Lebi/Jacob and Demuy/Fourcaudot started the day against Slovakia. A small win helped to recover from the loss to South Africa but securing only 17 victory points was not sufficient against a bottom of the table team as we began to drift back towards the pack of 8 teams (South Africa, Brazil, France, Ireland, Estonia, Denmark, Romania and Canada) chasing playoff spots 2-4.
Our fate to be fighting until the end was confirmed in the next match when the 18 points for our BYE round were insufficient to keep us in a playoff spot as the top teams pushed towards qualification.
Hoping to change up our fate from the previous 2 evenings a new lineup was in place for the evening match against France. With only 7 victory points out of 50 from the 2 previous Dinner matches the team was looking for an improved result. We got the improvement - unfortunately it was still a blitz for France as we lost 25-5. The evening match has not been kind to Canada over the last few days with large losses to key competitors South Africa, Brazil, and France pulling us back into the qualification pack and allowing these key competitors (previously far behind) to make significant ground on us and the pack. Although bad luck played a part in these matches, fatigue/jet lag and poor play were often the key culprits with each pair having their moments of infamy...
The day finishes with Canada in 7th position. The poor results at the end of each day have not improved the dinner conversations and have made everyone anxious to move onto the next day's play. Loooking forward to Day 5 and getting back into qualifying position.
Points of the day:
- Bidding grand slams needs to be carefully weighed... Once again in the Canada vs. France match a grand was bid by Canada with only game being played in the other room. A small slam would have created plus 13 rather then the loss of 12 imps that occurred.
- Slam swings overall have been the most damaging for the Canadian Open team with significant losses overall on slam hands being made up for by aggressive games, competitive part score scenarios and accurate defense and play. Net loss on slames for the day was in excess of 100 imps worth of swings (~25 VPs)
- Bidding and showing your two suiters and quickly to allow partner to judge the hand correctly continues to be very important. Most of the doubled making contracts being the result of the hidden double suit fits..
- The worst match for each pair/player has typically followed their most confident comments about the current quality of their play...
See below for a hand from the Canada/France match in Round 12 with N the dealer and E/W vulnerable.
Many North's opened 4H and the spotlight shifted to West with options for bidding Double or 4S. Both West's bid 4S and played there going down. 6D is cold on the EW cards and it is worth considering whether you would get there even with a double as there were a number of E hands who passed the double for a rather unsatisfactory Down 1 that still won imps against the 4S bidders.
No comments:
Post a Comment