Day 3: The Red Queen Was Right

In Lewis Carrols’s Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen offers Alice some advice during the Red Queen’s race:

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Canada had ended Day 2 in 8th place in Group C, just 6 VPs back of the last qualifying position (4 of 16 qualify to the next stage). Over dinner last evening, we set our goal for today:  to earn at least 60 out of the available 75 VPs.  We had a great day but we did squander some chances which would have made it even better. We started by earning the maximum (25 VPs) against Morocco and followed with a somewhat disappointing 15-15 split with Thailand. The team came up huge in Match 3, snaffling 16 IMPs over the last two boards for a 21-9 win.  Our total for the day — 61 VPs!

So what’s the problem, you say? The teams ahead of us at the end of Day 2 earned (in no particular order)  71, 63, 62, 59, 47, 35, and 30 VPs. Only the last two fell behind Canada in the standings. Sweden, who had finished Day 2 just 3 VPs behind us, managed to pile up 65 VPs today to inch ahead in the standings.

The Group C top 8 after Day 3 (remember that the top 4 qualify to the next stage):

Russia               190
Italy                   183
South Africa      174
Argentina          160
Romania           155
Sweden            154
Canada             153
Thailand            128

Tomorrow Team Canada faces a serious challenge:  Russia in the first match and Italy in the second. Our bye comes in Match 3, when we will rush out to either celebrate a good day or to drown our sorrows.