BEIJING - Day 5

Hi everyone in Canada,

Your women's team has performed very strongly over the past few days.
After a small loss in the final match Tuesday evening against Spain, the
team scored two big victories today beating Argentina 20-10 and blitzing
Kenya 25-2 with our first posting of a 25 VP score. We have moved up to
ninth place, but a qualifying spot is still 21 VPs away. To move up to a
qualifying spot, the team will have to score most of the VPs available in
the three remaining matches and also to have some of the teams ahead
of us falter. Our chances of qualifying are not good but the team will give
its best efforts when play resumes on Friday. One of the joys of being
associated with the Women's team this year is the camaraderie and
determination all the players share.
Since we have been moving up a place or two each day over the past few
days, I have suggested to the organizers that the event be modified so that
we play a few days more. With those few extra days of play, I am confident
that our team would eventually rise to the upper echelons and qualify for
the Knockout phase. Unfortunately my suggestion has been rebuffed
without discussion by the WBF organizers.

Today everyone played only two matches and play was finished at 4:45
this afternoon. All players have the rest of the Wednesday and all of Thurs-
day off.

Karen, Pamela, myself, and Stephen Brown and Jurek of the Canadian Senior
Team took taxis to a Beijing market place for some shopping. However the
shops were closing within half an hour so we shopped very quickly. All
prices are negotiable with the expectation of paying maybe 10-30% of the
asking price. (Rebecca, if you have been tuning in, I got you a hanging silk
banner with your name inscribed thereon in both Chinese and English.)
Karen and Steve each bought themselves black purses and Steve's matched
his outfit quite well. Jurek bought a tea service and Pamela bought a bunch
of varied crap.
Then we took the subway to go to the heart of Beijing. The subway is very
clean, very modern and very inexpensive. The fare is about 35 cents Cdn.
Downtown Beijing is also very modern and impressive - wide avenues, fine
architecture, mostly modern in style. This is an amazing city. We had dinner
at a restaurant at about 9:00 pm. Maybe we just haven't been going to the
right places, but the food so far has been a big disappointment - we haven't
really had a special or memorable meal yet.
Tomorrow the aforementioned five of us and a number of other Canadians
are taking a trip to the Great Wall. I imagine most of the players will be taking
a day outing of some kind tomorrow. It is a welcome break in the schedule.

Our complex of buildings houses the players and provides the playing venue
for the Open Team, Women's Team and Senior's Team events. The Junior
teams reside and play at a different site from ours, along with all of the other
World Mind Sports Games. It is disappointing therefore that we haven't had
the opportunity to spend time with our Junior players or participants in other
disciplines.

It's past midnight now here in Beijing, so I am going to sign off. Our excursion
leaves from the hotel at 8:30 in the morning.

Good night Michael, Rebecca and all of our Canadian friends.

John

Beijing - Days 3 and 4

Hello everyone,

It is now Tuesday evening 6:00 pm in Beijing.

Your Canadian Women's Team has been slowly crawling its way back into possible contention for a qualifying spot. The Team has actually won it's last six matches, dating back to a winning tie against Russia on Sunday evening. Since then here are our match results.
Monday
Canada 17 VPs vs Jordan 13, Canada 21 vs Joran 9, Canada 16 vs Indonesia 14
Tuesday
Canada 17 vs Estonia 13, Canada 23 vs Venezuela 7.
We are at this moment playing the second place Spanish team.
Canada is about 22 VPs out of a qualifying spot with six matches still to play.

It will be an uphill climb. Our team will have to do very well over the remaining days of play to reach a qualifying spot. But they are all determined to do their best and let the chips fall where they may. Although some teams might be ranked as easier opponents than others, on any given day any team is capable of beating another. The calibre of bridge keeps getting better by the year around the world. And newly participating countries will continue to improve with experience.

The schedule of play is is most civilized - with start time at 11:00 am and play for the day concluded by 7:30 pm. Compared to our own CNTC/CWTC National finals or a major NAC event this schedule is a very relaxed one. With a six-person rotation, players only play 32 boards each over a day's play. This is beneficial to all participants as fatigue should not be a factor. This kind of schedule also allows the players to have dinner at the conclusion of play each evening if they so choose without worrying about having to play a match after a big dinner and maybe a few drinks. I just wish we had Montreal's Crescent Street or Toronto's King Street with all of their resaurant choices nearby.

Pascale/Martine and Susan/Kismet had the thrill of bidding grand slams on consecutive
boards in last night's match versus Indonesia.

