Only a dozen teams remain in the Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup and D’Orsi Seniors Bowl and they are busy trying to knock each other out of their respective events.

Some teams are doing a better job of that than others.

In the Bermuda Bowl, Italy started with a 5-IMP carryover lead over Bulgaria and have expanded on it in every set so far. Half-way through the 96-board match, the Italians lead by 55 IMPs. In the other Bermuda Bowl match, USA2 had a very strong second set against China Long Zhu, winning 68-11, but China came back in the next stanza 45-18 to trail by 56 IMPs with 48 boards to play.

In the Venice Cup, USA1 was in control against USA2, leading by 77.5. That was in contrast to the France-China Long Zhu match in which the former leads by 21.33 IMPs with a lot of bridge left to play.

Indonesia in the Seniors started well against England, but the round robin winners won the third set 45-14 to pull to within 12.5 IMPs. In the other match USA2 trailed after two sets but won the third 55-22 to take a 128-106 lead.

In the World Transnational Open Teams, the Pierre Zimmerman squad was in the lead after seven rounds of the Swiss qualifying with 147 victory points. In second was the Roy Welland squad with 136, and right behind them were USA1, hoping to make up for the disappointment of not qualifying in the Bermuda Bowl.