Day 2 a New Dawn

Well we arrived at the venue early this morning ready to battle a new day. Experience has taught me not to be too down after a disappointing series of matches especially early in the tournament, nay at any time during the tournament.

I decided on a new approach. I told the team that nothing less than 20 was acceptable against Ireland. And so it was that Pauline and Warren as well as Bruce and Jedi marched onto the battlefield with their marching orders.

OK I know that second last (Australia) playing last (Ireland) allowed us to have some expectations but then remember that Ireland were placed in the European Championships and expected to do quite well in this event, even being touted as last 8 or last 4 candidates.

Being the diligent soldiers that they are they came back to the score up with a 20-10 win. Well as you can imagine the feeling in the team room was more upbeat than it had been.

OK so I thought 'that seemed to work so why not try again' At least 15 against this team please - after all we were playing Meckstroth-Rodwell and multi National and World Champions in their team so 15 sounded like it would be quite a pleasing result for me.

I go out for coffee with my friends Boye Brogeland, Peter Gill, Bruce Neill and Simon Hinge allowing myself the luxury of thinking how sweet 20 would be. After a great cappuccino and hearing the tales of Brogeland's swindles in the previous set I head back to the team room and fire up my computer to see 40-20 wow that's down a lot until I refocus my eyes to see that Australia is leading by this amount. 'Yes' I yelled out. The last few boards came in and it became an 18-12 result. Well that isn't too bad against one of the top teams.

But wait there's more......Board 3 shows N/S playing 5Cx -500 - conceivable in their 5-1 fit and not impossible. The scoreup starts and I hear +800......I don't recall seeing that on the score sheet. Hold on i say - team yells back - your instructions are no interruptions to the scoreup......duly chastised I wait till the end and for those of you who know me know how hard that is. OK so what happened on board 3 it was 5Cx by the opponents -3 vulnerable. So what appeared to be 18-12 was now 22-8 and one very happy team and ecstatic captain.

The full scorecard can be found here http://www.swangames.com/rama/traveller.php?eventid=283051&roundno=1&segno=5&entryno=7126&direction=X

So there is no reason not to keep playing in rotation so Pauline who confesses to being a little tired anyway thereby making the decision obvious and Warren sit out.

South Africa are no easybeats running 5th at this stage. I guess the shock results for me at this early stage are:

SWEDEN Last, IRELAND second last, INDONESIA 15th USA2 13th=. CHINA are underperforming a little to my mind and PAKISTAN are doing a shade better than I would have expected.

But hey it's early so don't write anybody off yet.

In case people are wondering what I do while my guys are playing - I really dislike watching my team at the table. I was once accused of not showing enough interest in watching the players so I thought OK I'll watch my team some more. After 6 disasterous boards I left the table only to be told (semi-jokingly) by a team member and don't come back. Now that I think about it I haven't watched a board since.

I do however like to watch BBO, having been doing some live VuGraph commentary in the theatre where there are about 120-150 spectators each match and I sometimes go for a walk. Let me assure anybody out there reading that captaining is tiring.... hmm think I wrote that somewhere else in this blog.

For those interested in Datums go to http://www.brenning.se/results/2007/shanghai/bermudabowl/bermudabowl-qualifying/butler/bermudabowl-qualifying.htm

After 4 rounds
Rank Per Brd
18 0.41 Bruce NEILL - Ryszard JEDRYCHOWSKI
40 -0.24 Pauline GUMBY - Warren LAZER
66 -1.31 Andrew PEAKE - Murray GREEN -

That's all for now
Catch you soon