Lucknow Bridge Association conducts bridge regular bridge tournaments in Lucknow.There are two regular pair events every week, on Tuesdays and Fridays.On Tuesday matchpoint pair event takes place and on Friday IMP pair event takes place. The entry fee is nominal Rs. 15 per person or Rs. 30 per pair for members. All bridge enthusiast all welcome. The membership of Lucknow Bridge Association is nominal Rs. 350 per annum and all regular players are expected to become members of the association. The venue for these tournaments is Oudh Gymkhana The address is: Oudh Gymkhana,Kaiserbagh, Lucknow.The timings are 6:30 pm onwards in the evening.
Lucknow club where the event used to take place earlier has closed down. Lucknow club was an old building which couldn't sustain the rains this year and the roof of its Badminton court, which was adjacent to the lobby where bridge used to take place, fell. Oudh Gymakhana charges Rs. 2000/- per month for making its hall available for bridge, part of which is being paid by raising the entry fee and by increasing the annual subscription.
A convention card editor fills, edits and prints convention cards on computer. Lee Edwards of Lawrenceville, Georgia, USA has designed this very convenient convention card editor for various convention cards. The convention cards which can be filled by this editor are ACBL, SAYC, WBF, WBF(England), EBU, BBL, French, Dutch, Belgian, Sweedish, Italian, Austrian, Ireland, Israeli, Indian & Australian. You can download this software which is freeware from the link mentioned above. Those of you who want to send your comments to Lee Edwards can do so at ledwards@bellsouth.net
For Indian bridge players,lovers & enthusiasts the good news is that the convention card designed by Bridge Federation of India (BFI) appears on this convention card editor. So for those of you who have computers the convention card filling in India is a lot more easier job now.
Lee has been constantly updating the software. The latest version he informs is 6.0.1 with enhanced printing features.The software now supports 21 formats and the convention cards of Germany and South Africa are in offing.
In this section I would cover tournaments happening in India and more so the tournaments happening in Northern part of India and in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
The 1998 World Bridge Championship just concluded at Lille, France. Indian performance wasn't up to the mark. Only one Indian team "Poddar" qualified to the round of 64 in Rosenblum Cup.Similarly only one Indian Pair of Alok Sadhu and Vinay Sharma made it to the finals of Open Pairs event. Poddar team was knocked out in the round of 64 and the lone Indian pair finished 58th.One must say that pair event was very gruelling with only 10% of the 700 odd participants making it to the finals. However we must have higher achieveing standards, lauding 58th rank would lead us nowhere. Jaggy Shivdasani pairing with C. Goldberg of US finished best amongst the Indian finalist in the mixed pairs event. It is very sad that there were no Indian participant in the junior event.This year's winners were from Italy , "Angelini" in open team and in mixed pairs, and from Poland in open pairs. One feels happy at the performance of Larry Cohen who finished runners up in the open pairs alongwith David Berkowitz for his excellent book on law of total tricks has enhanced the bridge pleasure for many.
The first Rajendra Chaudhary memorial Knockout duplicate bridge tournament is taking place at Oudh Gymkhana, Lucknow on September 16, the total prize money is Rs. 20000/-.This event takes place a day before K.N. Modi bridge tournament at Boat House Club, Nanital which is being held from September 17-20. The Rajendra Golcha memorial bridge tournament is being held at Jaipur from October 9-11. It carries a prize money of Rs. 50000/-.
In this section I would cover one good deal which appeared in the Weekly Bridge Tournaments at Lucknow or in a recent tournament with explanations.
This week's deal is on the fair disclosure practice.
Dealer: North
Vul : None
Lead : D x (Fourth Best)
| S | A K J x | |||||||||||
| H | 9 | |||||||||||
| D | x x x | |||||||||||
| C | A J 8 7 x | |||||||||||
| S | x x x x | S | Q x x | |||||||||
| H | K x x | H | A 10 x x | |||||||||
| D | Q J x x x | D | 10 9 | |||||||||
| C | K | C | 10 9 x x | |||||||||
| S | 10 x | |||||||||||
| H | Q J 8 x x | |||||||||||
| D | A K x | |||||||||||
| C | Q x x |
Bidding
| North | East | South | West |
| 1 D | Pass | 1 H | 2 D |
| 2 S | Pass | 2 NT | Pass |
| 3 NT | Pass | Pass | Pass |
Consider this deal where NS are playing 3 NT.
North opens prepared Diamond and on South's natural forcing 1 Heart West overcalls 2 Diamond. North continues with 2 Spade and raises South's 2 NT to 3NT.
West now leads his fourth best Diamond. South has only five top tricks and rest he can hope to make from Club suit and Spades. If clubs break 3-2 with doubleton King falling , the contract is smooth sail. Else the hope for ninth trick is from Spade or Heart suit. Now consider the impact of West's overcall. In normal circumstances an overcall after two positive calls would have tolerance for a double. If otherwise ,which means that the partnership tends to make aggressive overcalls, has to be specified. If one analyses West's overcall, West needs to have at least 11 HCP with five card suit and may be less if the suit is longer.
Let us see now what happens when South starts playing the cards.
South ducks first diamond and prompt comes a diamond back which is won with King. Now it is clear that West started with five carsd of diamond headed by QJ. Next he plays small Club towards dummy and the King of club drops which is won with Ace. Now no sane person would bid 2 Diamond holding 5 card QJ Diamond suit with singleton Club King untill unless the AK of hearts with him or Spade queen is there with One Heart honour. If both Heart honour are with West the contract can not make. So South analyses that Sapde queen has to be correct. The result is that he goes down.
In a pairs event where not carrying convention card is a practice the partnership must be fair in disclosure practice. If they tend to bid aggressively , this must be disclosed.
If South knows that West bids aggressively then placing Spade queen wrong would be easier and a finesse of Heart 9 would make this contract unbeatable.
Can you detect if EW have made full disclosure to you ?
You can provided you win the first Diamond trick and watch the defence carefully. If on finessing your Heart 9 East goes up with Heart Ace to play back a Diamond, EW are playing fools with you.
Following very good bridge sites are available for any bridge enthusiast:
Some other bridge sites are: