41st UP State Bridge Championship at Singrauli 2011

41st UP State Bridge Championship took place from September 2-4, 2011 at Officer's Club, NCL Jayant, Singrauli. Singrauli Bridge Association has affiliation to state of Uttar Pradesh though Singrauli lies in State of Madhya Pradesh. Singrauli lies South East of UP has coal mines, has been named power hub of MP and has recently been upgraded to status of a district in the state. Northern Coalfields Ltd (NCL) is the nodal company of mining in the area and has some of the operation in UP as well.Almost all of the Singrauli Bridge fraternity is working with NCL. Jayant is one of the biggest open cast mining project in the area and the championship was organised in the project's officer's club. The organisers led by Dr Sumit De & Dr Kushal Mitra left no stone unturned in making tournament a success despite last minute obstacles. The venue was superb and hospitality was equally good. The organisers also had a cultural program on day one. Both the gentlemen have been awarded organisational colours by Bridge Association (UP). Singrauli being slightly remote area there were only 12 teams taking part though organisers made staying arrangements as well which were not to the best of organisers liking due to a last minute pollution conference in the company in the same dates. UP State Championship , which in 70s had more than 50 teams taking a part and since then seen a declining trend, has been attracting less teams from the state of late due to rising cost & practically no young players and hence the association has decided to invite 1 team each from neighbouring states for next year's championship on trial basis.

Bidding boxes were used through out the championship. Cash prizes to the tune of Rs 40000/- were distributed. Sri NN Rastogi - the CTD & Sri Kamal Agarwal - Director , both from Lucknow, ensured smooth running of the championship.

Duplicate DN Rastogi Memorial Trophy

12 teams took part in the duplicate event. They played full league of 11 rounds of 8 boards each. Top two teams then contested finals. Kr Vijayanand Singh, Varanasi (Kr Vijayanand Singh, Pradeep Singh, AK Sinha, BN Rastogi, Govind Agarwal) topped the league with 199 VPs. NCL, Singrauli ( Dr Sumit De, C Goswami, PK Chakraborty, Ashok De, PP Agarwal, Dr K Mitra) were second with 196 VPs. Amar Bose, Varanasi ( Amar Bose, Gopal Chatterjee, R Bhargava, S Bhattacharya, CM Singh, VB Lal) were third with 188 VPs and Rajjan, Allahabad ( Shankar Chatterjee, Pintoo Bose, BK Agarwal, SP Srivastava, D Chatterjee) finished fourth with 187 VPs. In the final Kr Vijayanand Singh defeated NCL to win the trophy. Its the first trophy for Kr Vijayanand Singh who is also President of Bridge Association (UP) though his son Pradeep has won the trophy earlier also. Rest of the members have won the trophy many a times.

BAM GN Rastogi Memorial Trophy

13 teams took part in the event and played 26 borad session. Amar Bose, Varanasi ( Amar Bose, Gopal Chatterjee, R Bhargava, S Bhattacharya) won the trophy with a score of 93. Lucknow Bridge Association A, Lucknow ( Myself, MM Nangia, RP Narain, RK Aneja) finished runners up with 90. Rajjan, Allahabad (Shankar Chatterjee, Pintoo Bose, BK Agarwal, SP Srivastava) were third with 87. It is the first BAM trophy for team from Varanasi.

Matchpoint Pairs JS Kothiwal Memorial Trophy

30 pairs took part in the event. They played two session of 42 boards (22+ 20) Scrambelled Mitchell movement. The results are as follows:

1. Sanjay Amist & S Lahiri ( Renukoot, Kanpur) - 240.77
2. AK Sinha & BN Rastogi (Lucknow) - 234.89
3. Kr Vijayanand Singh & Pradeep Singh (Varanasi) - 231.5
4. Dr Sumit De & C Goswami ( Singrauli) - 227.17
5. RS Misra & SD Pandey (Allahabad) - 226.4

It is the first trophy for Sanjay Amist , the young executive from Hindalco Industries in small town of Renukoot. Sandip Lahiri has won the trophy before also. They also get a chance to represent UP in Rama Jain pairs event in Delhi.

Bridge Association (UP) has decided to felicitate UP players who have grossed highest masterpoints in a calender year with the criterion that the players should be interested in playing for UP and have UP registration number and should normally be residing in the state. VK Chaube , an eminent bridge administrator of Lucknow and a retired GM of Railways who passed away recently, family has come forward and has decided to donate a trophy in his memory to be given to the highest masterpoint winner in a calendar year from UP. The trophy and cash prize of Rs 5000 for 2010 went to AK Sinha of Lucknow. The second highest grosser S Lahiri of Kanpur got a prize of Rs 3000. I was the third highest grosser and got Rs 2000. This felicitation also took place during prize distribution and AK Sinha got the trophy from Smt Chaube who with the family has specially come to Singrauli. Sri Gajendra Singh of Kanpur who maintains masterpoints for BFI has compiled the results.List of 2010 Masterpoint Grossers of UP

Important Bridge Association (UP) Decisions taken at Executive Committee Meeting at Singrauli

Bridge Association (UP) has also decided to suitably honour those UP players who have accumulated more than 1000 Masterpoints. This would be a continuous process with new players getting honoured as and when they join the 1000 masterpoint club.

Bridge Association (UP) also strongly advises its member players to not to take part in any private bridge tournaments held in the state which dont pay association or BFI any capitation fee. Association takes care of its members and need funds to promote the game to its members. BFI would neither send its directors nor would award masterpoints for such tournaments.