World Championships Updates - Women's Team Progress (David Gold)

It was the last day of the round robin today and just two matches. In the first match we beat the dangerous Danes by 9 imps but with other results going our way we are almost 100% to qualify. In the last match we played USA2 and won by 13 IMPs so we finished 5th. The way it works, the top 3 teams get to choose between 5th-8th with the team in 1st picking first and so on, so there is no advantage to being say 5th or 8th but it is good for confidence nonetheless.

China picked Japan, Poland surprisingly in my opinion picked England,  Norway picked the Netherlands leaving USA1 to play Sweden.

Gillian did very well on this hand v USA2:

AJ765

AK92

AJ3

3

She saw 1S on her right, 1N on her left, 2S on her right which she did well to pass - in the open USA2 doubled England for -670, now when it went 3S on her left passed back to her she decided she couldn't resist a double.

After leading a top heart dummy produced:

Q9

76543

Q8765

A

After the heart held the only way to beat it is to switch to a low spade and she found it!

Declarer held

KT8432

T

K9

KQJT

And had to lose 2 aces and 3 spades when she lost control. Without the spade switch declarer can play clubs through Gillian and make the hand. This scored up nicely with +670 from Heather and Nevena in 2Sx for a 15IMP win.

We have been without Yvonne for a couple of days due to a nasty throat bug that has been going around but she seems a lot better now and we will have 3 pairs again for the quarters v Poland, starting tomorrow (today as this is published).

It will be a 96 board match, 48 each day and it will be on bridgebase,com at 3 am, 6.30 am, and 9.30am UK time so please tune in for the last set at least, if you can.

The team is in good spirits and each day we have a little exercise walking 10 minutes (for some, 30 for some others) to and from the venue. Crossing the road here should require life insurance and motorbikes think they are pedestrians. Buses do not obey red lights.

The venue is pretty good but there are too many smoking areas.

Oh and England is one of only two countries which got all of its teams through and is in all 4 events, the other is China. USA has a team in all 4 events too but it had an advantage as it began with 8. Pretty good going.

OK enough for now,

David