau, France back in June 2008 they missed out on automatic qualification by the narrowest of margins, a split tie. However one of the European qualifiers has withdrawn, so the England team are in anyway as the first reserves.

There have been a few changes from the team that played in Pau. The team playing in São Paulo will be:

David Price & Colin Simpson
Gunnar Hallberg & John Holland
Ross Harper & Paul Hackett
NPC Peter Baxter

The World Championships have been held once previously in São Paulo, in 1985. That year the Great Britain Women's team won the Venice Cup for their second time so we have happy memories of that city.

You will be able to watch selected matches from the Championships on Bridge Base Online. and BBOTV.

Also, you can follow the results round by round on the World Bridge Federation website. You can even get the running scores of matches currently in play: click in the box at the top of the page.

There's always the pairs

2009-06-23T22:38:00.002+01:00

My optimism for our women's team seems to have put the mockers on them and unfortunately, after dropping behind at half time, never looked like catching their strong Italian opponents who ran out eventual winners by 19 imps.
So English interest in the teams has ended, but the pairs semi final has plenty of interest.
Leading the way (and the whole field) are Alexander Allfrey and Andrew Robson. Dave Kendrick is in 5th (playing with van Cleef of the Netherlands) and just ahead of the Irish, Hanlon & Carroll. Also high up were Holland-Brunner (22nd), Sandqvist-McIntosh (35th) and Hallberg (42) - playing with Furunes of Norway.
In the seniors, Hackett-Harper were 5th in qualifying and Hirst-Hassett 14th.
We had no women playing in their qualifying, but the Penfold team will be exempted into the semi-final if they wish to play.

Silver Lining in Liguria

2009-06-23T08:27:00.002+01:00

English woe in the open teams in San Remo continued, when our last team (Irens) was beaten in the first knock out round by a strong team of French internationals, Blumental, Toffier, Stoppa and Sante-Marie. Irens was up at half time and despite losing two major swings early in the 2nd it was close to the end, but they came up just a game swing short at the tape.
Disappointing as this was, our champion women's team (Sandra Penfold, Nevena Senior, Nicola Smith and Sally Brock) made up for it by staging an amazing charge in the last two rounds of their event. They came from half a match behind a qualifying spot to overtake 3 teams and end a comfortable 3rd in their group. This morning, in the quarter-final, they face a tough Italian team coached by World Champion Dano di Falco, but they are definitely my favourites in this match. Why not follow them on www.bbotv/vugraph - it starts around 9.00 am.
Meanwhile, pairs qualifying has started for the open and England leads the way after McIntosh (Tosh) and Nick Sandqvist put in a set over 67%. Brian Senior and Jack Mizel are not far behind with just under 60% and Robson-Allfrey and Brunner-Holland are also above 55%

San Remo - Open/Womens and Seniors Qualifying

2009-06-21T19:24:00.002+01:00

After such a great start, things seem to have gone a bit flat for the English contingent in the European.
Well done to the EBL at least for scrapping the 3rd/4th play off - so both our semi final teams - Janet De Botton (+ Artur Malinowski. Nick Sandqvist and Nevena Senior) and "Badger" (Frances Hinden, Jeffrey Allerton, Graham Osborne and Paula Leslie) received bronze medals.
In the pairs however medals were hard to come by, although a great performance by Brian Senior and Sandra Penfold left them just off the pace in 6th slightly more than a top behind bronze. Other English pairs making the 52 pair final were Hinden-Osborne and Brunner-Holland
Over the weekend teams were vying to make the knock out stages of the Open, senior and Women's series.

Our only qualifier for the last 32 in the open was Irens, (Erichsen, Gold, Towsend with Tundal and Groetheim from Norway) who qualified in 2nd place. De Botton and Mizel also made the "A" semi final which was incredibly close throughout, but failed to make the cut. We have one representative in the women's series (Penfold, Smith, Brock & Senior) a team with a host of champions. With two matches to go, they will have to make a great effort to qualify out of very tough group, as they are about half a match off 4th place in their group which will qualify them for the quarter final. Still, they have two of the lowest placed teams left to play so fingers crossed!
We also have one team in the Seniors (Harper, Harper, Hackett and Hoffman) but with two matches to go, they are mathematically out of the running. There remain the pairs events in each series, which end on Friday.
Stop Press - Penfold closes to within 7 VP of joint 3rd with 1 match to go

Sao Paulo and the next European

2009-06-17T13:37:00.003+01:00

Taking a breather from San Remo, there was some good news last week as we learnt that we will be represented in the World Championships in August after all. Our Senior team, heartbreakingly, lost the split tie for 6th place in Pau last year. This meant that they failed to qualify by right, but did become the reserve for Sao Paulo. As a result of the surprise withdrawal of the Netherlands we shall now be sending a team. As a result of partnership and other changes it will not be exactly that from the Europeans. Subject to availability at this late notice the designated team is:

Harper-Hallberg

Hackett-Waterlow

Price-Simpson

Meanwhile, I've had a few enquires about the new coaching groups, so here is a brief explanation (thanks to Heather and Simon for their input to this):

For quite a while now, we have been considering whether there are better ways to choose and prepare our teams for the major championships. We concluded that the way forward is to introduce a squad system, similar to that used by many of the most successful nations. This will have the advantage of utilising the 2 year cycle, creating more consistency in selection and focussing our resources more efficiently, whilst creating a clear entry path for new pairs.
Because this will be quite a radical departure, we are using an evolutionary approach to meet this end and have started by identifying pairs for "coaching groups" prior to the 2010 European Championships. These partnerships, who have demonstrated the necessary capability and commitment to play at championship level, will receive assistance with their coaching arrangements and their progress and development will be monitored. This is, nevertheless, a half-way house, so other pairs, not supported, are still in contention for places in the team.
Meanwhile, the Premier League or trials will still be the main criteria for the teams representing England in the Home International series.

By the way, we are really happy that the Premier League has grown this year. It is an exciting (and good value) opportunity for any players seeking to extend their game to an event played to the format and standards of Championship bridge.

