The English ladies have moved into the top six as the championships progress. In a turbo-charged second day, the team recorded emphatic victories against Bulgaria and Serbia. Unfortunately, we slipped into reverse against Greece this morning, leaving us 20 VPs off the lead but still in one of the six qualifying places for the Venice Cup.
We will face Turkey and Croatia later today - hoping to consolidate our position!
Why were Israel and Lebanon fined 3 VPs and why does it look like they didn't play each other?
ReplyDeleteBecause they didn't play each other. The question you might ask is "why are Israel and Lebanon playing in the European Championships at all when neither country is in Europe?" The simplest answer to that is "because if they had to play in the WBF Zone to which they should belong (Asia and Middle East), they might find it hard to get a game."
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, Israel is in Europe as far as the WBF is concerned, and so is Lebanon. For reasons too trite (and stupid) to mention, they cannot actually compete directly against one another - governmental edicts to that effect cannot be countermanded by bridge players. So, if they have to play against one another at bridge, a legal fiction exists whereby one of them arrives late for the first round (it is remarkable how often a random draw has them meet in the first round), and the score is adjusted accordingly.
Readers may be interested to learn that not only is Israel in Europe, it is also in Scandinavia, for it once won the Nordic Teams Championship, When it was noticed that the readmission of the Republic of Ireland to the Camrose series would involve the undesirable effect of having an odd number of teams and creating sit-outs, it was suggested that Israel be invited to join the United Kingdom. A motion to that effect was narrowly defeated on the casting vote of the Chairman for the status quo; it later transpired that he believed the status quo to be that Israel was already in the UK (not to mention the Tollemache, the Pachabo and the NICKO).
In further news: the English women scored 20 IMPs in the last two boards to beat Turkey, and defeated Croatia in a match that was all over the shop. They go into tomorrow's matches in third place - six to qualify for the Venice Cup - with Austria, Romania and Russia to face. Massive thunderstorms are forecast for Opatija tomorrow. The organizers hoped briefly that this might stop the players from complaining about the heat, before realizing that they would instead complain about the cold.
FIFA also think Israel is in Europe, but they have Lebanon in Asia, also Australia, so the WBF are not the only world body with weird boundaries.
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