PASCALE
7 6
A Q 10 7 4 3
K J 6
A 2

MARTINE
A K 9 5 4 3
K 9 6 5 2
A 2
VOID

There is nothing to the play of this hand, or course, it is all in the bidding.
Martine opened 1S, Pascale responded 2H (game force). I believe that at this point
a pracical call is 5NT (Grand Slam Force), but only if you have clear agreement as
to how partner will answer. Id partner has the two missing top three honours there
will be no problem getting to seven. But if partner has the Ace only, one would
still like to be in seven. So, it is important to have graduated responses to the
GSF to reveal various holdings. Martine and Pascale had a longer auction to get to
the desired grand. That board was a push vs Indonesia. I beleive that the vast majority
of pairs reached 7H on this hand.

SUSAN
A J 10 7
A 8 7 4
K 7
A J 6

KIZ
K Q 9 6 4 2
2
A Q 10 8 5
9

Their auction.
1NT (15-17), Pass, 2H (transfer), Pass
3S (super acceptance), Pass, 4C, (control cue bid) Double
RDBL (Club Ace), Pass, 4NT, Pass
5D (0 or 3), Pass, 5NT, Pass
6D (Diamond King), Pass, 7S, all Pass
A very nice auction by Kiz and Susan.
The opening lead was the seven of clubs.
There are many lines of play to choose from. I'll leave you to analyze them.
But when you play a trump you learn that they are 3-0.
The glory of Susan's line of play was that she made seven on a double squeeze,
winning her thirteenth trick with a lowly heart in her hand.
The other team failed to reach the grand and this was a big pick up for our team.
Next time you see her, ask her about this hand.

This morning, Pamela and Karen extracted a very important 800 set against
their opponents to win the match against Estonia on the very last board of the set.
PAMELA
A K 10 3
Q J 8 7
K 9 8 7
3

KAREN
Q J 6 4
K 3 2
Q J
A J 7 2

After West's Pass, Pamela opened 1D.
East made a weak jump overcall of 2H.
Karen made a negative double.
Pamela judged well to Pass Karen's double rather than persuing
a spade contract for her side, and East was duly punished for her action.
I believe we picked up 14 IMPs on this deal.
Well done Pamela and Karen!
But a note to our intrepid East. Facing a passed partner and being VUL,
her jump overcall was ill advised.
8 7
A 10 9 6 5 4
A
10 6 5 4
With two Aces and a questionable suit, a 1H overcall would be a much more
judicious and probably would have avoided the axe. Not a good team call
at IMPs. And Pamela and Karen ensured that she paid a heavy price.

I am be leaving now to compare scores in the Spain/Canada match.
Hopefully a good result followed by a fine evening with my team members.

Good night all from Beijing.

John

DAY 2 - World Bridge Championships

Hello Canada and hockey fans in Newfoundland and the United States,

Who started his Toronto Maple Leaf broadcasts with the above introduction?

It is 6:00 am here in Beijing. When I look out my hotel window, it is amazing to see
the streets of Beijing completely empty- not a single person or car to be seen.

Day 2 did not provide the turnaround that our team was hoping for. We started with
a 21-9 VP loss to the Finish team who played very well. This was followed by a tie with
Scotland 15-15 and a tie with the strong Russian team 15-15. The day however did end
on a positive note. Canada - Russia was on BBO and I watched much of that match back
at the hotel with Karen and Pamela who were sitting out that match. With two boards to
go our team was trailing by 18 IMPs and it was time for me to leave and join my players
for the match comparison. Much to my surprise we ended up winning the match by I IMP
as the team rallied to gain 19 IMPs over those last two boards. This left everyone on an
upbeat note.

Here is a hand from the Scotland match which is a good instructive hand on declarer play.

The bidding has proceeded very quickly by your side 2 H Pass 4H all Pass.
The opening lead is the nine of spades. Plan your play.

Dummy

A K 4
J 9 8 6
4
A 6 5 4 2


You
Q 5
A 7 5 4 3 2
K 10 6 5
9

You, of course, appropriately thank your partner for that fine dummy. This looks pretty easy. No Spade losers, one heart loser, four possible diamond losers, and no club losers. Three diamond losers will be eliminated by discarding one on the extra spade winner in the dummy and two others by trumping in the dummy. What could possibly go wrong? Well, if you get lazy and play the Ace of hearts at trick two you will go down. And you will have no one to blame but yourself. Trumps are 3-0 and the Ace of Diamonds is over the King. So your careless play of the Ace of Hearts allows the opponents to get in, play two more rounds of trump, and now you are able to trump only one of your losing diamonds. You will end up losing 2 hearts and 2 diamonds. A careful declarer wins the spade lead in the dummy and leads a diamond at trick two. Nothing can possibly go wrong now. When given this hand as a declarer play problem, I trust none of us would go down, but in the heat of battle at the bridge table, would we all be so careful? It is this kind of hand on which it is so easy to succumb to laziness and then sheepishly have to say "minus 50" to our teammates. The Scotish declarer against our team had this very oversight.

The next hand I found to be interesting from a defensive point of view.