Tuesday in San Remo - Medals Guaranteed

2009-06-17T01:00:00.007+01:00

We are in the medals!
Both our remaining teams won their quarterfinal matches. Badger (Hinden) and De Botton both held handy, but far from decisive leads after 14 boards, but neither erred in the 2nd half. So we were already guaranteed a bronze before the semis started. Hinden, playing the powerful French team of Levy, Mouiel, Cronier x 2 led by 15 at the break had few swings against in the 2nd half and extended her lead to a convincingly solid 49-19.
Meanwhile in an exciting show on BBO vugraph, de Botton, playing the dutch team of Arnolds, Vriend, Bakkeren and Maas stretched a lead of of 13 out to 28 until losing a slam swing to bring it back to 19 with 7 to go. 2 boards later Sandqvist and Senior stretched to 3H which went for 500 at love all. Fortunately though Malinowski and de Botton bid a very thin but lucky 3NT on the other cards to hold the loss to 3imps. Encouraged by this, the next board Artur and Janet bid a rather filthy 6H (3 finesses) which went down 1, but luckily the other room did the same. 2 boards to go and 13 imps up, Malinowski overcalled to show the majors over a strong NT with a hand you could use to frighten your children with. It paid off and he gained an imp when Janet saved an undertrick against par.
Just as well - on the last hand, despite another thin (and I do mean thin!) overcall, Arnolds bid and made 3NT by dropping Q10 offside from 5, when in the other room, Sandqvist and Senior were -2 in 5C. That left 1 imp to spare (on BBO at any rate - the EBL web site said 4). Memories of Beijing for Nevena no doubt :)
Don't forget that you can watch BBO either by logging on, or on BBOTV (http://www.bbotv/vugraph)
So on to the semi finals and our teams avoid each other. Badger (Hinden) must play the French team Neve (Allix, Mauberquez, Neve and Reess) who have emerged from a quarter than included Erichsen, Lavazza and Hansen, whilst De Botton take on Rune Hauge's Bulgarian/Norwegian squad of Saelensminde, Malinowski (no not the present Mrs Malinowski - Artur's former wife Anna !), Gunev Popova and Vist. So Malinowski vs Malinowski. Fireworks?
Well not in the first 14 when there was only one game swing and Hauge held a 1 imp lead. In the 2nd half however, 102 imps changed hands and when the dust subsided Hauge was a convincing winner 89-61. Meanwhile Hinden had the worst of the 1st set against Neve and after a board 14 game swing trailed by 20 - although it was closer at one point, in the 2nd set they only gained 6 to lose by 14 (47-61).
So our teams will be fighting each other for bronze (unless the EBL have made the sensible decision to scrap the unpopular 3rd place play-off and give them both one).

San Remo, part 2

2009-06-15T17:04:00.013+01:00

The reason for my confusion over the placings of the qualifiers is explained by the fact that the EBL site originally specified only 16 teams qualifying, but they have actually qualified 32 . Just as well for the event as a number of strong teams, including Lavazza, didn't make the top 16. 4 of "our" teams got through that round with only McGann failing in a close match and Erichsen losing out to Lavazza. A tough draw that, at this stage. It resulted from the "picking system" allowing the leading teams from qualifying to choose their opponents. Obviously no-one wanted Lavazza or Erichsen (including Helness and Brogeland) so they ended up on the shelf till the end.

The last 16 saw de Botton draw Callaghan and a storming 1st 14 boards saw Callaghan virtually out of the match at 85-13 down with both de Botton-Malinowski and Senior-Sandqvist returning great cards. Perhaps not surprisingly after the fireworks, the 2nd set was relatively low scoring and close until the end when de Botton put on another 25 imp.

Meanwhile both Badger (Hinden) and Penfold were making heavy weather down 15 and 16 respectively. Eminently retrievable over 14 of course. Despite a partial recovery by Penfold, she could quite make it and was 11 short in the end. Hinden started the 2nd half with two game swings out and was looking doomed, but a marvellous late recovery ended in a 3 imp win (62-59)so "Badger" with de Botton will carry the English flag into the last 8.

Meanwhile, the tough draw for Lavazza continued with a tie against the Hansen team who had led the qualifying. Mostly Austrian, they also included Kovachev of Bulgaria and Cecilia Rimstedt, a junior world champion from Sweden. The match was incredibly close, with Hansen leading by 1 imp with a board to go, after the trading of slam swings. A flat 3NT on the last board, however, saw the Italians eliminated.

Apart from the "live update" on the EBL web site, you can also watch a couple of matches each set on BBO.

Unfortunately, the site doesn't yet show any pairs results yet. Qualifying is underway. I've heard from Lizzie Godfrey, an ex-pat english international living in the mountains of Southern France that the venue is wonderful and that session timings are much better than before. Great bridge, great weather, great resort - what else can you ask for?

San Remo, part 1

2009-06-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

The qualifying for the Knock out phase of the mixed teams (round of 16) in San remo was completed over the weekend. 11 teams with English players made the A semi final, from where most of the qualifiers come.

Of these a highly creditable six teams with English interest qualified: "Badger" (Jeffrey Allerton, Frances Hinden, Paula Leslie, Graham Osborne) were 5th, just ahead of Janet de Botton (+ Artur Malinowski, Nick Sandqvist and Nevena Senior) in 6th. Sandra Penfold (+ Brian Senior with van Cleef and van Ettingen from the Netherlands) Tenerife winners Erichsen (Espen and Helen with the Brogelands and Helnesses from Norway), McGann (Fiona Brown with Hugh and Glaerum and Hoyland from Norway) and Brian Callaghan (+ Chris Duckworth, Gill Salt and David Stern from Australia) also qualified although their final positions are not obvious from the EBL site. Unsuccessful Group A teams with English players were Blakey, Brunner, Dhondy (the holders), Piedra and Seale.

We go into the last stages with a lot more qualifiers than other countries, so there's plenty of reason for optimism.No communication from troops on the ground yet - hopefully I'll get some over the next few days. :¬)

Open European in San Remo

2009-06-05T15:41:00.003+01:00

The Open European in San Remo (NW Italy) starts next Saturday (12th June). Anyone can play as long as they are in good standing with their National Bridge Organisation and there are plenty of events: Mixed, Open and Women's pairs and teams running for two weeks in one of the best resorts on the Piedmont coast. There are already over 40 English Pairs entered, so if you still fancy going, you'll have plenty of company.

The bridge is played with screens, but in my experience the rules are enforced more pragmatically than they are in the major championships, probably because so many are experiencing bridge at this level for the first time. This is the last Open of the decade of course and it's been a productive 10 years for the English (about time perhaps) with a number of medals earned, including Golds for the Dhondys and the Erichsens. Plus I calculate 6 silvers and 7 bronzes as well.

So why not visit the web site and make a late booking - you may have the best holiday of your life!

The results will be on the web site and we will highlight English successes. Hopefully I will also be able to publish reports "from our own correspondents" as well.

Seniors Camrose and European Tournaments

2009-05-28T14:00:00.002+01:00

Welcome back to the news blog for international news and selections.

