Commonwealth Nations Bridge Championship - Day Four

I had a day off yesterday and missed not being there. A bridge tournament is a funny place. It's not often you get to see the door to the gents swing open and someone shout out "You bid Three Spades - logical!".

Yesterday was the last day of the Round Robin. The main story was in Group 2, where England 2 suffered a shock loss to Northern Ireland, and the Scottish President's team took full advantage to claim the final qualifying spot. These are the final standings, with the top four in each group going through to today's quarter finals:

Group 1 1 England 188.96 VPs 2 Canada 183.18 VPs 3 Scotland Chairman's 178.03 VPs 4 Scotland 174.55 VPs 5 Wales 2 158.60 VPs 6 Australia Women 134.25 VPs 7 South Africa 8 Malaysia 9 Harris 10 Pakistan 11 Singapore 12 Malta 13 Guernsey 2 14 Barbados

Group 2 1 India 193.50 VPs 2 Australia 193.01 VPs 3 Wales 165.35 VPs 4 Scottish President's 155.85 VPs 5 England 2 151.67 VPs 6 Pakistan 2 136.90 VPs 7 Nortner Ireland 8 South Africa 2 9 SBU 10 Isle of Man 11 Guernsey 12 Jersey 13 Black Swan 14 Kenya

I watched a bit at home. I'm always rooting for the underdog, but when it's a big team against a small team it just seems inevitable that IMPs are going to flow towards the better team. And it doesn't take much. Even if the difference is only 1 overtrick per board, that would still lead to a 14-6 win in VPs.

In one match Barbados were losing heavily to the Scottish Charirman's Team, and finally got a break when in the other room North-South missed a slam. Could the Barbados North-South take advantage? It was agonising watching, as they got themselves into position then threw it away:

I'm not quite what happened, but 6♠-5 was not a good score.

Today is the Quarter Finals and Semi Finals. The teams that are already out play in the Transnational Teams along with 21 other local teams, so it's going to be a busy day at the Radisson.