India lose to Poland in World Bridge Team Championship

India dropped a few valuable VPs in the Bermuda Bowl after going down to formidable Poland in the ninth round but ended the day in the eighth place in the HCL-42nd World Bridge Team Championship here today.
Poland raced away in the initial board before the Indians (Rana Roy and Amarnath Banerjee in the open room and Sumit Mukherjee and Debabrata Majumdar in the closed) began their tally. The final board saw the closed room contest taking a long time with players on both sides taking extra time to ponder over their moves.
As it turned out India gained a couple of VPs even if to reduce the loss margin (6.48-13.52 VPs).

On the others side the seniors signed off with another creditable win over Brazil (18.09-1-91) to rise to the fifth place overall.
India was served by R Krishnan and M Sunil in the open and K R Venkataraman and Ashok Kumar Goel in the closed room.
The day began well for the Indian Bermuda team, picking up valuable VPs with a win over Japan (12.55-7.45) in the seventh round and another fine effort over Guadeloupe (15.00-5.00) in the next.

Against Japan the Indians (Gopinath Manna and Subir Majumder in the open and Sumit Mukherjee and Debabrata Majumdar in the closed room) sat pretty midway with a handy lead. A resurgence by Japan at this stage narrowed the gap but little else.

It was lot easier against the lowly Guadeloupe, the Indian pairs of Rana Roy and Amarnath Banerjee and Gopinath Manna and Subir Majumder ensured that with a steady play from start and consolidating by the end of the eighth board.
Another highlight in this section was the stunning win of USA 2 over USA 1 (63-13 in IMPs) in the seventh round, a result that bordered on an upset.
The women finally tasted success, but another huge loss in the seventh round against Canada (0.66-19.34 VPs). The relief then came against Venezuela (12.29-7.71 VPs). It did not change their position, lying as they were at the bottom (22). Another defeat, a massive one in the 9th round against the strong USA 2 (0.07-19.93) added to their misery even as it cemented their bottom place with 32.83 VPs overall.

Ranking at the end of ninth round: Bermuda Bowl: 1. France (124.07 VPs), 2. Brazil (123.61), 3. China (115.20); Venice Cup: 1. Denmark (142.84), 2.USA 2 (132.93), 3. USA 1 (125.24); D'orsi trophy: 1.Austria (124.88)2. Australia (121.94)3. England (121.76).