Thanks to Dave Muller who entertained you in the past.

I've been down in Juan les Pins for the annual festival for the last week or so. Juan is no longer quite the top tier tournament that it was, but it is cosmopolitan and the standard is still high (we played against Bocchi, Sementa and Madala yesterday) and it is a fantastic way to become familiar with the international scene combined with a relaxing holiday. There are plenty of similar resort based tournaments in France, like Deauville, Biarritz, La Grande Motte, which I would thoroughly recommend as a relaxed way to extend your bridge experience. They are very civilised too, with one long session per day from 4-8, so there is time for sun, shopping and sight-seeing, and relaxed eating in the evening. Details for a number of the Southern tournaments can be found on www.festivalsdusoleil.com.

Meanwhile, if you want to watch some great bridge, this weekend is the last of the Home Internationals, the Seniors series which is being held at Oxford Spires Hotel, Abingdon Road. If you can't make it to the hotel, you can follow it on BBO this year. Full details here.

Numbers were a bit down at Juan this year, probably because in a few weeks there is the European Open 100km down the road at San Remo from 12th June. More about this next week, but details can be found at their website.

European Youth Championships, Romania, 8th - 18th July 2009

2009-04-29T10:15:00.001+01:00

Teams have been announced for the European Youth Championships

Under - 20s
Daniel McIntosh / James Paul
Graeme Robertson / Tom Paske
James Thrower / Rob Myers
NPC: Michael Byrne
Coach Alan Shillitoe

Under 26s
John Atthey & Chris Owen
Fiona Brown & Alex Morris
Mike Bell & Ed Jones
NPC: Chris Dixon
Coach: Ben Green

Ladies
Alice Kaye & Sarah O'Connor
Amy Stout & Emily Middleton
Jennie Marvin & Elizabeth Roberts
NPC: Heather Dhondy
Coach: Susan Stockdale

Beijing U21s. Part Seven

2008-10-20T09:30:00.001+01:00

So, the competition is over and the medal has been won. Everyone would have liked a Gold one, but reaching the final of a World Championship and winning a Silver medal is a fantastic achievement and the whole team should be very proud.

The only thing that remains is to look at what went right and what we can learn for next time. The first thing is to never give up — after day one we had lost two matches and were on 48/75, not in a qualifying spot and not the start we had hoped for. But we stuck to our guns and won the next 11 to zoom into first place. The second thing is that plenty of preperation is essential — lots of practice with your partner, discussion of sequences, as well as making sure you arrive early for every match and start your campaign on the right foot.

The England team did all of this, and we return home heroes.

Thoughts of a Selector (5)

2008-10-16T07:34:00.001+01:00

Well done to both our Open and Women’s teams who have both made the final of their events. Both are now guaranteed at least the Silver medal, but of course will be going for Gold.

Open team

The first half of the semi-final was very close and the match looked like to might go the wire. The coach in his posting, promised a step up in performance in the second half, and he was so right, as England won it resoundingly. Meanwhile Italy beat Norway by a similar margin in the other semi-final, so they will be England’s opponents in the final.

Looking at Italy’s form, they were comfortable winners of Group A, quite a tough group, and then in the knockouts have beaten India, Poland and Norway. They will undoubtedly be England’s toughest opponents, but you would expect that in a final. I’m sure England will be up to the challenge.

Women’s team

The England Women took the lead in the second set, and from that point on never looked in danger of losing their semi-final against Turkey. They won the match comfortably in the end. The other semi-final was a close battle between two strong teams and in the end it was China who emerged the victors, so they will be England’s opponents in the final.

China started slowly in the event. They struggled in the qualifying, only getting through in 4th place in their group. However they seem to have stepped up a gear when they reached the knockouts. First they beat Poland by a large margin, and they followed that with wins against two of the fancied teams, Germany & USA. The last time they played in a knockout match China were the winners, so England will be eager for the chance to reverse that result here.

Beijing Open. Part Five

2008-10-15T18:00:00.000+01:00

Today witnessed the complete demolition of the Germany team by our England Open team. A terrific performance saw the Germans throw the towel in half way through the final set, not a common occurence to say the least. They were 143 IMPs down at the time.
We have been overwhelmed by wishes of congratulations and good luck for the final, so thank you all for them! Predictably we will face Italy in the final — (arguably, perhaps) the best team in the world. But our performances in this tournament give us hope of causing an upset, and we will certainly be giving it our all. Hope to post more in a couple of days!

Beijing Open. Part Four

2008-10-14T14:45:00.000+01:00

Our quarter-final against Romania passed by relatively comfortably. The eventual winning margin was around 120 IMPs or so, and the whole team performed superbly to never give Romania as much as a sniff of a comeback. Our reward for the quarter-final victory is a semi-final tie against Germany, our group winners. The team is feeling in good nick and we are full of confidence.

The first day of our semi-final has been a difficult one to summarise. We are only 8 IMPs behind after 48 boards, and we feel we have not been at our best today. That leaves us extremely hopeful and confident that we can crack on tomorrow and forge a passage to the final. The team have had dinner, and will soon be in bed, getting hopefully a good night's sleep to prepare for tomorrow. Thanks to all the well-wishers, we will do our best for you all to emulate the fantastic England U21s and make the final. By the way, our women are in excellent shape, 73 IMPs up at the halfway point in their semi. Good luck to them too!

Thoughts of a Selector (4)

2008-10-14T07:36:00.001+01:00

Congratulations to the England Under 21’s who have won Silver.

The Seniors lost their Quarter final match to Japan, but congratulations to them for getting to the last eight.

The Open and Women’s teams both won their Quarter-finals fairly comfortably and are now preparing for their Semi-final matches. If they win their Semi-final they will be guaranteed at least a Silver medal. If they lose they’ll take part in a 3th/4th place play-off for the Bronze medal.

Open team

The Open team will be playing Germany in the Semi-final. Germany were the winners of England’s group so this match will not be easy. However a 96 board head-to-head match is very different from a round robin, and the England team will raring to show the Germans who is boss. Tough a this is, it’s still preferable to taking on either of the other semi-finalists who are Norway, the 2007 World Champions and Italy the 2005 World Champions.

Women’s team

The Women’s team will be playing Turkey in the Semi-final. Turkey were 4th in their group and have got to the Semi-final by beating Finland and Russia in the knock-outs. England will be very happy with this draw, it’s preferable to taking on either of the other semi-finalists who are USA, many times world champions, and China, playing at home and one of the new forces in Women’s bridge.

