At the end of day 4, the Indian Open team appears to have an outside chance of qualifying as do the Indian ladies. The Indian Seniors appear to be pretty comfortably placed as do the Indian Mixed teams.
The Swiss seniors and the Morrocan mixed teams appear to have been disqualified for mobile usage.
My other duties for today seem pretty overwhelming hence the coverage is likely to be sparse.
However, I do have some virtually exclusive pictures from Buenos Aires which I am going to share with you. These are, once again, courtesy Simon Stocken who is part of the bulletin team over there.
As mentioned yesterday, we would welcome reports of hands, or detailed matches from anybody. Will try and post them in the day's coverage. Photographs from the venue would be really welcome.
India won its first match of the day against Austria by 12 imps (13.28 - 6.72). India scored 3 big boards and, like the previous day, conceded only one.
Somewhat the reverse happened in their match with Switzerland where India gained just one big board and lost 4 in comparison to lose the match by 27 imps (3.74 - 16.26)
In their last match for the day, India played Turkiye, and won by 22 imps (15.38 - 4.62)
At the end of the day, India was in 10th place (with 8 to qualify). Today, they have a bye in round one and play China and Hungary thereafter. China is current placed 3rd while Hungary is 12th. If they manage to secure an average of 12 VPs per match for the day, my guess is that they should be around 8th place. Let us hope for the best!
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
The Indian ladies had another bad day yesterday, again winning just one of their four matches and losing two out of three rather badly.
They lost their first match against Canada by 30 impls (2.60-17.40). There doesn't appear to be any major mishap in this match, just the Canadians outcompeting India.
Their second match was against Italy which they lost by 16 imps (5.30 - 14.70). They missed bidding the cold game on Board 2, which cost them 10 imps.
They recovered to notch a healty 19 imp (15.37 - 4.63) win against New Zealand in their third outing.
They lost their final match against Germany by 8 imps (7.39 - 12.61)
At the end of the day, they are lying in 18th position, 5 VPs adrift of the 16th place. They have their work cut out for them if they hope to qualify.
Today, they will be playing France, Mexico, Norway and the Netherlands. India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
The India Seniors had a disastrous start yesterday when, in their first outing against Australia, they suffered a loss of 30 imps (2.60 - 17.40). In Board 13, Badal and Bardhan over reached to bid a slam which had no hope. In Board 20, the Australians bid a 22 point game which the Indian pair of Arun Bapat and Ravi Goenka opted not to.
They won their next match against the Netherlands very narrowly by 2 imps (9.29 - 10.71) thanks to the latter missing out on a game on Board 10
Subsequently, they recovered magnificiently scoring huge wins over Italy (17.40 - 2.60) and Sweden (19.34 - 0.66) to stay in 4th place.
Today they should have been starting off playing against Switzerland, but it appears that the team has got expelled for use of mobiles from their scorecard for the last round. They would receive a walk over.
A stark reminder of how seriously rules are taken internationally. At the very least, I believe we should hike the penalties levied for mobile phones ringing from the present 0.5 VPs for sure.
Today, they will be playing Denmark, Columbia and Poland. India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
The mixed team continued their good work today, winning 4 out of their 5 matches..
They started with a narrow, 4 imp (11.50 - 8.50) win against Norway, one of the top teams in the event. They were aided by this blunder by Norway on Board 6, where Himani and Rajiv Khandelwal extracted maximum punishment for what appears to be an adventure of sorts 2♣ bid here. In the other room, Kiran and Satya sedately allowed the opponents to play in 3NT.
This was followed by two good wins against Brazil (16.18 - 3.42) and Spain (14.00 - 6.00) before losing the last 2 rather badly against Japan and Australia (2.49 - 17.51)
At the end of the day, India was still in 8th place.
Today, they play Columbia, Chile, Morocco, China and Hong Kong China. But, Morocco too appears to have been expelled.
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.