Thoughts of a Selector

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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!