Beijing Seniors. Part Six

2008-10-13T16:30:00.000+01:00

Well, I suppose all good things have to come to an end. We finally met our match in the quarter final against Japan. The eventual margin was exaggerated by our attempts to get a lot of IMPs back in the 5th session, but there is no doubt we were beaten comprehensively. We could all have played better, but our opponents played very well and in luck, so this would have been a difficult match to win under any circumstances.

We can now devote our time to cheering on our Open and Womens squads both of whom have done fantastically well and made it through to the semi-finals.

Farewell from the Seniors in Beijing.

Thoughts of a Selector (3)

2008-10-12T12:12:00.010+01:00

Hearty congratulations to all our teams for reaching the knockout stages of their events. They have surpassed expectations, a fantastic achievement. Well done from everyone back home to our players, captains and coaches, and good luck in the knockouts.

The importance of attaining a high finishing position in the group stages has become truly evident. Not only does it give the team a choice of opposition in the first knockout round, it also give the team a high seeding, which means if they reach the later stages, they will be kept apart from the stronger oppositions. This certainly appears to be the case for those of our teams that won or came 2nd in their groups.

Open team

The Open team finished 2nd in Group D are were drawn against Bulgaria in the Round of 16. They were quite happy with this draw, there were many more difficult teams they could have been pitched against. It wasn’t easy, no match is at this stage, but in the end they won by a fairly comfortable margin of 45 Imps. They won’t be unhappy with their next draw either, in the Quarter-final they meet Romania, with the prospect of Germany or Netherlands in the Semi-final if they win. Had they not finished 2nd they would have had a much tougher draw. USA, Poland, Italy, Brazil, China, Norway are all in the other half of the draw, I’m sure England will be pleased to have avoided them.

Women’s team

The Women’s team won their group with the 2nd highest VP score, only Germany scored more. They were able to choose their opponents in the round of 16 and were very happy to pick Singapore. It was not a walkover, but the final margin of 53 Imps was comfortable enough. They, like the Open team, won’t be unhappy with their next draw, in the Quarter-final they meet France, with the prospect of Russia or Finland in the Semi-final if they win. Germany, China, USA & the Netherlands are all in the other half of the draw, I’m sure England will be pleased to have avoided them.

Senior’s team

The Senior’s team finished 6th in their group and were picked by Poland in the round of 16. The match was a struggle for a long time but they emerged as winners in the by a comfortable margin of 50 Imps. In the Quarter-final they play Japan, and if they win that they will face Indonesia or the Netherlands in the semi-final.

Under 28’s

The Under 28’s finished 6th in the qualifying Swiss and were picked by France in the Quarter-final. France started the match with a carry-over of 12 Imps. They were unable to overturn this and eventually lost by 50 Imps. Well done to them nevertheless for getting this far, in a field of 74 teams this was no mean achievement. The players will now move into the pairs and the individual events where they have a further chance of glory.

Under 21’s

The Under 21’s won the qualifying group and as a result were allowed to pick their opponents for both the Quarter and Semi-final, a huge advantage. In the Quarter-final they chose the Netherlands. They started with a carry-over of 12 Imps and won the macth in comfort, ny a margin on 74 Imps. They have chosen China for their semi-final opponents who they beat comfortably in the group stages, and again start the match with a 12 Imp carry-over. The other Semi-final is between France & Bulgaria.

Beijing Open. Part Three

2008-10-12T02:25:00.000+01:00

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!

Beijing Seniors. Part Five

2008-10-11T16:20:00.001+01:00

We won our match against Poland today and are in the quarter-finals (along with the England Open and Womens Teams, and the Under-21s who are through to the semi-finals). It was quite nail-biting for a long time. We dropped 5 IMPs in the first set and another 1 IMP in the second, and it was not until well through the third set that we took the lead. The final margin of 50 seems comfortable, but the match was anything but. Poland are a tough and experienced team and the IMP total in the match was lower than any other round-of-16 match not only in Seniors but also in Open and Womens.

Tomorrow we start the two-day quarter-final against Japan who beat Germany today. We lost 13-17 to Japan in the round-robin over 16 boards and are looking to put that right over 96.

Beijing U21s. Part Six

2008-10-11T14:55:00.001+01:00

And now we're into the Semi-final!

Our match against The Netherlands went pretty much to form, we won 20 in the first set, then 15 then 7 to win by 54 IMPs. Every pair played two sets so the team is feeling fresh and confident.

Our match against the Chinese is a bit of an unknown quantity — we played them in the round robin and beat them by 45 IMPs, thanks in part to a 3 doubled up one that our lads rolled home for 13 IMPs. We have to start sensibly and keep the pressure on, and make sure we cut out the errors — matches are lost not won.

Now, time for a game of Mario Kart I think — Rob Myers has thoughtfully brought his laptop and if I can only figure out how to use the keypad I might be able to win the Mushroom Cup...

P.S. Having just read the Seniors blog I can only apologise for my erroneous statement implying that the seniors team did not make it all the way up the Great Wall of China. That was based on speculation and assumption, and I should not have in anyway suggested that they are all a load of decrepit old people — they are a bunch of athletic tigers, waiting to take down the enemy as Poland found out to their cost today!

Beijing U21s. Part Five

2008-10-10T16:00:00.000+01:00

A day off blogging for the esteemed Captain, so it's up to the Coach to fill in.

Another sterling effort from the lads who followed up a solid win against Argentina by bringing home the Ashes in style by taking a maximum from the Aussies. This put us 2VPs ahead of the French at the top of the table and we were keen to hold on to this advantage as it would give us preferential choices for the knock-outs. This was accomplished by means of a resounding tonking of Singapore, whose hopes of qualifying were simultaneously left in tatters. This in addition to the very surprising demise of the the Poles — who won the U20 Euros by the proverbial country mile.

So, given choice of finishers 5-8, we elected to lock horns again with the Dutch and then choose the winner of China vs Norway as our possible Semi opponent. Not only that, but in both matches we would start with the maximum possible carry over of 12 IMPs.

So, all that remained was the obligatory game of celebration night-time frisbee — something of a ritual in these parts, it's all about the long game you know.

Must fly. Got to tuck them up tight in bed for an early night and read them a story.

Beijing Seniors. Part Four

2008-10-10T15:45:00.000+01:00

Well, we qualified for the round of 16, albeit with a quiet finish, losing narrowly to Brazil and Japan. We ended 6th in our qualifying group and will play Poland in the round of 16. They chose us (when they could have chosen Hungary) so our task is to show them they made the wrong decision! We start playing earlier than usual tomorrow — at 10 o’clock — and it is the longest day of the whole event because we have to play 56 boards. If we get through that, later rounds will be 96 boards spread over two days.

