It might not be a coincidence that I stopped posting as our results worsened! After winning our first six matches we lost the next five. That left us almost out of the running -- we could have qualified with three blitzes or near blitzes in our last three matches. This was not totally unlikely, since on the final day we played the teams who ended up finishing 10, 11, and 12 in our bracket of 15 teams. In fact we finished with two ties and a loss, so in 7th place and well out of qualifying position. Congrats to Sweden, the eventual winners, and to everyone who did well.

Still undefeated

16-14 vs India. Tomorrow we start against Germany. We have played against the four bottom teams in our group of 15, so our record is not as good as it seems. Still, winning is better than losing!

Another good result, this time versus England

We beat England 17-13 in a quiet set. Next up is India. Fernando and I will sit out. My next job is to pick a restaurant for dinner tonight!

Our results after four of fourteen qualifying matches

So far we (I am still playing for Switzerland!) have won all our matches, against Korea, Jordan, Chile, and Egypt. Our scores (15 is a tie) were 22, 25, 16, and 22 respectively. We are in good shape so far, but many matches remain. In 15 minutes we face the strong English team.

World Team Championships overview

The World Team Championships started yesterday in Lille, France. This is the tournament formerly known as the World Team Olympiad. I am told that the WBF changed the name at the request of the International Olympic Committee. This is my second time in the city -- the world championships were also held here in 1998. This year the tournament is a component of the World Mind Games, so players from four other "mind sports" are here as well: Chess, Chinese Checkers, Draughts, and Go. As for the bridge event, each of the 123 countries in the WBF is entitled to send an Open, Women's, and Senior team. This year only about half have chosen to do so. In the Open event 64 teams (or so) are be divided into four groups of 15 or 16 teams each. Each group plays a complete round robin over five days. The top four teams from each group will qualify for a sixteen team KO which begins on Wednesday 15 August. Conditions of the women's and senior events are similar.

Dublin post-mortem

Hmm... apparently our results in Dublin were so poor that I stopped updating this blog entirely! If you miss the updates you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn -- I post there more often. We did poorly in the finals in Dublin. There were a couple bright spots. One is that we made the finals in the first place, never a given. The second is that against the four top scoring teams in the competition, Monaco, Netherlands, Italy, and England, we scored 14, 16, 15, and 15 (where 15 is a tie). Holding such strong teams to draws bodes well for our future. Now we just need to tighten up our play against the middle of the pack. In any case congratulations to Monaco, the winners, and to the six teams that qualified for next year's Bermuda Bowl in Bali. The fifth and sixth place finishers, Poland and Germany, also qualify.

Another poor start

Big losses against Germany and Israel put a damper on our hopes. We've fallen to 14th, 27 VPs out of 6th. New goal: make it into the top 10.

How we stand

Our carryover puts us 11th of 18 teams in the final, 8 points out of 6th. The top 6 teams will qualify for next year's world.championship in Bali. We'll play two matches on Wednesday, three each on Thursday and Friday, and finish with two on Saturday. Fernando and I will sit out the first match today.

Next stop: The finals

We defeated Romania 25-5 and are now mathematically certain to qualify with one match remaining. The finals begin tomorrow morning. We'll play nine matches, one each against the qualifiers from the other bracket. We won't know where we stand in the finals until the end of the current match. Finalists get full carryover from the matches against the teams that qualified, and the matches against teams that did not qualify become irrelevant in retrospect.

With two qualifying matches remaining...

We were credited with 18 for our Bye match, lost to Russia 23-7, and beat Iceland 16-14. That leaves us 13 points ahead of 10th place. Two qualifying matches remain -- today we play Romania and Wales.

So far, so good

An 18-12 victory over Austria leaves us tied for the 5th qualifying spot, seven points ahead of 10th, with four matches plus a bye match to go.

Saturday - we move up to 7th

Only two matches today. We blitzed Cypress 25-1 and defeated Denmark 20-10. Tomorrow we have a single match, against Austria.

Today we scored 15, 16, and 14, average for the day. That's a good result since we played two of the strongest teams in the field, Netherlands and Monaco.

We defeated Finland 21-9. Thursday was a big improvement over Wednesday, but we still lie well out of qualifying position. This morning we play Estonia -- Fernando and I are sitting out.

We won our first match today, against Croatia, 19-11.

I'm out the second match and headed for a swim, as usual.

Here's the tournament web site:

http://www.eurobridge1.org/competitions/12Dublin/microSite/Dublin.htm

Switzerland is in Group B. Thanks to the Running Scores section I can see that my teammates are down by a small amount to England after 2 of 20 boards.

The field is divided into two groups. Our first goal is to finish in the top half of our group. The top nine teams in each group qualify for the second week of play.

Breakfast at the hotel is served in the Grosvenor Suite -- how apropos!

I'm in Dublin for the European Bridge Championships, where I'll be representing Switzerland. Play starts tomorrow morning.