Captain's Report

The First World Mind Spots Games in Beijing, China is now history. It was a wonderful experience for Canada's Youth Team (under 28). Members were Michael Yuen (NPC) Erin Anderson, David Grainger, Roy Yang Li, Matthew Mason, David Sabourin and Kai Zhou.

In preparation for the Championship, with thanks to Eric and Bev, all three pairs took part in Kokish-Kraft's training and worked very hard on their partnerships.

While in Beijing, we had a slow start for the first day. There after we played hard and were as high as 10th place. We were in it right up to the second last match on the last day for a qualifying spot. Our final standing after 17 Swiss matches was 24th out of 74 teams with 263 VP, that translated to 15.47 imps average per match. On the whole everybody played well. As you can see in the Butler rating all three pairs were on the plus side.

Our players were well behaved at and away from the table, positive and were supportive of each other. Everybody was happy with the amount of matches they were scheduled to play.

I noticed we lost all but one of our late afternoon matches to lesser teams, Jet lag may have played a part.

Bridge Mates were used to record the contracts, leads and results. However no records were kept for the play till the KO stage.

The conditions of contest to qualify 8 teams out of 74 after 17 Swiss matches for the KO stage was unreasonable. That also meant more then 80% of the teams were playing meaningless matches for the last 3 days out of 7.

After the Team Championship Granger and Sabourin registered to play the Open Pairs. They won the two day qualifying sessions and placed 58th in the final.

Housing on site was great, our suite had three bedrooms, sitting room and three bathrooms. We were happy with the rooming arrangement. The food, breakfast, lunch and dinner were served buffet style at the North Star Hotel, was good on the whole but not to everybody's taste as most of the time the food provided was Chinese.

Just a note to say Thank You for choosing me as the Captain for the Youth Team (Under 28) for Beijing. I enjoyed my time with The Team and glad to do my part for the good of Canadian bridge.