In a sense, the main tournament starts tomorrow, and we are certainly treating the match as the first in a new event. The weakest teams have dropped out so the bridge will now be less random and we will have to play well. We are looking forward to the challenge.

Yesterday’s rest day was welcome (although it would have been better after the end of the round-robin) and, despite what you may have heard elsewhere, some of the Senior Team (David and Peter) did visit the Great Wall, including a walk to the highest watch tower!

Beijing U28s. Part Four

2008-10-09T16:00:00.001+01:00

We went to the wall today. No — don't worry — it was the Great Wall of China, not in the bridge sense.

Tuesday involved some scrappy bridge but we emerged with a respectable number of VPs upon which we consolidated with two decent wins on Wednesday. We're now lying third and failure to qualify would be a gross misfortune. Dare we think about finishing high enough to choose our opponents in the knock-out?

The team is in good spirits and confident but sensible. The captain and coach are nervous wrecks and checking their travel insurance to see if tranquilisers are reclaimable.

Keep your fingers crossed, our blog reading people!

Beijing U21s. Part Four

2008-10-09T14:35:00.001+01:00

The matches on Wednesday went reasonably enough. We chalked up 23-7 against the Netherlands, the crazy pair having a very tough time of it when faced with my top pair. Against Poland we lost by 4 IMPs, but had the better of the big hands. They had a few lucky partscores to creep ahead though.

More importantly today saw all the England teams join together and go on a team outing. Jason Hackett did everyone a favour by hiring a coach and guide and organising a trip out, first to the Forbidden City and then to the Great Wall of China. Of the 20 players (U21s, U28s, Open and Ladies — sadly there were no members of the senior team since they don't really have the stamina to make it up the Great Wall!) that went off, only 5 climbed all the way to the top. Adam Hickman and I went first and on the way down we passed Ben Paske, Susan Stockdale and Martin Jones who also reached the pinnacle. The rest made it up a few steps before discretion took over and they took refuge in the cafe.

Tomorrow the final 3 matches await us, then the tricky decision of whom to choose!

Thoughts of a Selector (2)

2008-10-09T11:47:00.009+01:00

We’ve reached the rest day and there is one day to go in the qualifying stage so time to reflect of the progress of all our teams, and sum up the position of the main opposition.

It’s still all going very well, all of our teams are still occupying their respective qualifying positions, and three of them, the Women, the Seniors and the Under 21’s are virtually assured of qualification to the knockout stages. Let’s look at the series one by one.

Open team

The Open team are still going well in Group D, and are still lying 3rd in their group. It’s panning out very much as I predicted in my last report, with five teams in contention for the four qualifying slots. Every match is important but there will be three matches on the final day that will have a large bearing on the final outcome of the group. They are Germany (1st) against Turkey (4th) in round 15, England (3rd) against Germany (1st) in round 16, and USA (2nd) against Indonesia (5th) in round 17. Germany have a sizeable lead but it is not yet an unassailable one, they can still be caught. The most important thing for England is to qualify, but if they can qualify in 1st or 2nd position that would allow them to have some choice of opposition in the first knockout round, and avoid the top seeds (listed below).

What about the other groups? There always seems to be one group that gets labeled the group of death, but in this case I think there are two groups that could qualify for that label.

First take a look at group A. Italy look safe, but behind them Denmark, Canada, France, Brazil, South Africa, Ireland, Pakistan & Japan are all teams that would fancy their chances of qualifying, but at least four of them are not going to make it. Even worse, from their point of view, is the fact that Estonia are occupying one of the qualifying slots at the moment, which mean five may not qualify. Also don’t rule out Romania and Finland who are also in there with a chance.

Now look at group B. Israel lead by a large amount and look safe, and main contenders for the other slots are Netherlands, China, Hungary & India. Again there could be a few casualties in this group, Austria, Sweden, Argentina & Russia, all fancied teams, are all quite a bit off the pace.

There are no big surprises in group C. Norway & Poland are neck & neck at the top, with just half a VP separating them, both look safe. Behind them the main contenders are Bulgaria, Spain, New Zealand and Belgium.

Who will be the top seeds? Well it can still change quite a bit in the last three matches but if the seeding were to be done on the currents scores the top eight would be 1. Germany 2. Israel 3. Italy 4. Norway 5. Poland 6. USA 7. Netherlands 8. Estonia, quite a formidable bunch.

Women’s team

The England Women’s team have continued their terrific form in Group E, winning thirteen of their fourteen matches so far, and have collected the maximum 25 victory points from six of them. They lead their group by 15 VPs from second placed USA and are a massive 50 VPs ahead of third placed Italy. They are certain to qualify for the knockouts, and the only question now is whether they can hold onto their lead and win the group. The match that will probably decide the group comes in round 15 when they play the USA, if they get a decent result from that match they should take the group. It will be very advantageous to win the group, as it will give the team a better choice of opposition on the first knockout round, and also get them a higher seeding for the latter stages which is very important. USA, who are currently second in the group look safe too. The other qualifying slots are currently occupied by Italy, Poland & Japan, with Brazil leading the chasing group.

Women’s Group F is very tight. Hosts China lead the group, but they are far from safe. The other qualifying slots are currently occupied by Finland, France, Denmark & Russia, with Spain and Scotland not far behind. China have a really tough finish, they still have to play Finland, France and Denmark, and France and Denmark also have to meet each other, so there will be opportunities for the chasing group, which means Scotland have a good chance of qualifying.

Women’s Group G has been completely dominated by Germany. They’ve won 12 and drawn one of their fourteen matches, and have just had a run of seven successive maximum 25VP wins. They are virtually certain to win their group, and Netherlands, who lie 2nd, look fairly safe too. There will be a mad scramble for the other qualifying places, it’s impossible to predict who the other qualifiers might be.

Who will be the top seeds? Well it can still change quite a bit in the last three matches but if the seeding were to be done on the currents scores the top eight would be 1. Germany 2. England 3. China 4. USA 5. Netherlands 6. Finland 7. France. 8. Italy.

The England women will be hoping this order doesn’t change, since at things stand they would not be due to meet any of the strongest teams, Germany, China, USA & Netherlands, until the semi-final.

Senior’s team

The Senior’s team are currently lying joint 3rd in group K, and they now a comfortable 36 VPs ahead of the last qualifying slot, so with only two matches they are certain to qualify. Their aim now is to finish as high as they can since if they finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the group, this will allow them to have some choice of opposition in the first knockout round. USA who lead, and Japan who are second have built up quite a large lead over the rest, and may be too far ahead to catch, so the realistic target for the England team to aim for is 3rd in the group. France (joint 3rd) and Chinese Taipei (5th) also look safe.

