Spingold Day 6 - the final 4 - hitting the wall

I was 2 out of 4 predictions - my two wrong matches:

Nickell against Meltzer - I was concerned about Meltzer giving up 138 in one of their matches, but I had noticed Nickell seemed a little underpowered in gaining IMPs - yesterday they won the final quarter 61-22, but since they had just scored 42 IMPs over the first 48 boards, Nickell with the new Hamman-Zia configuration were out.

Lusky against Welland - I picked Lusky the underdog and they were winning 77-59 at the half. According to reports during the vugraph, two Lusky team members had to go home (family illness), leaving the team with one regular and one irregular partnership.

For today's two matches, let's look at the IMPs given up first:

Meltzer (103, 73, 138, 88)
Gromov (97, 115, 112, 137)

Weed-Cayne (119, 106, 74, 36Withdrawl)
Welland (141, 120, 117, 168)

Based on these we would pick Weed-Cayne and Meltzer for the finals, but let's look at the partnership rankings we started with (ratings are ability to gain + IMPs, ability to stop -IMPs, consistency):

3/3/4 Sontag-Bates - this now seems at 4/4/4
4/3/5 Helgemo-Helness - this seems to be at 4/4/5

4/3/3 Gromov-Dubinin - now at 4/4/4, but I've seen them get worn out at the very end of a tournament - playing as a 4 bagger, after 5 days you can "hit the wall" of mental tiredness.
4/4/4 Balicki-Zmudzinski

Now that's a close set of players - it could well be that random luck or fatigue decides this match.

5/4/4 Lauria-Versace
4/4/5 Fantoni-Nunes

4/4/3 Welland-Glubok
4/4/3 Garner-Weinstein - after some bumps in the US trials, seems back to 4/4/4
3/4/5 Cohen-Smith

The Italians are in great form, and we see them generating +IMPs when their opponents are left stalled. However Welland-Glubok against Cayne-Seamon could develop into some IMPs for Welland.

My picks will be:

Meltzer over Gromov, as fatigue hits the Gromov team in the final quarter.

Weed-Cayne over Welland, as the Italians pull away in the second half.