Let The Games Begin...

It is now 8:30 am Saturday in Beijing, China. Back home in Toronto it is exactly 12 hours earlier, 8:30 pm Friday. For my friend and our team advisor/supporter Michael Roche in Victoria it is 5:30 pm Friday. I just chatted with my daughter Rebecca on BBO.

Today play begins. Each match is 16 boards in length and the time allotted is 2 hours and 20 minutes. The Team Canada Women's draw looks like this today.
11:00 am versus China
2:20 pm versus Denmark
5:10 pm versus France
Play finishes by 7:30 this evening.

There are 54 teams entered in the Women's Championship, separated into three groups of eighteen teams. Each group plays a complete round robin of 17 matches over a period of seven days, Saturday through Friday, with three matches daily, except for Wednesday, when only two matches are played. Thursday is an "off" day for all competitors in all events, I believe in respect to reconizing the holiest Jewish day of the year, "Yom Kippur." The round robin resumes and concludes with three matches on Friday.
Upon completion of the round robin the top five teams in each group, plus the highest ranked 6th place team, advance to the Knockout Round of 16.
It appears, based upon comments from our pre-tournament "coach" Eric Kokish, and upon past performance, that the toughest part of our schedule occurs over the first couple of days. We play China and five European teams over days 1 and 2, and all rate to be most capable opponents. China is rated an early favourite in our group.
Our first match at 11:00 am against China will be featured on Chinese BBO. Whether or not it will be on BBO back home, I do not know, but give us a look see.

Everyone spent yesterday relaxing and getting oriented to our surroundings. A little about the hotel and venue...We are kind of part of a self-contained compound, which has two hotels, one at the north end (the Grand) and one at the south end (the Intercontinental). Between the two hotels is a massive building which served as "Press" headquarters during the Olympics. That building seems pretty much unused right now. We can walk indoors from The Grand to the Intercontinental which are about 400 meters apart. Beside these buildings is the China National Convention Centre (CNCC). It runs almost the whole length of the other side of our compound and houses the playing site for all of the team bridge events. I have referred to all of this as a compound because the whole area described is surrounded by a high wire fence with limited access in or out. Security is omnipresent, but not in any way intimidating. Our hotel, the Grand has no retaurant or shops or pool or fitness centre. The only amenity is the lounge on the lobby level. The Intercontinental has a couple of restaurants, but again I haven't seen any sign of shops there either. Our included breakfast each morning is at the Intercontinental. It is a full buffet breakfast and quite good.

We had a team meeting at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. The first item I had to announce was that the Opening Ceremonies had just been cancelled. Jose Damiani (WBF President) made this known earlier at the Captain's Meeting. Apparently a security problem had arisen at the site where the Opening Ceremonies were to be held and that the Chinese would not allow them to go ahead. One could tell by listening to Damiani that he was quite frustrated in general with the security focus here. But that is the way it is going to be. My team members were quite disappointed that there would be no Opening Ceremonies, but we all got dressed up in our best for pictures and the substitute cocktail pary at the Intercontinental. This was a great chance to meet our fellow Open and Senior Team members and friends from around the world.

I better go. Breakfast and captainly duites await.

So long for now Rebecca, Michael and everyone back in Canada.
Wish us luck!