A similar situation exists in Group L where Indonesia who lead and Australia who are second have built up a big lead over the rest. Poland (3rd) Canada (4th) and Egypt (5th) look fairly safe too.

The top seeds, as things stand, would be 1. USA 2. Indonesia 3. Australia 4. Japan 5. Poland 6. France 7. Canada 8. England, but both groups are so close that this order is likely to change quite a bit by the finish.

Under 28’s

The Under 28’s continued their fine form, and although they are not yet guaranteed to qualify, they are certainly in a very good position. They are currently lying 3rd with an 18 VP lead over the last qualifying slot. All the teams at the top have already played each other, so the teams that are making a late surge will find it difficult, as they will probably have to play the teams at the top in each of their last three matches, so it won't be easy for them to dislodge any of the leading teams. Ideally the England team would like to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the group, as this will allow them to have some choice of opposition in the first knockout round. They are only 12vps behind leaders Poland, so it’s still possible that they could finish in first place. The leading 5 teams, who have been at the top most of the time, are Poland, Israel, England, Belgium & China, and I’ll be surprised if any of these five don’t qualify.

Under 21’s

The Under 21’s are 2nd in their group, they have qualified in comfort and are now setting their sights on finishing as high as they can in the group. France lead the group and Bulgaria are in 3rd place. Ideally the team would like to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the round robin, as this will allow them to have some choice of opposition in the first knockout round, and as things stand it looks very likely they will achieve this.

Under 26’s

We’re not represented in this event, as our team did not qualify from the Europeans. Poland are leading this event, and are followed by Netherlands and Australia.

Other Home Nations
A very brief round up of the other home nations:-

Open
Ireland are 9th in Group A, 10.5vps behind the last qualifying position and still have a chance of qualifying, Scotland are 14th in Group B, Wales did not enter a team.

Women
Scotland are 7th in Group F, 7vps behind the last qualifying position and still have a chance of qualifying Ireland are 13th in Group G, Wales did not enter a team.

Seniors
Ireland are 11th in Group L, Wales are 15th in Group K, Scotland did not enter a team.

Under 28's
Ireland are 42nd, Scotland are 48th, Wales are 51st.

Beijing Open. Part Two

2008-10-09T09:45:00.001+01:00

Tuesday morning started with a match against the high flying Indonesians. The match was extremely low scoring, and was decided by a slam deal which went in their favour, so we emerged with a 13-17 loss. Then we played La Reunion, and we duly achieved the maximum 25 VPs we were looking for. The last match of the day was against the Greeks. We were winning comfortably, but in the last couple of boards the Greeks bid a roughly 50% slam which made, narrowing our winning margin to 17-13. We lay in 4th overnight, with everything being very tight.

Wednesday saw us kick off with a solid 20-10 win against Switzerland, and the second match of the day saw a 23-7 win againt Venezuela, who played solidly despite their lowly league position. The good news from our point of view was that Greece beat Indonesia, so we sit 3rd in the group, a couple of VPs clear of Turkey and more importantly 10 clear of Indonesia. Hopefully we can take advantage of that result and go on to secure our qualification on Friday.

Thursday is a rest day; some of our team are relaxing at the hotel, having a swim or using the gym, whilst some have gone on a trip to the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City. We are in the final straights of the group stages, and on Friday we play Belarus, Germany and finish off with Serbia. Fingers crossed I will be able to post again when we have secured our qualification for the last 16!

Beijing Seniors. Part Three

2008-10-08T12:15:00.001+01:00

Since my last report we have played 5 matches. Yesterday we scored 25, 17, and 12 against Hong Kong, Pakistan and South Africa, and today (Wednesday) we got 23 and 16 against Denmark and Estonia.

With two matches to go we are third equal in our group and almost certain of qualifying, but we have very little chance of catching either USA in first place or Japan in second. We are in a battle for third place with France (equal third with us) and Taipei (3 VPs behind in 5th). Third place is important because we would still have some choice, albeit limited, of knock-out opponents.

A feature of our matches seems to have been to fall behind early on and recover in the last few boards. That was certainly the case in our matches against Pakistan and Estonia, which we won 17-13 and 16-14 respectively after trailing a long way behind after the first 10 boards. Our team's slam bidding seems to have improved since Pau. David and Colin picked up two big swings to overtake Pakistan in the last 4 boards by bidding a good small slam and a good grand slam, both missed by Pakistan.

Tomorrow is a rest day. David and I are visiting the Great Wall, and the other team members all have plans of their own. It will be the first day that we do not have dinner together as a team.

We have our last two matches on Friday — the last day of the round robins. Our opponents are Brazil and Japan.

Beijing U21s. Part Three

2008-10-07T16:55:00.001+01:00

Having completed 12 of the 17 matches we are virtually assured of qualification and have set our sights on winning the group.

The team is doing so well (having won the last 9 matches — most of them heavily) that it has got to the stage where they're disappointed simply by failing to get a maximum win!

Yesterday we scored a great 70 out of 75 VPs. Glowing with pride I rushed up to the first person I saw to have a gloat — it was Pony Nehmart of Germany. After spending a quick ten minutes assuring her that we did actually know each other and yes, we had indeed met (about 20 times) I brought the topic of conversation round to the scores. She didn't bat an eyelid at my grand announcement of 70 VPs, instead she was explaining that her team were desperate to find out who it was that had cost them the 1 VP they had dropped all day — they had chalked up 25, 25, 24! Ah well.

Tomorrow we have our friends the Dutch, who normally do crazy things like drop singleton Kings offside and finesse missing the Queen of trumps in nine card fits, and then Poland who are having a rough time of it so far.

Thoughts of a Selector

2008-10-06T19:01:00.016+01:00

We’ve passed the half-way point of all the qualifying stages so this is a good time to reflect of the progress of all our teams.
We couldn’t really hope for a much better start, all of our teams are occupying their respective qualifying positions, and two of them, the Women and the Under 28’s are currently leading their events. Lets look at the teams one by one.