Pascale's Russian opponent open a strong club, which Pascale met with a overcall of 1 diamond. The auction then proceded Pass Pass 2NT (22-23) Pass 3NT all pass.

Pascale's hand: Q J 2, K J 9, K J 9 7 5, J 2

I was kibitzing our talented young star from Chicoutimi and agonized along with her as the hand unfolded. As Pascale was contemplating her lead, I, under no pressure, decided that I would lead the Queen of spades. Eventually, Pascale led....the "Queen of Spades."

Dummy appeared with: 10 5 4, A 10 8 2, 10 8 6 2, 10 4

The play developed as follows: Trick one: SQ, low, nine (upside down att) Ace. Trick two: S3, Jack, low, 8. Trick three: Pascale continued well with her last spade. low, ten, low, low. Trick four: low diamond, 2 (upside down count) Q, K. Trick five: you and Pascale to lead. You are left with: none, K J 9, J 9 7 5, J 2

As would we all, Pascale gave this long and hard thought. Again, as an observer I decided that I would switch to the King of Hearts, feeling that although this might cost a heart trick that it would serve to cut off the looming 10 of diamonds as a trick in dummy, unless declarer had the Queen third of hearts. And maybe partner's second spade play of the 8 had suit preference connotation? So what's you choice? - you have to do something. Pascale finally sallied forth with the Jack of Clubs.

The point of this hand is not so much what you lead at trick 5, but the thoughts behind your choice. Maybe you don't share my excitement about this hand, but I think it is the kind of hand that we as bridge players die for. It's because of hands like this that we play this fabulous game.

Pascale's switch allowed the declarer to bring home her contract.

Declarer held A K x x, x x, A Q x, A K Q 3 (three spades, one heart, one diamond, four clubs)

Any heart switch would beat the contract, but I strongly believe that if you switch to a heart, that the King is the proper card.

The Russian declarer should really have now made an overtrick, but I guess she was just happy to now be making 3NT and didn't build the extra diaomnd that she could have. Her little mistake did cost her 1 IMP as Pascale's teammate made plus one in the other room on the normal diamond lead.

Pascale had done wonderfully in choosing not to lead a diamond, which makes declaer's task very simple. A great hand - hope you enjoyed the ride.

In match 2, Karen and you, in third seat hold: A K Q 10 6 5 4 3, 4 2, 7 5 3, K .

As you are admiring all those spades, your partner amazes you by opening 1S!

As the tray is passed to her side of the screen, Karen leans forward to check that she hasn't misread Pamela's bid. Right hand opponent overcalls 2D and Karen cue bids 3D (limit raise or better). Lefty Passes, Partner jumps to 4S, righty Passes and it's back to you? What do you now do? Pass? 5C? 4NT? 5S? 6S? There should not be any trump losers. Karen chose 5S.(Karen, I assume this was asking Pamela for a diamond control, not asking about the quality of her spades). Turns out that Pass is the winning action. Anything else results in a minus as four spades is the limit of the hand. The opponents make 5C but had missed their chance to find that fit. Our team won 1 IMP on this hand. Just a fun little hand.

Breakfast is served at the Intercontinental from 6:00 - 10:30 am. It is quite a social time as we get to talk with our fellow Canadians and friends from around the world. And I'm getting hungry - so time to go.

Have a good evening everyone.

It's moving day for your Candian Women's Team.

John

Day 1 of World Championships

Good morning everyone,

Today is Sunday, November 5th. It is 10:00 am here in Beijing.

The first day of play was a disappointing start for our team.
In our first match versus China, with what seemed like a pretty flat set of 16 hands,
we were soundly beaten by the Precision playing Chinese. China 23 VP's - Canada - 7 VP's.
In our second match versus Denmark, the team got back on track with a 9 IMP victory.
Canada 17 - Denmark 13. In our third match versus France, our team lost by 10.
France 17 - Canada 13.
After three matches we therefore stand in 14th out of 18 with a Victory Point total of 37.
Average is 45. The leaders in our group have 61 VP's.
We knew as mentioned yesterday that our first two days were going to be tough, but we'll
need to do better today to start getting back into the hunt.
Our draw today likes like this:
11:00 - Finland
2:00 - Scotland
5:10 - Russia
The Canada-Russia match will be shown on BBO, but unfortunately, it is airing at 5:10 am
Toronto time, so you are all going to have to retire early if you plan to watch. Russia is
expected to be a strong opponent. The Russian women won this event the last time it was held,
four years ago in Istanbul.

As is usual at the bridge table, the consensus was that our opponents did not really beat us with their brilliancies, but rather that we were the architects of our losses through errors or missed opportunities on our part. Our greatest missed opportunities were in the area of slam bidding which was critical in these matches. There were, to my count, seven excellent small slam contracts available to be bid. Of those seven, our team reached only two of the slams. One of those slams that we bid resulted in a large gain and one in a push. The other five represented losses or missed chances. The teams who handled these slam hands well in all the events were destined to do well yesterday.

