Vanderbilt Day 4 Predictions

There were a lot of upsets yesterday in the Vanderbilt.  It seems worth it to look at the teams that remain and of no I am going to make “predictions”.

John Diamond, Brian Platnick, Brad Moss, Fred Gitelman, Geoff
Hampson, Eric Greco
vs
Martin Fleisher, Michael Kamil; Chip Martel, Lew Stansby;
Robert Levin, Steve Weinstein

The Diamond team was seeded #3 and besides having some of my personal heroes on it has certainly earned their seed.  I have watched them on BBO vugraph several times and they are a very talented group.  They will have a tough match against the very able Fleisher.  Pairs like Stansby and Maretl and Levin and Weinstein are very tough.  Still the Diamond team has had some very tough opponents all along.  If they are ahead or not to far behind going into the last quarter I predict Diamond will continue on.

Carolyn Lynch, Mike Passell, Andrew Gromov – Aleksander Dubinin,
Cezary Balicki, Adam Zmudzinsk
vs
Aubrey Strul, Michael Becker Fulvio Fantoni, Rome Italy; Claudio Nunes,
Erik Saelensminde, Boye Brogeland, Norway

This is another tough pick, no surprise about that,  here we have mainly a battle of European teams.  Poland seems to be the new “Italy” of bridge producing so many great players.  Still I am going to pick Stul.  I had dinner with Boye Brogeland and others from the Norwegian team and as Ray can tell you after that I am a bit of a groupy.  So if only for sentimental reasons …

John Onstott, Gary Cohler, Tarek Sadek, Walid Elahmady,  Jim
Krekorian, Drew Casen 
vs
Pierre Zimmerman, Franck Multon, Michel Bessis, Thomas Bessis, Tor Helness, 
Geir Helgemo,

I love watching Helness and Helgemo play so I am going to pick Zimmerman to prevail.

Martin De Knijff, Frederic Wrang, Fredin, Bjorn
Fallenius, Fredrik Nystrom,  Peter Bertheau

vs

Romain Zaleski,  Albert Faigenbaum, Dominique Pilon,
Jean Quantin, Marc Bompis,

The battle of Sweden against France.  I like all things French but today it will be Sweden’s day.  Besides I once played the Fallenius adjunct and I might still if I could remember what it was

Let’s see if I do better than the dart throwers (who would average 50%).  Did you notice that it appears that most of the European teams had fairly low seeds which is why the 15th seed Kniff is meeting the 26th seed Zaleski in the round of 8.