Open team
The Open team have had a great start, and are currently lying 3rd in their group. They had a reasonably good draw, not too many strong teams in their group, but with only four teams qualifying nothing can be taken for granted, the team will have to keep performing well to get through to the knockout stages. Who are the main threats? Well USA, many times world champions are one, they must be favourites to win the group. The other obvious strong teams must be Germany, who are currently leading the group, Indonesia & Turkey. These four teams, plus England, are currently occupying the top five spots, and I’d say it’s likely that the qualifiers will come from these five teams. Of the other four teams mentioned, England have lost 8 - 22 to USA but have beaten Turkey 24 – 6, witnessed on BBO by many of you this morning. They still have to play Germany and Indonesia. If the team can get good results against these two, and a few big wins against some of the weaker teams, they will be well placed to qualify. Ideally they would like to finish 1st or 2nd in the group, as this will allow them to have some choice of opposition in the first knockout round.

Women’s team
The Women’s team have had a fantastic start, they lead their group by 21vps. They’ve had a good draw and have capitalised on it with eight wins out of nine, most of them by large margins. The main threats in their group would appear to be USA and Italy, currently lying 2nd & 3rd in the group. They still have to play these two teams, so these two matches will clearly be key. The team is very well placed to qualify, but would ideally like to hold onto the top spot, as this as this would allow them to have some choice of opposition in the first knockout round.

Senior’s team
The Senior’s team are currently lying 4th in their group, with eight qualifying for the knockout stages, so they too are well place to make it through. The’ve been handicapped by the loss of one of their players, through illness, but have shown much resilience to remain in contention despite this setback. They’ve already played the team who most would reckon are the group favourites, USA, and has already been stated were particularly unlucky to lose that match when a 2% grand slam bid by the opposition very fortunately made. Ideally the team would like to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the group, as this will allow them to have some choice of opposition in the first knockout round.

Under 28’s
The Under 28’s couldn’t really hope for much more at this stage, after 9 of their 17 rounds they lead their field of 74 teams in the Swiss. Poland have been leading for most of the way, and the England team beat them in round 7, they then beat hosts China (currently lying 3rd) in round 8 and took over top spot from Poland in round 9 by getting a maximum win against India. There are still some good teams working their way up through the field, as is likely to happen in a Swiss event, but with wins against all the top teams they have played so far, the team will be able to take on these other teams with confidence. Also, since this is a Swiss and there are no rematches, it is comforting for the team to know they won’t have to play Poland or China in any of the later rounds. Ideally the team would like to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the group, as this will allow them to have some choice of opposition in the first knockout round.

Under 21’s
The Under 21’s are currently lying 2nd in their group, and with eight team qualifying look very well placed to make it through to the knockout stage. It’s not at all clear who the major threats are, but clearly one if them is France, the current leaders, and England have already played them. Ideally the team would like to finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the round robin, as this will allow them to have some choice of opposition in the first knockout round.

Other Home Nations
A very brief round up of the other home nations:-

Open
Ireland are 7th in Group A, Scotland are 13th in Group B, Wales did not enter a team.

Women
Scotland are 10th in Group F, Ireland are 14th in Group G, Wales did not enter a team.

Seniors
Wales are 10th in Group K, Ireland are 13th in Group L, Scotland did not enter a team.

Under 28's
Wales are 46th, Scotland are 49th, Ireland are 61st.

Beijing Open. Part One

2008-10-06T18:00:00.001+01:00

So, after a good start on day one when we achieved 57 out of a possible 75 VPs, we had a tough second day, including a middle match against the powerful U.S.A. team. We only managed to obtain 47 out of the available VPs.

We woke up today knowing that we needed to get three good results, and all three pairs contributed to a fine day. In the first match, we were 23 IMPs down against the Philippines with 6 boards to go, but at the final whistle a 28 IMP win, 22-8 in VPs, was recorded — a fine comeback. In match 2 we played Botswana, and comfortably managed to rack up our second maximum of the tournament. The last match today saw us play a strong Turkey team, who had won 7 and drawn 1 of their opening 8 matches including a victory over the U.S.A. An extremely solid team performance, broadcast live on BBO, saw us win comfortably, by 40 IMPs, which secured a 24-6 win in VPs. So with 71 VPs out of a possible 75, we are lying in third place in our group overnight, with four qualifying.

Tomorrow we play Indonesia in the first match (they are currently 5 VPs behind us in 4th place in the group), Reunion and Greece. With more solid performances, and a bit of luck, we should remain on course for qualification for the round of 16.

Beijing Seniors. Part Two

2008-10-06T16:25:00.000+01:00

In the Senior Teams, the field is sorting itself out after 3 days and 8 of the 15 round-robin matches. Our own team has not been very consistent — in our last 5 matches we scored 15, 25, 5, 4, and 25 respectively against Taipei, Kenya, Hungary, France, and New Zealand. We are lying 4th equal with 128 (average 120) — OK for qualification but we would like to be first or second so we can choose round-of-16 opponent. We are a long way behind second place at the moment so we have some work to do! The draw has been changed from that originally published and our remaining matches in order are: Hong Kong, Pakistan, South Africa, Denmark, Estonia, Brazil and
Japan. The first of these, on Tuesday morning, is particularly important since Hong Kong is tied with us for 4th place.

We have a lot to live up to, since the England Junior, Open, and particularly Women’s teams are all doing well.

One good thing is that we have found a couple of very decent Chinese restaurants 10 minutes' walk away and costing about one tenth of the prices they charge in the hotel. Apart from breakfast (which is included in the room rate) I don’t think we will eat in the hotel restaurants again (or drink in the bars!).

Beijing U28s. Part Three

2008-10-06T16:10:00.000+01:00

Yesterday's rain cleared away the smog and gave us a wonderful springtype morning. Oh and the Bridge? We faced the much feared Poland on vugraph first match and the only bad aspects were the misanalyses by the commentator. I had a hard battle with a line of Polish supporters in the front row but won on points 97 to 96. The players had an easier task, although a promising lead slipped away to a narrow win. Still, good bridge by all against a world class team.

Next came our hosts and a similar victory, being one IMP short of an extra victory point. Excellent Bridge all round.

Last match was against a high-flying India team. Our people severely clipped their wings but left them with the VPs they started with. I have tried not to personalise things, but feel compelled to mention Ollie and Andrew who I watched for this match. Their defence against a number of speculative Indian contracts, which could well have slipped through, was excellent.

The latter point brings me to the reason for our success so far. Sure, mistakes have been made by the team (well maybe not their captain!) but we have not let a single error by the opponents go unpunished.

Over half way now in the Swiss and hopeful of greater things...

Beijing U28s. Part Two

2008-10-05T15:15:00.001+01:00

A disappointing start to what ended a very satisfactory day. Portugal played well and IMPs were very hard to come by so the 12-18 loss was acceptable. However, it resulted in a next round draw against the much feared USA in the next round. Philosophically I thought better that we meet them early than have a crunch match towards the end in a struggle to qualify. Well, as things turned out, it was more than a propitious time to meet the favourites. The team played well and collected everything that the USA kindly passed our way and we won 22-8!