I am waiting to get some advice from Matine Lacroix, member of our team, to show me how to post hands on this blog. She is experienced with blogging. I am not. I hope to give you some
hands after she shows me how to do so.

Congratulations to our Open and Senior teams who both got off to great starts yesterday. See Sandra Fraser's and Dave Willis's blogs for more on those teams. Canada' Open team was featured on Vugraph yesterday afternoon vs. the all-powerful Italians and emerged with a small and confidence building victory. If they can beat the Italians....

It is rainy and cool this morning in Beijing - a huge city of 15 million inhabitants.

The Women's team is hopeful and confident of better things today.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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!

WE HAVE ALL ARRIVED

It is now 6:30 am Friday morning, October 3rd in Beijing, China.

Pamela Nisbet and myself set off from Toronto International Airport, Wednesday morning at 10:00 am. Landing in Vancouver at 1:00 pm local time we were joined by Pamela's partner,
Karen Cumpstone of Nanaimo for the 11 1/2 hour flight to Beijing. The three of us arrived here
in China at around 4:00 in the afternoon. At the huge airport in Beijing we were met by agents
of the World Mind Sport Games and taken by bus to the Beijing Interntional Convention Centre,
where we registered and received our all important "Identification Badges" which will allow us access to varied venues. This was all transacted very smoothly in a brief period of time and then a shuttle took us to our hotel - the CNCC Grand Hotel. The hotel is new and modern with very satisfactory guest rooms. It is very near many of the Olympic sites.

Kismet and Susan arrived a day earlier and visited the Great Wall yesterday. Martine and Pascale arrived a little before the three of us yesterday afternoon. Everyone is settled in at the Grand. The seven of us met in the evening for drinks in the lobby bar, along with members of our Open Team - Kamel Fergani, Marc Andre Fourcaudot and Vincent Demuy and Senior Team members Stephen Brown and Jurek Czyzowicz. After a twenty minute two-block walk we had dinner together (minus Susan, Kiz, Steve and Jurek) at a, not surprisingly, Chinese restaurant. The food was fine, if a little different from what we are accustomed to, and very inexpensive at about $12.00 each including wine and beer. A big disappointment for the beer drinkers was that the beer was not the least bit cold. Of note: many of your Canadian bridge representatives are not very adept with chopsticks, but this shouldn't affect their performance at the at bridge table. Most of us took cabs back to the hotel, but the one mile ride back took Pamela, Karen and I about 40 minutes as our cab driver got hopelessly lost on more than one attempt at finding the hotel. However, everyone did arrive back sated and safe to the Grand and collapsed into bed after having finished very long days.

My very first impressions of Beijing - big and modern, smoggy, as forewarned. The highways are excellent and the traffic moves on the highway at a much more relaxed pace. Most of the cars of course are smaller than in North America. The first stop we made after arriving here was right beside the "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium and this was a most stunning and impressive edifice. The organization for the World Mind Sport Games seems very good at initial glance.

Today is our final day to acclimate ourselves and prepare for the competition to ensue. Breakfast is free (I think) at a nearby hotel. I attend a "Captain's Meeting" at 2:30 today. Later this afternoon we will have a team meeting. Afterwards we will be attending a cocktail party at 5:45, followed by the always exciting "Opening Ceremonies." Our Team, except for myself, will look stunning in their black dresses and white team blazers adorned with Canadian lapel pins.

Tomorrow (Saturday) the bridge begins with three 16-board matches. Play for the day commences at 11:00 am and finishes by 7:30 pm. We start against China, who are expected to be one of the top teams in our group.

The anticipation grows.

Hello to my 12-year old daughter Rebecca, if she is looking in on Dad.

Bye for now.

only two days to go!

Hi Canadian bridge followers. Your 2008 Canadian Women's Bridge Team
competing in the first ever World Mind Sport Games is readying itself for
the long trek to Beijing on Wednesday, October 1st.

Just to remind you of your Canadian Women's Team members...
Pascale Gaudreault - Chicoutimi, Quebec
Martine Lacroix - Montreal, Quebec
Pamela Nisbet - Ottawa, Ontario
Karen Kumpstone - Nanaimo, B.C.
Kismet Fung - Edmonton, Alberta
Susan Culham - Edmonton, Alberta
John Rayner (NPC) - Mississauga, Ontario
This is truly a pan-Canadian team.

I hope to report back to our Canadian supporters on a daily basis
upon arrival in Beijing.
Your team has worked hard over the past few months preparing
for this tournament and has every expectation of success at the
bridge table. I know that these six ladies will represent Canada
with class.

We hope you choose to follow our story.