Day 3 at Marrakesh continued to be one of disappointments with all teams except the open virtually out of the race for qualification.
The Open Team, while it still does have a chance, will have to play hard to make the cut. We hope they do!
We have, today, some pictures from Marrakesh, shared in some WA group. Our best idea of original source is Captain Yogesh Abhyankar. Thanks to the photographer for clicking and sharing with us.
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The Indian Open team had a great start to the day facing Hong Kong China, a relatively weak team. They played to their strengths and won the match by 52 imps to 7.
Their second match was against USA1, arguably a very strong team. Not much to be said about the match except for board 26 below.
On this board, presumably both East West pairs reached 6 diamonds with East as declarer. In the Open Room, Sumit Mukherjee, holding 2 Aces, presumably elected to defend. Unfortunately, there is no defence to this contract. In the Closed Room, Demuy Vincent figured that the probability of defeating the slam was low and elected to sacrifice in spades. This turned out to be a winning decision as he ended up scoring 10 tricks and getting 13 imps for his team.
India lost this match by 12 imps (24-36), a result which definitely saddened all of us.
Their last match of the day was against Ireland. Apart from the general exchange of imps, which is difficult to comment upon in the absence of bidding and play details, the only thing to comment upon was this board where Rajeshwar Tewari and Sumit Mukherjee did not bid this grand slam in hearts.
In their defence, it may have been difficult to bid after finding the heart queen missing. Nevertheless, as the cards lie, it cost us 10 imps.
India lost the match to Ireland by 17 imps (31-48) to end the day in 11th place. They seem to be reasonably placed as they have much fewer tough teams than easy teams, but each match has to be fought and won. And we hope they do.
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
The ladies had two tough matches today against Norway and Morocco.
In their match against Norway, they were never really in the match, having conceded 3 big boards in the first 7 to be down 34 imps. They did well to recover 18 of those in the back 9 (to use a golfing term to lose the match 42 imps to 58
Their next match was against a much weaker Morocco. Here it seemed like there were repeating their habit of flagging in the second half. After taking a 32-1 lead in the first 5 boards, they conceded 27 of those back to be up by merely 4 imps. Then came this board
After 2 passes, Alka Kshirsagar opened a strong 1 Club. South overcalled 1 Heart and Bharati Dey doubled to show 5-8 HCP. Alka had no problems passing and collected 1400 as NS could make only 2 tricks. To add insult to injury, 4 Hearts, which is the natural contract has no real chance given the heart break and Asha Sharma would have doubled to collect 100 more and gain 17 imps.
India eventually won the match 65-28
India's last match was against Poland and in this match too, India really didn't do anything which looked like they were going to be a tough opponent for them. The only big board they won was the grand slam on board 5 which, as discussed in the BB commentary is iffy once you discover the trump queen missing.
At the end of the day, they remained in 18th position. While chances of qualification now look bleak, we do expect a lot more out of them than we did from previous women's teams.
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
The Indian seniors started their campaign against a strong Polish team and filled their supporter's hearts with joy as they carved out a reasonably big, 23 imp win (37-14).
They started their second match against Denmark with a bang as well making a slam in the open room which went down in the closed room to get 14 imps. However, the next 10 boards were all downhill as they conceded 35 imps, including a mirror of board 1 when the tables were turned. They managed to win 2 big boards worth 21 imps and eventually lost the match narrowly (36-37)
Their last match was against Chinese Taipei, which too, they started well, leading by 15 imps after 9 boards. However, the last 7 boards were disastrous as they conceded 41 imps to lose the match by 25 imps (16-41).
They finished the day in 15th position which was their position overnight. As the event comes to a climax, the asking rate is really high as their score, at 89.02 is below average.
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
We have to say we are running out of adjectives to describe the mixed team's performance.
In their first match, they lost comprehensively (3-27) to Germany. The strength of the German team's performance can be gauged from the fact that India could not gain a single big board.
The team played well in their second match against Tunisia to win by 13 imps (58-45).
In their last match, the team suffered another huge, 31 imp loss to Italy (27-58)
The team continues to languish in 19th position and it will take a miracle for them to qualify from here.
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.