The same team carried on the momentum against Turkey and once again gave very little away whilst gladly accepting the occasional gift. When the smoke cleared we had 24 and I suppose Turkey had the balance; I didnt bother to look. Now lying third and 10 VPs clear of the non-qualifying area.

Next stop is Poland who are carrying all before them. However, we are also the team in form and I hope that these words are not served up for lunch.

Beijing U21s. Part Two

2008-10-05T14:30:00.002+01:00

After surviving the 90-minute opening ceremony, which as far as I could tell dedicated the whole of the middle section to giving praise for the many uses of string (I kid you not), our team started with a modest 11-19 loss to France, before crushing Ecuador 24-6. A slightly tired match aginst the USA saw us go the whole match without conceding a single game swing — our worst board was 7 IMPs out — so it was somewhat disappointing when this resulted in a 12-18 loss.

Today, however, has seen us return to form. A rather embarassing 100 IMP win over Botswana gave us 25-0. Then we faced Norway. Despite bidding a reasonable slam that went off we won 25-4, just as we did in the Europeans. The European silver medallists, Bulgaria, awaited us and we emerged victorious 16-14 in a tight match. This leaves us in 3rd place, approximately one third of the way through the round robin.

Beijing Seniors. Part One

2008-10-04T15:30:00.001+01:00

An unexpected start to the Senior Team's campaign. Andrew Thompson did not show up at the airport and we were unable to contact him for over 24 hours. When we eventually did, we discovered he had been taken ill in London and had been taken to hospital without his phone or address book so could not contact us. We think he will be OK but not up to travelling to Beijing, so we have drafted Peter Czerniewski as a playing (as opposed to non-playing) captain, to play with Ross Harper.

Afer one day (3 of 15 round-robin matches) we have made a reasonably good start beating Sweden 24-6 and Wales 18-12 before losing 18-12 to a good US team — but it would have been 19-11 the other way if their 2% grand slam had been going down!

It is interesting to see which teams are doing well. Japan and South Africa are above us in the standings and Taipei (who we play tomorrow morning) are on the same score as us. As opposed to that, the teams you would expect (France, Italy, etc) are not doing so well. Still — it is very early days.

Beijing U28s. Part One

2008-10-04T15:00:00.002+01:00

Scrappy first match against Croatia where no-one played particularly badly and the result could easily have been reversed. Ended up in a 12-18 loss. We then got a lucky draw against Zimbabwe and made the most of it by scoring a blitz; in fact the margin was 101 IMPs. Same pairs then took on better opposition in the form of Estonia. We dropped 2VPs on the last board but still managed a 23-7 win. The margin was mainly through an excellent lead against a slam where game was played at the other table and a fortunate positional slam bid at both tables but putting our defender on lead with the singleton.

So we are occupying the last qualifying spot and the team are instructed to hold onto it for all they are worth. Portugal next, who had two maximums but went off the boil in the third match.

(Concise) Thoughts from a Beijing NPC: Phil King (Open)

2008-10-04T12:00:00.000+01:00

We asked Phil King what he thought his team's prospects were and he replied:

It looks like a decent draw.

We have a pretty good record in this event, so knockout stages and then hope for a bit of luck with the choices available.

Thanks Phil!

Beijing U21s. Part One

2008-10-01T16:20:00.003+01:00

The team survived the 12-hour flight ok, though were overcome with disappointment that there was no film on the plane. (Tom Paske in particular was hoping to catch the recent "Sex and the City" movie.)

We were picked up at the airport by our Chinese hosts and transported with a minimum of fuss to our accommodation, which is very comfortable.

Now — just the jet lag to overcome!

Thoughts from a Beijing NPC: Peter Czerniewski (Seniors)

2008-09-30T15:25:00.001+01:00

In the Seniors, we are fielding the same team that played in the European Championships in June: David Price - Colin Simpson, Chris Dixon - Victor Silverstone, Ross Harper - Andrew Thompson with Peter Czerniewski NPC.

All three pairs have worked hard since then and we have also held a couple of training days including playing, slam biding (which let us down a bit in Pau), and coaching from David Burn. Our objective is to win a medal in Beijing.

Our first task is to get through the round robin by occupying one of the first 8 places (out of 17). We are confident we should be able to do that, but there is a significant advantage in finishing in the top 3 because you get a choice of round-of-16 opponents, so we will be gearing our efforts to that. We think our main rivals in our qualifying group are likely to be USA, Sweden, France, and Denmark, but there are some other teams we don't know so well (such as Brazil, Hungary, New Zealand) who could also turn out to be strong. We play USA (probably our strongest opponents) in the third match of the first day.

From the round of 16 we will be playing long knock-out matches. We obviously don't know who we will be playing, but we would expect to see teams such as Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Indonesia, and China in the knock-out rounds.

Thoughts from a Beijing NPC: Michael Byrne (U21s)

2008-09-30T15:14:00.003+01:00

There are 18 teams in the U21's and England will start amongst the favourites.

The teams play a complete round robin, and the key is to score consistently well — plenty of 19's and 20's, rather than 25-4 wins interspersed with 7-23 losses. Of course you have to get maximums against the weak teams as well, but a healthy winning record does a lot for confidence and team morale, especially if you have to play a team in the knock outs you have already beaten in the round robin.

Once we reach the knock out stages it is only a short sprint to the final, and the team must aim to keep their nerve, especially if lucks goes against them or they have a few unlucky boards.

England have a talented and able team, and they have put tremendous amounts of work in over the two years I have been in charge. Let's hope it finally pays off.

Thoughts from a Beijing NPC: David Greenwood (U28s)

2008-09-30T10:01:00.003+01:00

There are 73 teams in the Swiss playing 17 matches with the top 8 qualifying
for the knock-out.

As ever, there will be a certain amount of luck in the round-by-round draws
and this will be particularly relevant for those in contention towards the
latter rounds. No doubt there will be a mad scramble for the last few
positions with every VP vital.

Our aim must be to optimise our result when we get a 'lucky' draw and do our
best to hold onto as many VPs as possible against the stronger teams. As
ever, team morale will be of utmost importance in this high pressure
atmosphere.

From an initial analysis, there are 4 teams of Open class and another 5 or
so very capable teams. I believe our team is well within these categories
and we will be very disappointed not to qualify. I imagine the higher you
are placed in the final rank the easier the opponents you can choose so I
won't postulate beyond the qualification stage.

I'll be posting more of my thoughts during the event so stay tuned.