Today was the first day of competition games. Austin Villa played the first game of the day at 9am and our second at 12:20pm. We won both in fairly easy fashion – taking a 3-0 at half in both before trying out different strategies in the second half. We won the first game 4-0 and the second 5-0 to take first in our pool and auto-advance (with 9 other teams) to the second pool play.
The remaining 12 teams play an elimination game tomorrow morning to determine which teams advance and which fall to the Consolation Cup.
Things did not go as expected in every pool though. The home Dutch team – who expected to lose three times and be eliminated – won both of their games. One of these wins was against rUNSWift, last year’s third place team – a team we barely beat in last year’s semifinal match.
As you can imagine, the local fans loved watching their team win. We too were happy for our new friends and tablemates (due to lack of space, we have to share tables with other teams) – but them beating rUNSWift dropped rUNSWift into an elimination game that feeds the winner into our second pool! Plus one of the surprises this year (SPQR) is in our pool. So it’s going to be a tough road ahead for us. Tomorrow, we play these two teams (winner rUNSWift v. UPennalizers; SPQR). If we win both, we have an easy path to the semifinals and a good shot at making the finals. If we lose one, we still will make the quarterfinals, but have a harder team there and then face the dominant B-Human team in the semifinals. (If we lose both of these games, we do not make the quarters).
Again, we are quite enjoying “playing Dutch” outside RoboCup. JT has gotten very used to the Albert Heijn grocery stores and used to carting groceries, food, etc around. (See the attached photo of his bike holding dinner for the team: carryout Turkish-Dutch, Diet Coke and beer).
Another early morning tomorrow. Up before 7 (its 12:40 now) to get to the facility to make and test final changes and ref an elimination game before our game at 1:40p and 6p local (-6 for Eastern and -7 for Central). Check out the www.robocup2013.com website for live streaming and recorded videos!
