Day 2 in Lille, France

Players in the Transnational Teams at the World Mind Sports Games play behind screens. Boards are preduplicated and everyone plays the same deals.

The bridge today was tough. We had a lot of close matches, including losing one by 1 IMP, ouch. We stand tied for 41st and are close to being eliminated from advancing to the Final Eight (the knockout phase). We were losing to teams that I felt we were better than.

If we don't make it, there's a Board-a-Match competition for us and the other 74 teams who want to play some more. That will be Monday and Tuesday to cut the field to one-third and those who make it play in a final on Wednesday.

Up to now the temperature has been great, but today it went up and it was HOT. The Lille Grand Palais, venue for the World Mind Sports Games, does not have air conditioning.

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What kind of cars do you see here? Naturally, there are lots of Peugeots and Renaults. There are also German cars (mostly Volkswagens), Japanese cars (Honda and Mazdas) and others that I didn't recognize. The only American car I've seen are small Fords.

The main difference between here and the States is that the cars here are significantly smaller.

I went into the Vugraph room before the players showed up. You can see the cameras that shoot the "action." I put quotes around action because bridge is often slow and less than a lot of action. There will be an operator on the laptop who will enter each bid and each card as played.

On the level above the bridge players, the Go tournament is being held. A young Japanese player (above) sets up his board.